Dragon naturalist Lady Trent is back again and this time she’s sailing around the world in search of dragons. Of course, it isn’t that simple.

“For the sake of dragons, there was very little I would not do.”

When it comes to studying dragons, nothing is simple. Accompanied by her 9 year old son, she deals with irritable sea serpents, fever, storms, political entanglements, a wife, local customs and more.

Why is this on our bookshelf?

A Dragon Naturalist? What a perfectly geeky profession. Aside from that, the description of Sea Serpents is positively thrilling in this volume.

Rating (4 stars)

If you haven’t read the Memoirs of Lady Trent, stop wasting time and pick up A Natural History of Dragons. At the third book in, the story in Voyage of the Basilisk built much more upon the events of the previous two books and readers new to the series may be lost.

I’ve been waiting for this book since I heard Author Marie Brennan read an excerpt of it aloud at an author event.

The third book in the Natural History of Dragons series is another excellent volume of Lady Trent’s memoirs. Unlike the mountainous setting of the first book or the exotic jungle of The Tropic of Serpents, the islands featured in The Voyage of the Basilisk had a distinctly Polynesian flavor to them.

Part of the charm of these books is that all the settings are fictional and yet, their similarity to real places and they way they were viewed in earlier centuries lends an air of familiarity to them and makes them all the more realistic.

New characters are introduced, among them a charming archeologist— a possible nod to Brennan’s own archeology background.

I love stories that have to do with creatures of the sea (20,000 Leagues is a particular favorite), so I enjoyed this nautical tale all the more. I adore this series, but unlike the first two five-star books, this one was a little less fresh and the conclusion of the voyage felt a bit rushed.

Although I’m already looking forward to the next one, Brennan is going to have to make a special effort to prevent it from feeling derivative.