The sequel to Chris d'Lacey's bestselling Orchard title The Fire Within, Icefire continues the story of student, David Rain, and his life in the Pennykettle household.

Life isn't exactly normal lodging at the Pennykettles - not when you're surrounded by hundreds of clay pottery dragons.

Fate seems to be dictating an unusual course for David when his university tutor sets him a writing project on the existence - or not - of dragons.

The tantalizing prize - a fully-funded research trip to the Arctic - seems just within his grasp.

David starts to research the subject and soon discovers a connection between dragons and the Arctic just as it begins to snow.

Is it only a coincidence? Or could deeper forces be at work? As David starts to uncover more about the dragons, he finds himself drawn down a path from which there is no going back to a time when dragons really did exist, and their secrets were guarded by the polar bears of the Arctic.

If David is going to have any chance of winning the research trip, he has to open his mind to the legend of dragons and the mysterious secret of Icefire