What would happen if you dropped a hatched dragon egg into the lap of an Austenian spinster?
Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons by Quenby Olson is an absolutely charming and wholesome triumph of a novel. I don’t read cozy fantasy often, but as a lifelong regency era fan, this book was a delight.
Quenby Olson deftly weaves her delightful spinster protagonist, Mildred, into quite a pickle when she inherits a chest of oddities from her great uncle. One of those oddities happens to be a dragon egg, and Mildred’s adventure finally catches up with her.
Our unlikely hero Mildred takes center stage, combating an everyday life as unofficial governess to her nieces and nephew while under the critical gaze of her insufferable younger sister. There is so much space within fantasy for heroes outside the normal spectrum, and Mildred represents a character type all too often absent from the genre: middle aged women.
Olson draws on her own experiences and repertoire of influences to create a lushly detailed world and characters who breathe right off the page alongside the author’s own quirky anecdotes and commentary. Mildred’s little sphere of the world provides the perfect backdrop for an inciting incident, and while our protagonist’s toast may get a bit soggy, your immersion certainly won’t.
Dragons are widely known as a staple of fantasy, and Olson proves that they belong in the cozy subgenre as much as any epic. It is always a pleasure to read animal companions written by people who clearly have had experience around their own, leaning into the little quirks and mannerisms that make creatures so endearing.
Overall, Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide gets an enthusiastic recommendation from me as a masterfully crafted specimen of its subgenre, and shows the depth and breadth with which fantasy can be written with charmed grace.
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