A Natural History of Dragons

First off, I have to say: I love the cover art for this novel! And the artist behind this beautiful image depicting the anatomy of a Vystrani rock-wyrm is Todd Lockwood. He's worked on a variety of book covers and on art for games like MTG and D&D. You can view some of his other work here: http://www.toddlockwood.com/

Okay, now onto the actual book. I am kind of on the fence about this one. On the one hand, I really loved the main protagonist, Isabella. She was resourceful, logical, and passionate about her work in the natural science field–all traits that I can relate to in one way or another. I especially loved her relationship with Jacob. Jacob was actually one of my favorite characters, and I was extremely sad when he died. I mean, I saw it coming of course, but he was such a great guy!! And a prefect husband for Isabella--rational, caring, and dependable. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried a little during his death scene. On the other hand, I wasn't really engaged in the overall plot and story of this book... I am not sure if it was because I was expecting to see more information about dragons, or because the environment and world just didn't seem interesting to me. Whatever the reason, reading this book was not something I felt compelled to do each night. So even though this was a fairly easy read, I took quite a long time to finish it.

The book began very well for me. The introduction letter and the first few chapters really capture my imagination and drew me into the story. Still, the whole Zhagrit Mat plot felt really out of place and, although I appreciated the mystery surrounding the dragon demon, it all fell sort of short for me during the resolution. I think my expectations for this book were a bit too high and so the closer I got to the end, the less I wanted to read because the book was not meeting those expectations.

I am honestly not sure if I am going to pick up the next book in this series. I am a little curious to see how the next volume plays out, and I would love to get to see how Isabella became Lady Trent. However, I wasn't impressed with this installment so...again, mixed feelings about all of this.

Overall rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.