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Dragon Scales #1
Dragonfall
Long-banished dragons, revered as gods, return to the mortal realm in the first in this magical new epic fantasy duology from a bestselling author
Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the gods remember, and they do not forgive.
Thief Arcady scrapes a living on the streets of Vatra. Desperate, Arcady steals a powerful artifact from the bones of the Plaguebringer, the most hated person in Lumet history. Only Arcady knows the artifact's magic holds the key to a new life among the nobles at court and a chance for revenge.
The spell connects to Everen, the last male dragon foretold to save his kind, dragging him through the Veil. Disguised as a human, Everen soon learns that to regain his true power and form and fulfil his destiny, he only needs to convince one little thief to trust him enough to bond completely--body, mind, and soul--and then kill them.
Yet the closer the two become, the greater the risk both their worlds will shatter.
Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the gods remember, and they do not forgive.
Thief Arcady scrapes a living on the streets of Vatra. Desperate, Arcady steals a powerful artifact from the bones of the Plaguebringer, the most hated person in Lumet history. Only Arcady knows the artifact's magic holds the key to a new life among the nobles at court and a chance for revenge.
The spell connects to Everen, the last male dragon foretold to save his kind, dragging him through the Veil. Disguised as a human, Everen soon learns that to regain his true power and form and fulfil his destiny, he only needs to convince one little thief to trust him enough to bond completely--body, mind, and soul--and then kill them.
Yet the closer the two become, the greater the risk both their worlds will shatter.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published May 2, 2023
About the author
L.R. Lam
24 books1,299 followersOriginally from sunny California, L.R. Lam now lives in cloudy Scotland. Lam is a Sunday Times Bestselling author whose work includes epic fantasy romance Dragonfall (The Dragon Scales Trilogy), the near-future space thriller, Goldilocks, feminist space opera Seven Devils and Seven Mercies (co-written with Elizabeth May), BBC Radio 2 Book Club section False Hearts, the companion novel Shattered Minds, and the award-winning Micah Grey series: Pantomime, Shadowplay, and Masquerade.
Their short fiction and essays have appeared in anthologies such as Nasty Women, Solaris Rising 3, Cranky Ladies of History, Scotland in Space, and more. Their romance alter ego is Laura Ambrose. Lam lectures part-time at Edinburgh Napier University and is Programme Leader of the Creative Writing MA.
*Please note I don't read my GR mail*
Their short fiction and essays have appeared in anthologies such as Nasty Women, Solaris Rising 3, Cranky Ladies of History, Scotland in Space, and more. Their romance alter ego is Laura Ambrose. Lam lectures part-time at Edinburgh Napier University and is Programme Leader of the Creative Writing MA.
*Please note I don't read my GR mail*
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,237 reviews
August 14, 2023
First, the usual caveat. Not only is L. R. Lam a long time friend, but my name is on the dedication pages and in the acknowledgements in the back. Nonetheless, I think this will be an honest review.
As you know, I don't do spoilers. Well, I try not to do spoilers.
This story is set in a world where dragons have been banished to a different and harsh world. (Hm. I think it's not a spoiler if you discover that in the first chapter.)
On the human world, society is very stratified, with some people existing as untouchable beggars, others in a merchant class and an aristocracy. And, of course, the usual complement of thieves, con artists and murderers. But within that society, people are free to declare and express their genders as they wish. Your social status, however, is fixed to your identity at birth, so there is very little upward mobility, but lots of opportunities to move down. This is an interesting social setting for a fantasy, and one I haven't seen before.
Other things you will find here that may be exactly what you love in a fantasy. Strong characters of any/all genders. A reluctant romance. Assassins. Thieves. Magical artifacts that are sought after. A disease that can doom you to being an outcast. Ethical dilemmas. Strong friendships.
Things you may want to know: This is the first book of a trilogy, but it does have a satisfying ending while leaving the door open for more.
Pronoun use. I'm 71. The use of 'they' as a singular pronoun still throws me. Sometimes I had to re-read a paragraph to sort out who was doing what. I am not trying to start at debate on this nor suggesting that you avoid books that use pronouns this way. The story was worth the little bit of extra effort. Sort of like when there is dialogue in Klingon or another language I don't know.
And something I really like: I couldn't predict the ending, nor do I know where the trilogy will go. That's alwasy a pleasure for people who read a lot of books.
As you know, I don't do spoilers. Well, I try not to do spoilers.
This story is set in a world where dragons have been banished to a different and harsh world. (Hm. I think it's not a spoiler if you discover that in the first chapter.)
On the human world, society is very stratified, with some people existing as untouchable beggars, others in a merchant class and an aristocracy. And, of course, the usual complement of thieves, con artists and murderers. But within that society, people are free to declare and express their genders as they wish. Your social status, however, is fixed to your identity at birth, so there is very little upward mobility, but lots of opportunities to move down. This is an interesting social setting for a fantasy, and one I haven't seen before.
Other things you will find here that may be exactly what you love in a fantasy. Strong characters of any/all genders. A reluctant romance. Assassins. Thieves. Magical artifacts that are sought after. A disease that can doom you to being an outcast. Ethical dilemmas. Strong friendships.
Things you may want to know: This is the first book of a trilogy, but it does have a satisfying ending while leaving the door open for more.
Pronoun use. I'm 71. The use of 'they' as a singular pronoun still throws me. Sometimes I had to re-read a paragraph to sort out who was doing what. I am not trying to start at debate on this nor suggesting that you avoid books that use pronouns this way. The story was worth the little bit of extra effort. Sort of like when there is dialogue in Klingon or another language I don't know.
And something I really like: I couldn't predict the ending, nor do I know where the trilogy will go. That's alwasy a pleasure for people who read a lot of books.
October 7, 2023
I've been on the hunt for a good angsty romance for a while now, so when ARCs for this book started circulating, I made an impulse request.
Well, turned out that wasn't the smartest choice. It took me two months to finally drag my feet to the ending.
Where to begin my rant ... I'm not quite sure what subgenre this book is trying to go for, so I'll first review it as high fantasy, then as fantasy romance. Though with either genre expectation, the rating would end up the same for me.
The writing throughout the book was decent. Detailed, not overly flowery but descriptive, with some cool choices of words. I particularly liked the first few chapters in Everen's (the dragon's) POV, where he uses very distinctively "dragon" concepts to describe things, such as "a few wing-lengths away" for distance, "it" to refer to humans, "mammary glands" to refer to breasts, etc. I haven't read too many books with dragons, so I'm not sure how original such language is, but I did find it quite interesting and characteristic.
However, that detailed writing didn't hold up its charm for long. One of my biggest complaints about the overall narrative, in fact, is precisely that it's too detailed, in a not useful way. I love a story with good worldbuilding, but lengthy descriptions and good worldbuilding aren't the same things. One can write paragraphs and paragraphs about the soft carpets or green plants in a house, but that doesn't tell me anything unique about the world (unless you can make those carpets and plants special, of course, but that wasn't the case here). Most of the descriptions in this book were generic and unmemorable. With the exception of a few cryptic terms and some emphasis on gender inclusiveness (more on that later), it was hard to tell this world apart from any other medieval-esque fantasy setting that's been beaten to death.
In most cases, this would be fine with me--great worldbuilding is always a huge plus, but I've also enjoyed books without the bonus just fine. The reason why this stood out as a major issue in Dragonfall though, is that the author is obviously trying too hard. Lots of different aspects of the world were touched upon, from lore to social hierarchy to festival celebrations, but sadly, they all stopped at simply that--touched upon. There are five dragon gods ... and then? What did they do, how did they shape the beliefs of their kind? The society is very open to gender fluidity ... great, and then? How does that affect how people express themselves or view others (other than that they have to sign their gender when introducing themselves)? It is purely coincidental that I happen to be reading The Left Hand of Darkness at the same time as this book. There, you can clearly see gender's influence in every aspect of society, from power balance to work dynamics to holidays and entertainment. I don't expect such a drastically different world in Dragonfall, of course, but one would at least think that for a society so inclusive and acceptive when it comes to gender, the same openness should be reflected in other aspects of life as well, yes? How is it that we only get to be hammered over the head repeatedly with superficial things such as inclusive gender pronouns and sign languages, but not a fundamental sense of equality that should underlie these social rules?
