Dragon Keeper is a stand alone novel returning to the world of the Liveship Traders for another journey along the Rain Wild Rivers. The Blue Dragon Tintaglia, having produced her own batch of healthy dragon hatchlings, is no longer interested in the stunted Dragons that have emerged from the cocoons of Maulkin's Serpent Tangle.

Survival of the fittest is of the utmost importance, a view also shared by The Rain Wild Council. The Council decide that the pack must be relocated and they begin to recruit their most expendable citizens to tend the beasts and escort them upriver to better hunting grounds.

As a Rain Wilder, Thymara was born with many abnormalities, even more than her people usually have, as such she has remained unmarried, in fact she was only raised through her fathers insistence, her mother prefering to abandon her at birth.

When Thymara's mother hears that the council is seeking tenders she grasps the chance to be rid of her wild, ugly daughter. But Thymara shows just as much enthusiasm at the prospect of adventure and grabs the opportunity to travel with the dragons. But the youngsters that will herd the dragons are as ignorant as the beasts themselves - both completely unaware that they are being sent into an exile rather than to a sanctuary.