Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

Captain Will Laurence and his noble dragon Temeraire battle against Bonaparte's invading forces. When China discovers that their rare gift, meant for Napoleon, is now in the hands of the British forces, they demand the return of the dragon.

2023:
I forgot how much of the book they spend on the ship!

2020:
even better than I remembered :)

2019:
I enjoyed this way more on a reread.

2017:
The audiobook is fantastic, and I listened to most of this book in one day.

The loyalty Temeraire has to Laurence is the best thing ever!

Why did I stop reading this series, almost humane dragons, can you imagine Takhisis or Paladin, sitting down drinking tea, eating biscuits, lazing about while someone reads to them(Takhisis would have looked at the reader and depending on her mood, froze, spat acid, poisoned, burned the fool, Paladin would just ummmmm..ummmmm....what was that spell again??? ohhhhhhhhh.....gunpowder......drat........), honestly, why do the English seem to write better dialogue, story is prim and proper, hilarious comebacks(maybe because they invented the language, please forgive me Mr. Eddings, Mr. Feist, Mr. Jordan and others).....from start to finish, you can read this in one seating........

After their victory at Dover, everything became a routine again, until the Chinese came, insisting on returning Temeraire to them, after a lot of shouting, some underhanded moves, Laurence, Temeraire's pilot/better half(could I even use the word, I am assuming better half means someone who makes you better......)was forced to leave for China to resolve the situation, and so the story unfolds........honestly, the parallelism between reality and make believe was so thin, it might have been what our world would have been.......the phrasing, narration, why I thought I was back in my elementary days.......such attention to details(ok so not that detailed, well so were my history books).....the only difference, dragons took the place of horses.......is it a wonder why I thought reality was so blurred, the only thing that did not appear was dragons pulling carts............

I was quite surprised, I thought ohhh a journey to the West(shhh...I really thought boring)........surprise, surprise.....and a lot of surprises.........it's making the fan in me giggle while writing this review, I hope.........this and that..........oh well.......on to Book Three!!!!

This is the tale of two books. The first 60% of the book takes place on a ship travelling to China, and I believe that part drags on quite a bit. The last 40% of the book takes place in China and is much more exciting. All in all, I recommend this book, especially if you enjoyed the first one.

Really haven't been feeling picking this one up. So setting it aside for now. Will def finish reading it one day tho. The slow pace just isn't working for me at the moment.