Problems like these made the worldbuilding in this book feel very forced, unrealistic, and occasionally even didactic. Nothing ever fully came alive, and all the lengthy descriptions only made the plot drag.
The characters came out similarly dull. I'm not sure if this is a result of their personalities or a matter of writing--there's a decent amount of action and events unfolding throughout, but the majority of pages were overwhelmed by monologues. And a lot of those monologues go like this: I don't want to do this but I really have to; I hate doing this but someone is forcing me to do it; I don't know what else I can do, my only choice is to do this; etc. Every POV character sounded passive and glum, without much else to their personalities, and their voices became less and less distinguishable towards the end. As a result, I just really couldn't feel connected to any of them.
The romance, therefore, was a hard sell for me, since I wasn't invested enough to care about what happened. I didn't get the chemistry between them, nor did I feel emotionally affected by the angst. Though in a way, the pining of a lowly thief for a beautiful-looking prince reminded me a bit of The Song of Achilles, which I also didn't like, so maybe there's some level of personal preference there.
There are many other aspects that I can go on complaining about: the kind-of-pointless and not-so-elegantly handled second person POV, the non-ending, the first person narrator intentionally holding back information from the reader, etc. But to end with a high note, I did like the very few intimate scenes. They were short and far in between, but done gracefully, and that rescued the book to a great extent for me.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Well, turned out that wasn't the smartest choice. It took me two months to finally drag my feet to the ending.
Where to begin my rant ... I'm not quite sure what subgenre this book is trying to go for, so I'll first review it as high fantasy, then as fantasy romance. Though with either genre expectation, the rating would end up the same for me.
The writing throughout the book was decent. Detailed, not overly flowery but descriptive, with some cool choices of words. I particularly liked the first few chapters in Everen's (the dragon's) POV, where he uses very distinctively "dragon" concepts to describe things, such as "a few wing-lengths away" for distance, "it" to refer to humans, "mammary glands" to refer to breasts, etc. I haven't read too many books with dragons, so I'm not sure how original such language is, but I did find it quite interesting and characteristic.
However, that detailed writing didn't hold up its charm for long. One of my biggest complaints about the overall narrative, in fact, is precisely that it's too detailed, in a not useful way. I love a story with good worldbuilding, but lengthy descriptions and good worldbuilding aren't the same things. One can write paragraphs and paragraphs about the soft carpets or green plants in a house, but that doesn't tell me anything unique about the world (unless you can make those carpets and plants special, of course, but that wasn't the case here). Most of the descriptions in this book were generic and unmemorable. With the exception of a few cryptic terms and some emphasis on gender inclusiveness (more on that later), it was hard to tell this world apart from any other medieval-esque fantasy setting that's been beaten to death.
In most cases, this would be fine with me--great worldbuilding is always a huge plus, but I've also enjoyed books without the bonus just fine. The reason why this stood out as a major issue in Dragonfall though, is that the author is obviously trying too hard. Lots of different aspects of the world were touched upon, from lore to social hierarchy to festival celebrations, but sadly, they all stopped at simply that--touched upon. There are five dragon gods ... and then? What did they do, how did they shape the beliefs of their kind? The society is very open to gender fluidity ... great, and then? How does that affect how people express themselves or view others (other than that they have to sign their gender when introducing themselves)? It is purely coincidental that I happen to be reading The Left Hand of Darkness at the same time as this book. There, you can clearly see gender's influence in every aspect of society, from power balance to work dynamics to holidays and entertainment. I don't expect such a drastically different world in Dragonfall, of course, but one would at least think that for a society so inclusive and acceptive when it comes to gender, the same openness should be reflected in other aspects of life as well, yes? How is it that we only get to be hammered over the head repeatedly with superficial things such as inclusive gender pronouns and sign languages, but not a fundamental sense of equality that should underlie these social rules?
Problems like these made the worldbuilding in this book feel very forced, unrealistic, and occasionally even didactic. Nothing ever fully came alive, and all the lengthy descriptions only made the plot drag.
The characters came out similarly dull. I'm not sure if this is a result of their personalities or a matter of writing--there's a decent amount of action and events unfolding throughout, but the majority of pages were overwhelmed by monologues. And a lot of those monologues go like this: I don't want to do this but I really have to; I hate doing this but someone is forcing me to do it; I don't know what else I can do, my only choice is to do this; etc. Every POV character sounded passive and glum, without much else to their personalities, and their voices became less and less distinguishable towards the end. As a result, I just really couldn't feel connected to any of them.
The romance, therefore, was a hard sell for me, since I wasn't invested enough to care about what happened. I didn't get the chemistry between them, nor did I feel emotionally affected by the angst. Though in a way, the pining of a lowly thief for a beautiful-looking prince reminded me a bit of The Song of Achilles, which I also didn't like, so maybe there's some level of personal preference there.
There are many other aspects that I can go on complaining about: the kind-of-pointless and not-so-elegantly handled second person POV, the non-ending, the first person narrator intentionally holding back information from the reader, etc. But to end with a high note, I did like the very few intimate scenes. They were short and far in between, but done gracefully, and that rescued the book to a great extent for me.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
April 12, 2023
A prophecy. A lost dragon. A heist. And a whole lot of angst.
L.R. Lam’s phenomenal writing and world building, beautiful prose, and an incredibly thought provoking society, made this one of the most unique and memorable stories, I’ve read in a long time.
I thoroughly enjoyed this! Although the pacing was a bit slow in the first half, but I think that was to allow characters and the world building to develop. I loved the inclusion and representation of gender fluid and LGBTQIA characters, the common use of sign language, and how Dragon focused this magic system and world are. Because there should be more representation in the Fantasy genre, and who wouldn’t worship Dragons as Gods?!?! The shocking finale, definitely left me wanting more!
Thank you to L.R. Lam, and DAW Books for the opportunity to read this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
L.R. Lam’s phenomenal writing and world building, beautiful prose, and an incredibly thought provoking society, made this one of the most unique and memorable stories, I’ve read in a long time.
I thoroughly enjoyed this! Although the pacing was a bit slow in the first half, but I think that was to allow characters and the world building to develop. I loved the inclusion and representation of gender fluid and LGBTQIA characters, the common use of sign language, and how Dragon focused this magic system and world are. Because there should be more representation in the Fantasy genre, and who wouldn’t worship Dragons as Gods?!?! The shocking finale, definitely left me wanting more!
Thank you to L.R. Lam, and DAW Books for the opportunity to read this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
December 20, 2023
it took me forever to read this and that should’ve been my sign that this book wouldn’t be for me, regardless of how much i wanted to like it. a huge pet peeve of mine is when books involving dragons barely even include them.. that’s definitely the case here since Everen is mostly in human form🙄. i also wasn’t a fan of the writing— it’s very detailed but somehow manages to not explain anything properly. don’t ask me about the world or magic cause i honestly couldn’t tell you. the use of 1st, 2nd and 3rd pov kept throwing me off and there really didn’t need to be so many characters to follow, since half of them felt pointless. i appreciated seeing the gender inclusivity, but the romance was so bland. i eventually started skimming to get to the end lol. i’ll admit that i didn’t see that plot twist coming, but idk if i care to continue this series.
pre-review one word: dragons. oh, and the cover is stunning too 😍
pre-review one word: dragons. oh, and the cover is stunning too 😍
April 20, 2023
Queer enemies to lovers and dragons.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange of an honest review!
Holy fuck, this was amazing and exciting. I was captivated and hooked since the very first moment. I loved the worldbuilding, the writing and the characters!
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange of an honest review!
Holy fuck, this was amazing and exciting. I was captivated and hooked since the very first moment. I loved the worldbuilding, the writing and the characters!
February 8, 2023
4.5 stars, hot damn!
