A Natural History of Dragons

Starred review from December 17, 2012
Isabella, Lady Trent, is a naturalist and adventurer in a country that more or less resembles 19th-century England, yet fantastical creatures roam, Judaism appears to be the dominant religion, and Europe once had an ancient Egypt-like civilization. Isabella has been obsessed with studying dragons since childhood, but a formal scientific career is off limits to a woman. Instead she marries a man who shares her passion for natural history and convinces him to let her join his expedition to see the wild dragons of Vystrana. Along the way, Isabella solves a mystery and proves her worth as a naturalist. Brennan’s stand-alone novel (unrelated to her Onyx Court series), written as Isabella’s memoir of her youthful adventures, and beautifully illustrated by Todd Lockwood, is saturated with the joy and urgency of discovery and scientific curiosity. Isabella’s life is genuinely complicated by her scientific leanings, yet she perseveres with perfectly period-accurate spirit and awareness of the risks and costs. Brennan’s world-building is wonderfully subtle, rendering a familiar land alien with casual details. Fans of fantasy, science, and history will adore this rich and absorbing tale of discovery. Agent: Rachel Vater, Folio Literary Management.

December 15, 2012
New Victorian-feminist fantasy and first of a series, from the author of the Onyx Court tales (With Fate Conspire, 2011, etc.). At a tender age, Isabella, daughter of Sir Daniel Hendemore of Scirland, becomes fascinated by dragons and devotes hours of study to sparklings, tiny flying creatures regarded by most contemporary naturalists as insects. In an age when educating girls in science and philosophy is frowned upon, Isabella finds information hard to come by. Once of age, her father insists she marry; luckily, she finds Jacob Camherst, the son of a rich local baronet, not only handsome and charming, but also passionate about dragons. Jacob is willing to indulge her thirst for knowledge and defy convention--in private. But then Isabella's talents come to the notice of Lord Hilford, a famous naturalist and explorer, who astonishingly consents to her joining the expedition he's currently organizing to Vystrana in search of rock-wyrms. Eastern European-flavored Vystrana is cold, damp, mountainous, primitive and impoverished, and the locals are far from welcoming. Worse, before they even arrive at the remote village where they will sojourn, they're attacked by a dragon! Since Vystrani dragons aren't noted for their bellicosity, overjoyed if rather shaken Isabella resolves to investigate. This isn't the first such attack, the locals reluctantly confide; smugglers operate in the area, and perhaps other nefarious activities occur that the Vystrani refuse to admit. There are clues, however, and nothing daunted, Isabella starts to put them together. Told in the style of a Victorian memoir, courageous, intelligent and determined Isabella's account is colorful, vigorous and absorbing. A sort of Victorian why-what-whodunit embellished by Brennan's singular upgrade of a fantasy bromide and revitalizingly different viewpoint.

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May 1, 2013

Gr 7 Up-Isabella, Lady Trent, opens her memoir by warning readers that, "this series will contain frozen mountains, foetid swamps, hostile foreigners, hostile fellow countrymen, the occasional hostile family member, bad decisions, misadventures in orienteering, diseases of an unromantic sort, and a plenitude of mud." Writing in an ornate, Victorian style with painstaking attention to detail (but also a generous leavening of dry, self-deprecating humor), the fictitious "author" describes how her girlhood obsession with dragons led to her career of studying and drawing them and her first foreign expedition to the mountains of Vystrana. Although her story takes place in a fantasy realm, readers familiar with the worlds of Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, and the like will understand the tropes and norms of high-society Scirland. Similarly, Drustanev, where dragons are supposed to lair, is reminiscent of imperialist Russia, from the geography of snow-capped mountain villages to the depictions of surly peasants and power-hungry boyars. Sketches of the various dragons and dragon-related scenes that Isabella encounters are scattered throughout the narrative. The pen-and-ink documentary style, which echoes textbook illustrations, adds to the atmosphere of scientific reality, which will appeal to fantasy readers and those who enjoy books such as Pierre Dubois's Great Encyclopedia of Faeries (S & S, 2000). The one criticism devoted dragon fans might have is that more attention is paid to establishing Isabella's entry into the world of scientists than to the magical beasts and their behavior.-Evelyn Khoo Schwartz, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC

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