wonderful! Sequel please? Full review to come. 
 Originally posted at Small Review 
 Best friends FOR LIFE! 
 I've already extended sleepover party invites to Kat and Theodosia, but both came with the caveat that they're young and I'm old and so there's some creative time travel going on with those invites. 
 But no time travel is needed for Isabella because she's a grown-up version of those middle grade characters! Isabella is like a Jane Austen heroine, but with the spunk of Kat and the bookish practicality of Theodosia (and by practicality, I mean Theodosia's all, "I'll just need to collect these ingredients so I can create an ancient spell that will repel these cursed mummies. No matter the danger. Oh dear, and I must make sure to do it all in time for the gallery opening. Well, let's begin." See, practical and awesome). 
 AND Isabella has an undying passion for studying dragons. 
 Yes, DRAGONS! 
 Our sleepover party would be filled with non-stop chatter about dragon anatomy and theories of development and habitation and other nerdy topics I love. We'd eat finger sandwiches and stay up late planning our next trek into the wilderness in search of daring adventures and the answers to all our burning scientific questions. 
 And, yes, I'm totally geeking out about this. 
 A notation on the narrative style, and other points of interest 
 This isn't an epistolary novel, but I think fans of epistolary novels will like the narrative style. A Natural History of Dragons is supposed to be Isabella's accounting of her life when she was a much younger girl. She makes frequent comments directly to the reader, noting how she views things differently now (neat observations) or how her editor balked at her including racier subjects (lame interjections). 
 The result is that the book reads a lot more like a old lady chatting with you directly about her life as a younger girl. So, readers looking for straight action novel-style writing might not like it very much. Normally that would be me (no patience!) but I actually LOVE talking with the grandparent generation and getting swept away into their stories of the past, so I was totally absorbed. 
 The first half of the book is a lot of non-action and mostly sets the stage of how Isabella got interested in dragons, how she met her husband (sweet, but not entirely swoony), and erm, well, it was basically a zip through of her life Pre-Adventuring. I enjoyed this part a lot, but I can't even entirely explain why considering I fully recognize that it's slower and disappointingly dragon and adventure free. But, I'm chalking my enjoyment up to: 
 Isabella is awesome and I like spending time with her (especially the parts where she talks about loving books) 
 It has all the Jane Austen stuff like Isabella's season and her mom worrying she'll never find a husband 
 It contains the briefly mentioned but seared-into-my-heart sweet story of Isabella and her relationship with her father (the dragon book! Matchmaking! LOVE these scenes) 
 Isabella meets her husband! 
 Oh, and there is an escapade involving boy's clothing, a rifle, and well, it's a fun scene 
 Hm, well, I guess a lot of stuff does happen. 
 The second half of the book 
 That's where the real adventure begins! There's mystery, romance, action, adventure, murder, intrigue, and SO much more! 
 This is also where all the secondary characters really come alive and the romance between Isabella and her husband starts to get swoony in a heart-melting way. 
 A totally spoilery comment 
 In Marie's interview, she mentioned a scene (view spoiler)[that may inspire ranty emails and I would SO send my own ranty email except that I'm sorta kinda holding out hope that there's a sequel and the events that happened, while devastating and sad and gut wrenching, well, might they be clearing the way for a little hate-turned-love romance with a certain Mr. Wilker? 
 Maybe? (hide spoiler)] 
 The cliffhanger of doom!!! No, wait, what? This is a standalone?? 
 This always happens. I always lament the fact that authors are so caught up in series that there are never any good old-fashioned standalone novels anymore. 
 And then I get one in the form of A Natural History of Dragons, and all I can think is WHY IS THERE NO SERIES PLANNED?! 
 True, it did end just fine as a standalone. And, true, it is very nice to be able to read one book and know I'm getting a complete story. But, but there is SO much more to Isabella's story! And I love her so much and her adventures sound so grand that I really, really want to read more about her life. 
 So, please? 
 *Since writing this review it has been revealed that this is in fact a series now* 
 Bottom line 
 I had never heard of Marie Brennan before this, but I wasn't even finished with A Natural History of Dragons before I started adding every other book Marie has written to my TBR (and checking to see which were available in my library. Which is none, unfortunately. BUT the library in the next town over has her series about Queen Elizabeth and fairies and I am totally willing to drive over to check those out. Though, I really wish they had her series about witches and dopelgangers, which sounds awesome. 
 Which is all to say, I enjoyed A Natural History of Dragons immensely. 
 Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key 
 Originally posted at Small Review