Let me tell you one thing that’s going to make you read this book even before you read this review: It’s queer enemies-to-lovers with dragons.
Bonus point: It also has the “I’m supposed to kill you but now I’m in love with you” trope.
All right, back to the review.
So first let’s talk about what didn’t work for me, which is not a lot but they still need to be mentioned.
THE INFO-DUMPING
This book, like many other fantasy books, fell victim to this. The first few chapters were ONLY written for info-dumping. Not only that but they were also way too confusing. I felt like an idiot, and I am an idiot most of the time, but believe me when I say even Einstein would roll in his grave trying to understand what was happening. I get that it is needed to set the world and the scene but it could’ve been written better. I’m glad they were short though.
THE MAGIC SYSTEM
Now now, I rather enjoyed the magic system but it could’ve been explained and explored way better. It has been three days since I finished this book and looking back at it, I can’t tell you a single thing about the magic system or how it worked. And it’s not because it was insignificant, it just took a backseat in this book when it had so much potential.
THE WRITING STYLE
It was different from most of the writing styles I’ve seen through the years. It was fascinating but it was dragging A LOT sometimes that I found myself skimming more than I’d like to admit. There is a thin line between poetic and “get to the point ffs” and this book played jump rope with it.
And that’s about it. Now let’s get back to how much I loved this book.
THE WRITING STYLE, AGAIN
Yes, the writing style gets two mentions in this review because I’m having a love-hate relationship with it. I already explained why I hated it, now let me tell you why I loved it. It was unique and reading most chapters felt like watching a painting being made if that makes sense. I also did enjoy how the chapters were handled. This book has dual-POV, triple if you count the assassin girl who likes to pop up from time to time. I saw some reviews not liking this, specifically not liking how Everen’s chapters felt like letters to Arcady, and do not listen to those reviews because it all ties together. I promise you will love it in the end. You will cry but you will love it.
THE ENDING
Speaking of, THAT ENDING?! I need the next book now. It is not up for debate. I hate how I can’t talk about it since I’m trying to keep this review spoiler-free but come on man. Leaving us hanging like this must be a hate crime.
THE ROMANCE
Without giving a lot away, I just wanna say I can kill or be killed for Arcady and Everen. They have a hold on my heart none can break. Their banter, longing, and overall interactions got to me right from the start. They were oblivious to how much of a simp they were for one another and it was honestly adorable. Again, I NEED MORE.
So in the end, stop reading this review and go read this book. If you know me, you do know I hardly ever like books or leave positive reviews since being an asshole is more fun but I honestly can’t find anything to hate about this book.
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Let me tell you one thing that’s going to make you read this book even before you read this review: It’s queer enemies-to-lovers with dragons.
Bonus point: It also has the “I’m supposed to kill you but now I’m in love with you” trope.
All right, back to the review.
So first let’s talk about what didn’t work for me, which is not a lot but they still need to be mentioned.
THE INFO-DUMPING
This book, like many other fantasy books, fell victim to this. The first few chapters were ONLY written for info-dumping. Not only that but they were also way too confusing. I felt like an idiot, and I am an idiot most of the time, but believe me when I say even Einstein would roll in his grave trying to understand what was happening. I get that it is needed to set the world and the scene but it could’ve been written better. I’m glad they were short though.
THE MAGIC SYSTEM
Now now, I rather enjoyed the magic system but it could’ve been explained and explored way better. It has been three days since I finished this book and looking back at it, I can’t tell you a single thing about the magic system or how it worked. And it’s not because it was insignificant, it just took a backseat in this book when it had so much potential.
THE WRITING STYLE
It was different from most of the writing styles I’ve seen through the years. It was fascinating but it was dragging A LOT sometimes that I found myself skimming more than I’d like to admit. There is a thin line between poetic and “get to the point ffs” and this book played jump rope with it.
And that’s about it. Now let’s get back to how much I loved this book.
THE WRITING STYLE, AGAIN
Yes, the writing style gets two mentions in this review because I’m having a love-hate relationship with it. I already explained why I hated it, now let me tell you why I loved it. It was unique and reading most chapters felt like watching a painting being made if that makes sense. I also did enjoy how the chapters were handled. This book has dual-POV, triple if you count the assassin girl who likes to pop up from time to time. I saw some reviews not liking this, specifically not liking how Everen’s chapters felt like letters to Arcady, and do not listen to those reviews because it all ties together. I promise you will love it in the end. You will cry but you will love it.
THE ENDING
Speaking of, THAT ENDING?! I need the next book now. It is not up for debate. I hate how I can’t talk about it since I’m trying to keep this review spoiler-free but come on man. Leaving us hanging like this must be a hate crime.
THE ROMANCE
Without giving a lot away, I just wanna say I can kill or be killed for Arcady and Everen. They have a hold on my heart none can break. Their banter, longing, and overall interactions got to me right from the start. They were oblivious to how much of a simp they were for one another and it was honestly adorable. Again, I NEED MORE.
So in the end, stop reading this review and go read this book. If you know me, you do know I hardly ever like books or leave positive reviews since being an asshole is more fun but I honestly can’t find anything to hate about this book.
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
February 21, 2023
Warm thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately, I realised perhaps 10 pages in that Dragonfall wasn't for me, and that initial hunch turned out to be true. The idea in this book was great, but the execution fell flat for me, mostly because I struggled to whip up any interest for either main character. Arcady and Everen's POVs felt very (too) similar to me, although Arcady was perhaps a bit more interesting - which I find strange, since Everen is the dragon. In fact, I don't think Everen felt much like a dragon at all, which may be why I was so frustrated with him and couldn't get invested in him.
I had a lot of problems with the prose of this book. It felt really jarring and forced somehow, and the constant barrage of strange names and terms that were mainly just tossed into the narrative did not help. As a reader, I don't want to be treated like a simpleton who needs an explanation for everything, but I do want to be able to understand what's going on without having to go "what did this mean again?" every other sentence. Coming up with lots of fantasy-sounding words doesn't equal good world-building, and this really annoyed me in Dragonfall. A story can't suck its reader in if the prose doesn't flow smoothly.
In a nutshell, this book had a good idea with disappointing execution. I'm quite sad I didn't like this book since the blurb really caught my eye.
Unfortunately, I realised perhaps 10 pages in that Dragonfall wasn't for me, and that initial hunch turned out to be true. The idea in this book was great, but the execution fell flat for me, mostly because I struggled to whip up any interest for either main character. Arcady and Everen's POVs felt very (too) similar to me, although Arcady was perhaps a bit more interesting - which I find strange, since Everen is the dragon. In fact, I don't think Everen felt much like a dragon at all, which may be why I was so frustrated with him and couldn't get invested in him.
I had a lot of problems with the prose of this book. It felt really jarring and forced somehow, and the constant barrage of strange names and terms that were mainly just tossed into the narrative did not help. As a reader, I don't want to be treated like a simpleton who needs an explanation for everything, but I do want to be able to understand what's going on without having to go "what did this mean again?" every other sentence. Coming up with lots of fantasy-sounding words doesn't equal good world-building, and this really annoyed me in Dragonfall. A story can't suck its reader in if the prose doesn't flow smoothly.
In a nutshell, this book had a good idea with disappointing execution. I'm quite sad I didn't like this book since the blurb really caught my eye.
March 14, 2023
Sometimes I feel like I'll never read a good book again. Sometimes I have to settle for an "it was ok" one.
I read the ARC, so things could change.
Characters
Everen. The last male dragon in Vere Celene. He's red. There's prophecies about him, and in order to fulfill one he flies into a rip between worlds and is in a diminished preterit form. This is eventually described as humanoid. He falls into a cave and finds a human.
Everen is not the best narrator. He refers to Arcady summoning him, drawing him to the human world (which the dragons were evicted from), but the first chapter is him actively choosing to fly through an opening between worlds. He wasn't forced to do it, in fact he was pumped: "I was giddy with the potential spread before me." Later he says to Arcady, "You stole me from my home." He does this to manipulate Arcady, because for some reason if Arcady falls in love with him the bond is completed. But Cassia, Everen's sister, says, "This human is powerful, to have been able to draw you through in the first place."
