This is a book of the name, that contains another book of that name inside it. Books within books!

However I am not going to give you a natural history of dragons, that would take up an entire book and I only have a blog post. Instead, I am going to talk about the book, A Natural History of Dragons. Confused yet? 😛

A Natural History of Dragons, A Memoir by Lady Trent is written by Marie Brennan.

“You, dear reader, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart – no more so than the study of dragons itself…”

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The story is written in the first person, from the point of view of Lady Trent, or Isabella as she is more commonly known, and although she is known a world renown expert on dragons, she wasn’t always one, and this is the tale of how she started out on that path, from her early childhood to young adult years.

It makes an intriguing read as she goes from the creatures that flit about in the forest to her first real expedition to see dragons in the flesh, and persuades her husband to take her on a scientific expedition to see these magnificent creatures in the wild, a chance to study them and improve the dreadful knowledge of which they had of the creatures at the time.

Whilst dragons are one of the central themes of the book, the real focus is on the memoir part of the title, but the book is no less good for it, and the human characters that we deal with are very well created and utterly believable. Isabella herself is a great character, struggling in a world where women should not be interested in science and reading, but she is determined to follow her passion.

I am also happy to say that this book is the first in a planned series of books with the next, The Tropic of Serpents coming out in June. I eagerly await my copy, since I love the main character, and I also love the portrayal of dragons in this book. It’s different from other settings that I have seen before, and one that I enjoyed reading about.

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