The first in the Temeraire series.

Capt. Will Laurence of the Royal Navy captures one of Napoleon’s ships. It’s carrying a dragon egg, from which the dragon Temeraire promptly hatches and bonds with Laurence. Laurence must leave the Navy and become an aviator in the socially un­de­sir­able Royal Aerial Corps, where he and Temeraire will fight against Napoleon’s dragons.

This is a delightful cross between the Napoleonic seafaring of the Aubrey-Maturin novels and Drag­onrid­ers of Pern, with a little bit of Hogwarts for dragons thrown in. Temeraire is a precocious and in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly curious dragon of ex­cep­tion­al abilities, who charms not only the readers but most of those he meets.

I’m looking forward to reading the next few books in the series.