He didn't really seem like a dragon, largely because we get no real concept of dragon culture or what being a dragon means. Having his POV written in the second person and narrated to Arcady was a choice that made no sense. Perhaps the sequels will explain it. It's imitative of Harrow the Ninth, sans payoff.
Arcady is a thief. Their family fell out of favor and their grandparent was held responsible for creating a plague. Their plan is to steal enough money so they can go to magic school and work their way up the social ladder under a false identity. They want to look for evidence their grandparent was innocent.
"Somewhere on that hill, there would be records of the sham trial."
It seems only members of the upper class, the drakine, have access to locations the evidence might be kept. The thing is, Arcady regularly uses magic to transform their appearance. By chapter two they have the magic ID amulet for their false identity. They are a skilled thief with years of experience and contacts. What is stopping them from walking up that hill and stealing what they need?
Arcady doesn't like merchants or the government, and pointedly doesn't use the honorific pronoun They for them. They do use it for university people, who they respect. Their parents venerated education, so that's part of the reason, but it's a little naive. The university is very expensive (they have scholarships Arcady can't apply for lest their identity is exposed) and has a library inaccessible to the public. I struggle to see how this elitism is better than that of the merchant class who, by all accounts, are just merchants.
They aren't a very competent thief, and they frequently overreact, scream, and generally cause a scene.
Sorin - she's some kind of assassin for the Order of the Dragons. She shows some signs of a backbone but it amounts to nothing much.
Writing
Descriptions are often sparse. When Everen looks into a pond he sees his "preterit form." There is only one brief description of this a few chapters back. Why not describe what that looks like and how he feels about that?
"The topiary had been carved into the shapes of mythical animals…" - What kind? Does this world have the same mythical creatures as ours? There is a lot of this sort of fill-in-the-blank description. This line occurs while the characters are at a ball. The only thing described in any detail is the food.
Why is "preterit" used for a dragon's human form? The literal meaning is something like "past," which implies dragons are humans, right? Is that the big secret? If so, is the word just a name to the dragons that use it, or are they aware of its meaning?
"I could barely see two wing-lengths in front of me." - We are never told how big the dragons are, so that unit of measure is meaningless. No detailed description of a dragon is given until the last 40 pages, around 90%.
Same with "handspan of years." Handspan is a measure of distance, not time. Is it meant to be five years?
"Fear and fury were fist-fighting, and I hated that fear was better at the uppercuts."
Arcady is in the Locked Tombs which 1. Reminds me of another series, 2. Isn't described in any detail other than "it has stalagmites," 3. Is a place where children are taken to be scared by all the people deemed too evil to cremate, 4. Arcady is self-described as being very afraid, but this line is cheesy af.
Also, how are the tombs locked if they let kids run around them?
Sweetsphere - a honey and seed snack. There are a lot of sphere-shaped foods, and a lot of sweet foods. Why not give this an actual name in the local language, and describe the honey flavor and seed texture while Arcady is eating it so we know what it's made of? Why is honey so fortifying? We learn that magic users can starve to death if they use too much magic, so is magic use tied to fat reserves? Is it fueled by glycogen stored in muscles?
There's also "saltsphere." There can't just be one kind of salty, ball-shaped snack lol
"But my taie [grandparent] had been brilliant. He’d been able to see what others couldn’t. In magic, and in life. It was what made him so dangerous to the Consul."
What about "seeing what others couldn't" (whatever that means) made him dangerous? We never find out.
Repetitive writing, like: "Throwing it into sharp relief," and a few pages later, "throwing it into stark relief"
Chaise longue - does France or the French language exist in this world?
"...examining a gemstone through a small microscope fastened to his eye." - there's an actual word for this. It's called a loupe. How about, "...examining a gemstone, a patinaed brass loupe fastened to his eye. The lens caught the candlelight as he leaned back…"
Arcady lives in an abandoned shop called Loc and Key, a pun that only works in English. Their magic is done using something creatively called the Old Tongue, with phrases like, "Ar-réal vanok vaugain." It looks pretty far removed from English. How are they related?
There are some nice lines. I enjoyed
"I ate a curl of apple peel, the sweetness fizzing along my tongue."
However, apple skins have a lot of tannin. Tannins are bitter and astringent, not sweet and fizzy. I've never been fizzed by an apple.
"I always found the clack, clack, clack [of playing cards] so satisfying." - The fuck are the cards made out of, slabs of wood?
Worldbuilding
How does magic work? Arcady has a cylindrical amulet and does something and thinks about the dragon gods and boom, magic.
It's kind of dumb that everyone in Arcady's city is identified by a stone carved with a unique seal given to them at birth. What happens if you lose it?
The naming is simplistic, e.g. Order of the Dragons. There are five dragon gods with different powers. Why aren't there five different orders?
Everen is the newcomer to this world and would naturally be the one to explain things to us. The minimal description suffers most here: things are named (clothing, dock, shop), but we don't get colors or materials. Smells are "spicy," "human sweat," "rotten." How big are the ships? What color are the sails? How does wearing clothing feel to a dragon? Beer tastes "awful," but in what way? Sour, bitter, like one of the alleyways he walked past? What impact does it have on a preterit dragon? Does he get dizzy? Nauseated? Does he throw it up right away?
His sister Cassia's face is "draconic." No shit, she's a dragon. What does that actually look like?
Ammil, the former last male dragon, went crazy hundreds of years prior. Is he still alive? How old is Everen? How was Everen conceived?
Everen and Arcady are bonded. It's not clear how or why that happened, or what it means practically or culturally.
The reason Everen gives for the dragons being stuck in Vere Celene (based on what a dragon who lived through the Banishment/Betrayal/whatever said) is that humans thought dragons were lying about humans being unable to shapeshift into dragons and were jealous. Petty, right? What's the human perspective? And now dragons are all "kill all humans." Also, Arcady's main thing is shapeshifting, which Everen sees over and over again, and some humans can shapeshift into animals. You're telling me no one tried to shapeshift into a dragon? Ever?
The university and the religion are related in some manner, which is never explained. I'm not sure why a religion that has five dragon gods resembles Christianity so much in its practices. This is reading way too much into things, but we call some Christian places of worship chapels because one of the relics of Christ was a piece of St. Martin's cloak (capella) that was toured around and stored in the buildings. Without that history, why would places of worship for dragon gods be called chapels? There is no specialized language (other than drakine) that reflects the influence dragon-worship has had on society. The head priest is Head Priest. There are chapels and cathedrals and temples where they sit in pews and sing hymns and listen to sermons. Priests listen to confessions and absolve sins (what exactly is a "sin" to a dragon?). They do have magic, which seems something pretty much anyone can do whether or not they're part of the religion, and burn leaves in effigy, but the bulk of their practices aren't very dragon-oriented. You'd think the wyverns, relatives of dragons, would be held in some regard. Nope, they're essentially pigeons.
The magic is mish mash. Humans get/steal magic from dragons. It's not always clear what they can do. For example, what are wards, and what's the point of them if they are so easily "disarmed"? Dragons are inherently magical, but they also use magic from stars and have silver pools for scrying and telepathy. There are ley lines, which classically means magic comes from the earth, that are related to the Veil. It's not so much a system as it is whatever's convenient for the plot.
They keep their magic ID stones in metal settings embedded in their chests. They can remove the stone to use them as stamps. Why not keep a fake stone in the mandated chest region and tuck the real one in another location so you can do magic discreetly? I'm honestly confused by the whole thing. Sometimes Arcady calls it a cylindrical amulet, worn as a necklace, sometimes it's a stone in a setting. Do they switch back and forth? Amulets usually have really big holes, and settings are usually for cabochons, stones without holes. The actual shape, size, and style of these stone seals is never described, just that they have carvings of names and "the stars of their birth."
