Miss Mildred Percy inherits a dragon.

Ah, but we’ve already got ahead of ourselves…

Miss Mildred Percy is a spinster. She does not dance, she has long stopped dreaming, and she certainly does not have adventures. That is, until her great uncle has the audacity to leave her an inheritance, one that includes a dragon’s egg.

The egg—as eggs are wont to do—decides to hatch, and Miss Mildred Percy is suddenly thrust out of the role of “spinster and general wallflower” and into the unprecedented position of “spinster and keeper of dragons.”

But England has not seen a dragon since…well, ever. And now Mildred must contend with raising a dragon (that should not exist), kindling a romance (with a humble vicar), and embarking on an adventure she never thought could be hers for the taking.

I set this aside at 21% not because there’s anything wrong with the book, but because I wasn’t doing anything for me. I set it aside when I realised I was only half-listening to the audiobook as I did other things, rather than paying minimal attention to other things while listening hard to learn what would happen next in my audiobook.

‘Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons’  is a gentle, calm, well-written book about mostly nice people and a newly hatched dragon.  It is written to amuse readers and to encourage them to cheer for the rather belated liberation of its much-put-upon heroine, Miss Percy, who, unmarried in her forties, is living a narrow, unsatisfying life as a not-quite-servant in her younger (married) sister’s house.

I liked the set-up and the people, but I think I’m too old and too impatient (and perhaps not nice enough) for this book. I wanted to be amused but couldn’t quite get there. The plot moved too slowly, and the humour was too gentle, for me.