The British are quite pleased, because Celestials have the power of Divine Wind-and no, it’s not the same thing as Savage Thunder, though both involve the forceful expelling of copious amounts of air. So at the end of Book One, we find out Our Very Own Temeraire is actually a Celestial dragon, the most rare Chinese breed of all.

And for that matter, don’t read this review if you haven’t read the first book, for yea, it is indeed spoiler-riffic, since there’s a Sort of Big Surprise at the end of the first that dictates the plot direction of the second. It’s not so much a matter of lost backstory, as Novik does a decent job of catching you up on events, but that first book sets up a lot of essential detail in terms of how the Aerial Corps works, and the dragon-aviator bond. If you haven’t read His Majesty’s Dragon yet, I definitely do not recommend beginning the series with this book. Give me a chance to spend all night with you between the sheets. I might not be as taut and compelling as my predecessor, but I promise to be compulsively readable just the same. Slightly awkward transitional book full of high seas adventure, political intrigue, derring-do, exotic locales and nascent musings on the nature of liberty, natural rights and sentience seeks geeky reader who squeals with glee at the thought of an alternate history of the Napoleonic war with dragons. If I had to write a compulsively honest personal ad for Throne of Jade, it’d go something like this:

Throne of jade by naomi novik