Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik

This book became much more compelling in its final third (as an exploratory party in Australia finds a new method of Chinese shipping after all sorts of trouble). I appreciate that Novik is doing a lot to keep the books from becoming repetitive (Laurence and Temeraire's association with Britain is questioned, for one thing, and the locales keep changing), but because the plot started as a wild goose chase, it was hard to get into it until all the threads came together at the end. I will still read the next book when it comes out, but this series definitely started with its strongest book.