How does the government work? There are Chancellors, which Arcardy says are monarchs by another name. But people from the Order of the Dragons are running around confiscating stuff and arresting people. Under whose authority?
Plot
Everen finds one prophecy and flutters off to see what happens. He flies through a dimension hole, lands in a cave, sees Arcady, then wanders off. His goal is the destruction of all humanity. He wants to kill Arcady specifically to get full use of his magic back, but how that will lead to removing the Veil is unclear. Everen's just going with the flow.
Arcady steals an amulet so they can make a new amulet and change their identity. They do this while making an absurd amount of noise in the Locked Tombs. Why didn't they leave and do the ritual somewhere less public, echoey, and filled with visitors for the holiday? No one notices. They don't even put the lid back on their grandparent's coffin.
I don't even know what the plot is. Everen and Arcady have goals, but the actions they take seem remarkably tangential to that. Everen doesn't do any research into the Veil at all, the thing he has to remove so the dragons can come back. Arcady wants to clear their grandparent's name and then…what? Go to school?
I was shocked at how little preparation went into the heist subplot. These people are supposed to have years, if not decades, of experience. They do almost no reconnaissance. Arcady has only met the person they impersonate twice.
Other reviews have noted how similar Dragonfall is to other YA/NA that has come out the past few years. They share an incomplete bond and quasi-telepathy (Feyre and Rhys), Arcady trains Everen in thieving (Jude and Cardan), the "enemies to lovers" thing but they are never really enemies.
This is supposed to be a romance too. I don't see it. There's an inadvertent bond, we are told there is mutual physical attraction, and Everen says he'll manipulate Arcady into falling for him. He doesn't do much other than be rude and go along with Arcady's thief training. They have nothing in common. When Everen first makes a move on Arcady, it sounds like he's putting them under arrest. "DO NOT MOVE."
I'm conflicted about the ending. On the one hand, it rendered the majority of the preceding events meaningless. On the other, there were two twists that did make me curious about what happens next.
Conclusion
I wasn't a fan of the writing, I had a number of issues with the worldbuilding, but the mystery of the Veil, the character twist, and dragonrider thing going on make me willing to continue with the series.
I read the ARC, so things could change.
Characters
Everen. The last male dragon in Vere Celene. He's red. There's prophecies about him, and in order to fulfill one he flies into a rip between worlds and is in a diminished preterit form. This is eventually described as humanoid. He falls into a cave and finds a human.
Everen is not the best narrator. He refers to Arcady summoning him, drawing him to the human world (which the dragons were evicted from), but the first chapter is him actively choosing to fly through an opening between worlds. He wasn't forced to do it, in fact he was pumped: "I was giddy with the potential spread before me." Later he says to Arcady, "You stole me from my home." He does this to manipulate Arcady, because for some reason if Arcady falls in love with him the bond is completed. But Cassia, Everen's sister, says, "This human is powerful, to have been able to draw you through in the first place."
He didn't really seem like a dragon, largely because we get no real concept of dragon culture or what being a dragon means. Having his POV written in the second person and narrated to Arcady was a choice that made no sense. Perhaps the sequels will explain it. It's imitative of Harrow the Ninth, sans payoff.
Arcady is a thief. Their family fell out of favor and their grandparent was held responsible for creating a plague. Their plan is to steal enough money so they can go to magic school and work their way up the social ladder under a false identity. They want to look for evidence their grandparent was innocent.
"Somewhere on that hill, there would be records of the sham trial."
It seems only members of the upper class, the drakine, have access to locations the evidence might be kept. The thing is, Arcady regularly uses magic to transform their appearance. By chapter two they have the magic ID amulet for their false identity. They are a skilled thief with years of experience and contacts. What is stopping them from walking up that hill and stealing what they need?
Arcady doesn't like merchants or the government, and pointedly doesn't use the honorific pronoun They for them. They do use it for university people, who they respect. Their parents venerated education, so that's part of the reason, but it's a little naive. The university is very expensive (they have scholarships Arcady can't apply for lest their identity is exposed) and has a library inaccessible to the public. I struggle to see how this elitism is better than that of the merchant class who, by all accounts, are just merchants.
They aren't a very competent thief, and they frequently overreact, scream, and generally cause a scene.
Sorin - she's some kind of assassin for the Order of the Dragons. She shows some signs of a backbone but it amounts to nothing much.
Writing
Descriptions are often sparse. When Everen looks into a pond he sees his "preterit form." There is only one brief description of this a few chapters back. Why not describe what that looks like and how he feels about that?
"The topiary had been carved into the shapes of mythical animals…" - What kind? Does this world have the same mythical creatures as ours? There is a lot of this sort of fill-in-the-blank description. This line occurs while the characters are at a ball. The only thing described in any detail is the food.
Why is "preterit" used for a dragon's human form? The literal meaning is something like "past," which implies dragons are humans, right? Is that the big secret? If so, is the word just a name to the dragons that use it, or are they aware of its meaning?
"I could barely see two wing-lengths in front of me." - We are never told how big the dragons are, so that unit of measure is meaningless. No detailed description of a dragon is given until the last 40 pages, around 90%.
Same with "handspan of years." Handspan is a measure of distance, not time. Is it meant to be five years?
"Fear and fury were fist-fighting, and I hated that fear was better at the uppercuts."
Arcady is in the Locked Tombs which 1. Reminds me of another series, 2. Isn't described in any detail other than "it has stalagmites," 3. Is a place where children are taken to be scared by all the people deemed too evil to cremate, 4. Arcady is self-described as being very afraid, but this line is cheesy af.
Also, how are the tombs locked if they let kids run around them?
Sweetsphere - a honey and seed snack. There are a lot of sphere-shaped foods, and a lot of sweet foods. Why not give this an actual name in the local language, and describe the honey flavor and seed texture while Arcady is eating it so we know what it's made of? Why is honey so fortifying? We learn that magic users can starve to death if they use too much magic, so is magic use tied to fat reserves? Is it fueled by glycogen stored in muscles?
There's also "saltsphere." There can't just be one kind of salty, ball-shaped snack lol
"But my taie [grandparent] had been brilliant. He’d been able to see what others couldn’t. In magic, and in life. It was what made him so dangerous to the Consul."
What about "seeing what others couldn't" (whatever that means) made him dangerous? We never find out.
Repetitive writing, like: "Throwing it into sharp relief," and a few pages later, "throwing it into stark relief"
Chaise longue - does France or the French language exist in this world?
"...examining a gemstone through a small microscope fastened to his eye." - there's an actual word for this. It's called a loupe. How about, "...examining a gemstone, a patinaed brass loupe fastened to his eye. The lens caught the candlelight as he leaned back…"
Arcady lives in an abandoned shop called Loc and Key, a pun that only works in English. Their magic is done using something creatively called the Old Tongue, with phrases like, "Ar-réal vanok vaugain." It looks pretty far removed from English. How are they related?
There are some nice lines. I enjoyed
"I ate a curl of apple peel, the sweetness fizzing along my tongue."
However, apple skins have a lot of tannin. Tannins are bitter and astringent, not sweet and fizzy. I've never been fizzed by an apple.
"I always found the clack, clack, clack [of playing cards] so satisfying." - The fuck are the cards made out of, slabs of wood?
Worldbuilding
How does magic work? Arcady has a cylindrical amulet and does something and thinks about the dragon gods and boom, magic.
It's kind of dumb that everyone in Arcady's city is identified by a stone carved with a unique seal given to them at birth. What happens if you lose it?
The naming is simplistic, e.g. Order of the Dragons. There are five dragon gods with different powers. Why aren't there five different orders?
Everen is the newcomer to this world and would naturally be the one to explain things to us. The minimal description suffers most here: things are named (clothing, dock, shop), but we don't get colors or materials. Smells are "spicy," "human sweat," "rotten." How big are the ships? What color are the sails? How does wearing clothing feel to a dragon? Beer tastes "awful," but in what way? Sour, bitter, like one of the alleyways he walked past? What impact does it have on a preterit dragon? Does he get dizzy? Nauseated? Does he throw it up right away?
