Jamrach’s Menagerie is a novel about Jaf, a young boy who becomes employed by Jamrach — a procurer and trader of exotic animals — after a rather unusual encounter with one of Jamrach’s creatures.

The bulk of the novel revolves around the live capture of a dragon-like creature in Indonesia (i.e. the Komodo dragon), and what happens when the ship wrecks. Jaf and the other survivors drift along, waiting and hoping for rescue, when their food runs out.

Uh huh. You know what happens next (this is not for the easily nauseous). It did start to drag a little bit for me at this point — there were quite a few survivors — but I still enjoyed the story, especially the plot post-shipwreck.

I’ve never been a fan of the avian species (Jamrach has quite a few), but I’ll make an exception for this story. They sounded delightful.

(Jamrach’s Menagerie will be published in February, and now I’m no longer employed by the publisher I feel okay about reviewing it.)