The Tropic of Serpents A Memoir by Lady Trent

4.25* I'm slowly falling in love with Isabella Camherst. Mind you, "slowly", since I find it personally hard connecting with such a pragnatic character. But Isabella is also passionate, at times funny and entirely unconventional for her time and social status. In that I think this book benefits from the obvious parallels to real world history. I might not be as interested in her life, if real history didn't erase woman like her. This way, I'm rooting for her success and deeply impressed by her life decisions. There's not much to say about this book that's different from the first one and doesn't spoil anything. It's another journey to a distant country where we not only find out cool new stuff about dragons but also get entangled in politics, learn about other cultures and have a good, relaxing time. These honestly feel like an ideal vacation to me. We also saw some growth throughout this book, but not too much to leave nothing for later books or seem unrealistic. Particularly Isabella's and Mr. Wilker's relationship evolves some more (not in a romantic way, thankfully). And we meet a new character, Natalie who's quite expicitly asexual (maybe lesbian romantic but even there I'm not sure) which was cool since it gives us another woman beside Isabella wanting to stand independently in a time and place inspired by recently era England. Additionally, I'm happy to see Isabella slowly getting more used to travelling to distant countries and how to appropiately interact with other cultures. It was great to see that growth. There isn't really much more to say. It was a good time, I want to read book 3 soon and that's that.