His sister Cassia's face is "draconic." No shit, she's a dragon. What does that actually look like?
Ammil, the former last male dragon, went crazy hundreds of years prior. Is he still alive? How old is Everen? How was Everen conceived?
Everen and Arcady are bonded. It's not clear how or why that happened, or what it means practically or culturally.
The reason Everen gives for the dragons being stuck in Vere Celene (based on what a dragon who lived through the Banishment/Betrayal/whatever said) is that humans thought dragons were lying about humans being unable to shapeshift into dragons and were jealous. Petty, right? What's the human perspective? And now dragons are all "kill all humans." Also, Arcady's main thing is shapeshifting, which Everen sees over and over again, and some humans can shapeshift into animals. You're telling me no one tried to shapeshift into a dragon? Ever?
The university and the religion are related in some manner, which is never explained. I'm not sure why a religion that has five dragon gods resembles Christianity so much in its practices. This is reading way too much into things, but we call some Christian places of worship chapels because one of the relics of Christ was a piece of St. Martin's cloak (capella) that was toured around and stored in the buildings. Without that history, why would places of worship for dragon gods be called chapels? There is no specialized language (other than drakine) that reflects the influence dragon-worship has had on society. The head priest is Head Priest. There are chapels and cathedrals and temples where they sit in pews and sing hymns and listen to sermons. Priests listen to confessions and absolve sins (what exactly is a "sin" to a dragon?). They do have magic, which seems something pretty much anyone can do whether or not they're part of the religion, and burn leaves in effigy, but the bulk of their practices aren't very dragon-oriented. You'd think the wyverns, relatives of dragons, would be held in some regard. Nope, they're essentially pigeons.
The magic is mish mash. Humans get/steal magic from dragons. It's not always clear what they can do. For example, what are wards, and what's the point of them if they are so easily "disarmed"? Dragons are inherently magical, but they also use magic from stars and have silver pools for scrying and telepathy. There are ley lines, which classically means magic comes from the earth, that are related to the Veil. It's not so much a system as it is whatever's convenient for the plot.
They keep their magic ID stones in metal settings embedded in their chests. They can remove the stone to use them as stamps. Why not keep a fake stone in the mandated chest region and tuck the real one in another location so you can do magic discreetly? I'm honestly confused by the whole thing. Sometimes Arcady calls it a cylindrical amulet, worn as a necklace, sometimes it's a stone in a setting. Do they switch back and forth? Amulets usually have really big holes, and settings are usually for cabochons, stones without holes. The actual shape, size, and style of these stone seals is never described, just that they have carvings of names and "the stars of their birth."
How does the government work? There are Chancellors, which Arcardy says are monarchs by another name. But people from the Order of the Dragons are running around confiscating stuff and arresting people. Under whose authority?
Plot
Everen finds one prophecy and flutters off to see what happens. He flies through a dimension hole, lands in a cave, sees Arcady, then wanders off. His goal is the destruction of all humanity. He wants to kill Arcady specifically to get full use of his magic back, but how that will lead to removing the Veil is unclear. Everen's just going with the flow.
Arcady steals an amulet so they can make a new amulet and change their identity. They do this while making an absurd amount of noise in the Locked Tombs. Why didn't they leave and do the ritual somewhere less public, echoey, and filled with visitors for the holiday? No one notices. They don't even put the lid back on their grandparent's coffin.
I don't even know what the plot is. Everen and Arcady have goals, but the actions they take seem remarkably tangential to that. Everen doesn't do any research into the Veil at all, the thing he has to remove so the dragons can come back. Arcady wants to clear their grandparent's name and then…what? Go to school?
I was shocked at how little preparation went into the heist subplot. These people are supposed to have years, if not decades, of experience. They do almost no reconnaissance. Arcady has only met the person they impersonate twice.
Other reviews have noted how similar Dragonfall is to other YA/NA that has come out the past few years. They share an incomplete bond and quasi-telepathy (Feyre and Rhys), Arcady trains Everen in thieving (Jude and Cardan), the "enemies to lovers" thing but they are never really enemies.
This is supposed to be a romance too. I don't see it. There's an inadvertent bond, we are told there is mutual physical attraction, and Everen says he'll manipulate Arcady into falling for him. He doesn't do much other than be rude and go along with Arcady's thief training. They have nothing in common. When Everen first makes a move on Arcady, it sounds like he's putting them under arrest. "DO NOT MOVE."
I'm conflicted about the ending. On the one hand, it rendered the majority of the preceding events meaningless. On the other, there were two twists that did make me curious about what happens next.
Conclusion
I wasn't a fan of the writing, I had a number of issues with the worldbuilding, but the mystery of the Veil, the character twist, and dragonrider thing going on make me willing to continue with the series.
November 9, 2023
4.5*
Opening your first chapter in a dragon's PoV is easily one of the best hooks into a story I've read in a long time. Mix in the accepting LGBTQ+ society, gender fluid rep and a wonderfully inclusive culture that incorporates sign language as a means for all nationalities/ethnicities to interact made for a wonderful world to dive in to 🤩
Then you add in magic, a heist (my fav), a cast of questionably intentioned supporting characters, a subtle will they/won't they love story and then throw multiple hurdles and twists in the way for such fantastically enjoyable alternating PoV storytelling that I am hanging for book2.
Honourable shout out to Sorin, who no shade to the MCs (I mean c'mon one is an mf'ing dragon) their story arc is so darn intriguing to me and I am not so secretly hoping to spend so much more time with them and their wyvern sidekick in the next book especially after the reveal of where this first book ends 🙊🤐
I need everyone to read this and come fangirl with me in spoiler tagged comments pretty please...how is this book not getting more buzz?!
Opening your first chapter in a dragon's PoV is easily one of the best hooks into a story I've read in a long time. Mix in the accepting LGBTQ+ society, gender fluid rep and a wonderfully inclusive culture that incorporates sign language as a means for all nationalities/ethnicities to interact made for a wonderful world to dive in to 🤩
Then you add in magic, a heist (my fav), a cast of questionably intentioned supporting characters, a subtle will they/won't they love story and then throw multiple hurdles and twists in the way for such fantastically enjoyable alternating PoV storytelling that I am hanging for book2.
Honourable shout out to Sorin, who no shade to the MCs (I mean c'mon one is an mf'ing dragon) their story arc is so darn intriguing to me and I am not so secretly hoping to spend so much more time with them and their wyvern sidekick in the next book especially after the reveal of where this first book ends 🙊🤐
I need everyone to read this and come fangirl with me in spoiler tagged comments pretty please...how is this book not getting more buzz?!
March 16, 2023
I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I’m sure this comes as no surprise from the name of my blog, but I’m a huge fan of dragons. So it may shock you that I DNFed Dragonfall, a novel about dragons, at 35%. I really wanted to like this novel and I hate giving up on books, but I had to push my way through to make as little progress reading the book as I did. I knew immediately from the writing style that this book wasn’t for me, but I kept going becauseDragonfall comes with a truly great idea—the last male dragon trying to fulfill his prophecy and to save his world and all of dragon-kind in the process, but somehow he ends up falling into the human world, where they worship dragons. There’s just one key problem—dragons hate humans.
Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, I really don’t feel that I am the target audience of this novel. I was expecting a mature, complex high fantasy novel, but what I got was an unsophisticated and contradictory young adult novel, complete with all of the hallmarks of the very genre that I’ve almost entirely (and purposefully), stopped reading. The main trope I found myself dealing with was the classic variation of enemies to lovers which centers on making the “enemies” fall in love, all while one of them is actively plotting the other’s downfall. The romance in question involves Everen, fallen dragon in-disguise, who accidentally bonds under mysterious circumstances with gender fluid thief and wannabe-avenger Arcady. Everen plans to use their new bond to manipulate Arcady into falling for him so he can break the bond, destroy them, take back his power, and save his kind from humans.
This would be more exciting to me if I were actually able to connect to either of the characters in question. But Arcady is a living, breathing example of “I’m not like the others,” stealing from wealthy citizens they dared to mark in church and refusing to show the proper respect to those who are owed it as part of societal convention. Arcady steals, shapeshifts, and uses other magical powers in order to get ahead in their quest for revenge. Unfortunately, they are not nearly as edgy as they think they are and are quite often completely out of their depth, overreacting, or scared. Everen, on the other hand, reads nothing remotely like one might reasonably imagine a dragon. Instead, he is an entitled and bratty young man who came from a privileged family and thinks everyone owes him.
The third narrator in Dragonfall is an assassin, which should be exciting, but as Sorin’s taken a vow of silence that she’s afraid to break, I don’t have much of a read on her character. Admittedly, I find it a bit laughable that her vow of silence doesn’t apply to her using what is essentially sign language to communicate just as fully as if she had opened her mouth. However, it is clear Sorin is supposed to be a badass, as she has the whole former-orphan- raised-by-a-master-assassin-who-is-grooming-her thing going for her. Everything I’ve learned about her is through exposition, which there is already entirely too much of in Dragonfall.
Everything is told to the readers and nothing is shown. The most fascinating part of Dragonfall is that there's so much information dumping, but somehow very little actual world-building. I am unclear on what dragons look like, why their more human presenting dragon form is called "preterit," why dragons even have this form in the first place when they hate humans, how the humans utilize dragon magic in their weird seals and where exactly they originated, how the religion works in the human world even though it revolves around worshiping dragons, and much more. I have way more questions than answers about both the human and dragon worlds in Dragonfall and only became further confused as I progressed through the novel, as everything—whether character development, plot, or world-building—constantly contradicted itself, as illustrated by the aforementioned vow of silence. Even the most basic parts of the world-building confused me. For instance, dragons are worshiped, but wyverns aren’t treated with any particular reverence? Make it make sense.
Through this rampant information dumping, the audience is informed that this world uses sign language, known as hand signs, to convey respect when suitable and also to denote preferred pronouns and gender identity during introductions. Just from a disabled person's perspective, I think it is amazing to see sign language being portrayed as a universal, common language that all humans are able to speak in this world. This is something I would love to see in our own world for the sake of communication, accessibility, and equality alone. My issue with the hand signing is that the author immediately uses it as a tool to launch into a very forceful and pointed commentary about gender identity.
It's truly as if the author does not trust readers to even fathom gender identity, let alone to be able to respect it. The progressiveness is condescending and overwhelmingly in your face and reads like a blatantly contrived lesson on the entire concept of gender identity itself rather than a naturally incorporated part of the story and the world building. As soon as this explanation is blessedly finished, the author immediately has Everen, who does not understand human culture as a dragon, baldly iterate how much sense this practice actually makes to him. It was as if this simple concept needed to be even further reinforced as good because the dumb readers at home couldn't ever possibly comprehend having the common courtesy to refer to someone in the way of his/her/their choosing.
I’m not saying that misgendering never happens or that it isn’t serious or harmful—it does and it is—but the amount of page space that was dedicated to explaining this concept was truly and insultingly inordinate in Dragonfall and I wished the novel had been even a quarter as verbose when it came to other parts of the world-building. This whole moment took me right out of the story and retroactively, the more the author tried to convince me how “normal” this signing was, the less natural it appeared. It says far more about our own world (and perhaps the author's own experiences in it), at large than that of both worlds of Dragonfall combined that the author felt that this much justification was needed for anything outside of the strictly heteronormative experience. Other novels, like Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree , never have to go to such lengths to make its LGBTQ+ romances feel like an intrinsic and automatically accepted part of her worlds. Shannon's relationships don't need to be explained or lectured on, they just are.
Unfortunately, that whole diatribe wasn’t the only thing I found jarring about Dragonfall. The novel is told from three different perspectives, but also in three wholly different descriptive styles. While Arcady narrates in first person and Sorion narrates in third person, Everen narrates in second person. I don’t automatically hate reading different styles of describing points-of-views in the same novel, and actually really loved it in The Drowning Empire trilogy, but I simply could not adapt to it whatsoever in Dragonfall. I tried. But I absolutely loathed Everen’s use of the second person, even after having time to get used to it. When Everen first started referring to Arcady as “you,” something he did in order to refer to the reader before meeting her, I had a moment of complete and total disconnect, thinking, “wait, what? Me?” Unlike in Harrow the Ninth , where the use of second person had an overall importance to the narrative as a whole, there is absolutely no comprehensible narrative reason for Everen to be using second person. It feels incredibly forced and unnatural and I got whiplash every time I had to return to reading from his perspective.
I also found myself stopping to reread several phrases that I didn’t understand or felt like they were just trying a bit too hard. I couldn’t picture anyone actually thinking these phrases, let alone saying them. Here’s a few examples:
And on top of all the confusing perspectives and endless, contradictory information dumping, there was little to no explanation for fantasy terms in the novel as well. In addition to the hand-signs people use to communicate there’s also the Old Tongue used in magic. Here's a look at what the Old Tongue, when being used to cast a spell, looks like:
Now, I don't have an expertise in linguistics whatsoever, but I am a bit perplexed at how this Old Tongue does not seem to share any common roots with the terms being used in the current language of Locmyrian. In present day, Arcady uses terms like "maire," “paire,” and "taie," which seem very dissimilar to the Old Tongue. I am surprised that this Locmyrian didn't seem to evolve from the Old Tongue or anything, like most modern languages do. I also found it irritating that there are no translations for the Old Tongue, explanations why that language is still used in the present for spells, or what the terms Arcady uses in the present mean. None of this is ever explained. While readers can at least figure out what "marie," "paire," and "taie," mean from context clues, it's mildly irritating when these things are not explained in comparison to the rest of the information dumping and it doesn't seem to have a lot of real thought about it. The only expansion we get on the Old Tongue is shallow, at best:
I'm sorry, but for me, it doesn't quite work to just have an apparently experienced mage say, "I don't know what I'm saying or how this works, but I'm doing it," with no further remarks on how they have done this successfully in the past or where she learned to do it in the first place. One can infer that it was through their "taie" grandfather at some point and later through the books they've stolen, but I feel like a very important hallmark of the fantasy genre is not being met here—there isn't a required skill, lineage, etc., to use magic or much of a significant cost or sacrifice, either, unless you count Arcady having to scarf down food after using magic. Sure, there does seem to be a tragic fate than death for mages that over extend their abilities or aren't able to pay the energy back for using magic, but Dragonfall doesn't make this entirely compelling
Dragonfall desperately tries to be edgy and to set itself apart from the rest of the young adult genre, but it, pardon the pun, fell flat for me. Even though I really loved the idea of Dragonfall, the execution was too lacking for me to want to continue reading it and I think it goes without saying that I will not be reading future entries in the series. I think readers who don’t mind the young adult genre as a whole and who like the familiar tropes that the genre encapsulates will enjoy Dragonfall, especially those who are also looking for novels with LGBTQ+ representation and aren’t intimidated at the prospect of reading from many different descriptive styles of point-of-views.
I’m sure this comes as no surprise from the name of my blog, but I’m a huge fan of dragons. So it may shock you that I DNFed Dragonfall, a novel about dragons, at 35%. I really wanted to like this novel and I hate giving up on books, but I had to push my way through to make as little progress reading the book as I did. I knew immediately from the writing style that this book wasn’t for me, but I kept going becauseDragonfall comes with a truly great idea—the last male dragon trying to fulfill his prophecy and to save his world and all of dragon-kind in the process, but somehow he ends up falling into the human world, where they worship dragons. There’s just one key problem—dragons hate humans.
Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, I really don’t feel that I am the target audience of this novel. I was expecting a mature, complex high fantasy novel, but what I got was an unsophisticated and contradictory young adult novel, complete with all of the hallmarks of the very genre that I’ve almost entirely (and purposefully), stopped reading. The main trope I found myself dealing with was the classic variation of enemies to lovers which centers on making the “enemies” fall in love, all while one of them is actively plotting the other’s downfall. The romance in question involves Everen, fallen dragon in-disguise, who accidentally bonds under mysterious circumstances with gender fluid thief and wannabe-avenger Arcady. Everen plans to use their new bond to manipulate Arcady into falling for him so he can break the bond, destroy them, take back his power, and save his kind from humans.
“Make your little human love you. Do what you must. And then kill it. Her gaze was unblinking. Bring us home, Everen, give us our world.”
This would be more exciting to me if I were actually able to connect to either of the characters in question. But Arcady is a living, breathing example of “I’m not like the others,” stealing from wealthy citizens they dared to mark in church and refusing to show the proper respect to those who are owed it as part of societal convention. Arcady steals, shapeshifts, and uses other magical powers in order to get ahead in their quest for revenge. Unfortunately, they are not nearly as edgy as they think they are and are quite often completely out of their depth, overreacting, or scared. Everen, on the other hand, reads nothing remotely like one might reasonably imagine a dragon. Instead, he is an entitled and bratty young man who came from a privileged family and thinks everyone owes him.
The third narrator in Dragonfall is an assassin, which should be exciting, but as Sorin’s taken a vow of silence that she’s afraid to break, I don’t have much of a read on her character. Admittedly, I find it a bit laughable that her vow of silence doesn’t apply to her using what is essentially sign language to communicate just as fully as if she had opened her mouth. However, it is clear Sorin is supposed to be a badass, as she has the whole former-orphan- raised-by-a-master-assassin-who-is-grooming-her thing going for her. Everything I’ve learned about her is through exposition, which there is already entirely too much of in Dragonfall.
Everything is told to the readers and nothing is shown. The most fascinating part of Dragonfall is that there's so much information dumping, but somehow very little actual world-building. I am unclear on what dragons look like, why their more human presenting dragon form is called "preterit," why dragons even have this form in the first place when they hate humans, how the humans utilize dragon magic in their weird seals and where exactly they originated, how the religion works in the human world even though it revolves around worshiping dragons, and much more. I have way more questions than answers about both the human and dragon worlds in Dragonfall and only became further confused as I progressed through the novel, as everything—whether character development, plot, or world-building—constantly contradicted itself, as illustrated by the aforementioned vow of silence. Even the most basic parts of the world-building confused me. For instance, dragons are worshiped, but wyverns aren’t treated with any particular reverence? Make it make sense.
Through this rampant information dumping, the audience is informed that this world uses sign language, known as hand signs, to convey respect when suitable and also to denote preferred pronouns and gender identity during introductions. Just from a disabled person's perspective, I think it is amazing to see sign language being portrayed as a universal, common language that all humans are able to speak in this world. This is something I would love to see in our own world for the sake of communication, accessibility, and equality alone. My issue with the hand signing is that the author immediately uses it as a tool to launch into a very forceful and pointed commentary about gender identity.
It's truly as if the author does not trust readers to even fathom gender identity, let alone to be able to respect it. The progressiveness is condescending and overwhelmingly in your face and reads like a blatantly contrived lesson on the entire concept of gender identity itself rather than a naturally incorporated part of the story and the world building. As soon as this explanation is blessedly finished, the author immediately has Everen, who does not understand human culture as a dragon, baldly iterate how much sense this practice actually makes to him. It was as if this simple concept needed to be even further reinforced as good because the dumb readers at home couldn't ever possibly comprehend having the common courtesy to refer to someone in the way of his/her/their choosing.
I’m not saying that misgendering never happens or that it isn’t serious or harmful—it does and it is—but the amount of page space that was dedicated to explaining this concept was truly and insultingly inordinate in Dragonfall and I wished the novel had been even a quarter as verbose when it came to other parts of the world-building. This whole moment took me right out of the story and retroactively, the more the author tried to convince me how “normal” this signing was, the less natural it appeared. It says far more about our own world (and perhaps the author's own experiences in it), at large than that of both worlds of Dragonfall combined that the author felt that this much justification was needed for anything outside of the strictly heteronormative experience. Other novels, like Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree , never have to go to such lengths to make its LGBTQ+ romances feel like an intrinsic and automatically accepted part of her worlds. Shannon's relationships don't need to be explained or lectured on, they just are.
Unfortunately, that whole diatribe wasn’t the only thing I found jarring about Dragonfall. The novel is told from three different perspectives, but also in three wholly different descriptive styles. While Arcady narrates in first person and Sorion narrates in third person, Everen narrates in second person. I don’t automatically hate reading different styles of describing points-of-views in the same novel, and actually really loved it in The Drowning Empire trilogy, but I simply could not adapt to it whatsoever in Dragonfall. I tried. But I absolutely loathed Everen’s use of the second person, even after having time to get used to it. When Everen first started referring to Arcady as “you,” something he did in order to refer to the reader before meeting her, I had a moment of complete and total disconnect, thinking, “wait, what? Me?” Unlike in Harrow the Ninth , where the use of second person had an overall importance to the narrative as a whole, there is absolutely no comprehensible narrative reason for Everen to be using second person. It feels incredibly forced and unnatural and I got whiplash every time I had to return to reading from his perspective.
I also found myself stopping to reread several phrases that I didn’t understand or felt like they were just trying a bit too hard. I couldn’t picture anyone actually thinking these phrases, let alone saying them. Here’s a few examples:
“I was the last male dragon, born to know the past, the future, the gossamer of fate that spread in all directions like a dew-caught spiderweb.”
“Your tone was as acidic as the taste of the coffee, but you drank with obvious relish, watching the people as they passed by on the street.”
“I had been the golden son. The hope of all dragons. But the opposite of hope is despair. For with every year that passed, this world became hotter, and dragons grew hungrier. I was meant to see how to save us. Every time they look at me, they saw their own demise reflected. It all confined, like skin that would not shed.”
And on top of all the confusing perspectives and endless, contradictory information dumping, there was little to no explanation for fantasy terms in the novel as well. In addition to the hand-signs people use to communicate there’s also the Old Tongue used in magic. Here's a look at what the Old Tongue, when being used to cast a spell, looks like:
Kjetim-lei ak ar-dźakain,
lei-turei, iév-turo
Ar-réal vanok vaugain
śajak val jain reno.
Dźo eje loj el-dźakain
fanas arfan lo
Now, I don't have an expertise in linguistics whatsoever, but I am a bit perplexed at how this Old Tongue does not seem to share any common roots with the terms being used in the current language of Locmyrian. In present day, Arcady uses terms like "maire," “paire,” and "taie," which seem very dissimilar to the Old Tongue. I am surprised that this Locmyrian didn't seem to evolve from the Old Tongue or anything, like most modern languages do. I also found it irritating that there are no translations for the Old Tongue, explanations why that language is still used in the present for spells, or what the terms Arcady uses in the present mean. None of this is ever explained. While readers can at least figure out what "marie," "paire," and "taie," mean from context clues, it's mildly irritating when these things are not explained in comparison to the rest of the information dumping and it doesn't seem to have a lot of real thought about it. The only expansion we get on the Old Tongue is shallow, at best:
"I wasn't sure if I was pronouncing them correctly, nor had any idea what they meant. All I could do was close my eyes and try. Usually, spells were just the odd word in the Old Tongue--only masters up at the university would know full phrases."
I'm sorry, but for me, it doesn't quite work to just have an apparently experienced mage say, "I don't know what I'm saying or how this works, but I'm doing it," with no further remarks on how they have done this successfully in the past or where she learned to do it in the first place. One can infer that it was through their "taie" grandfather at some point and later through the books they've stolen, but I feel like a very important hallmark of the fantasy genre is not being met here—there isn't a required skill, lineage, etc., to use magic or much of a significant cost or sacrifice, either, unless you count Arcady having to scarf down food after using magic. Sure, there does seem to be a tragic fate than death for mages that over extend their abilities or aren't able to pay the energy back for using magic, but Dragonfall doesn't make this entirely compelling
Dragonfall desperately tries to be edgy and to set itself apart from the rest of the young adult genre, but it, pardon the pun, fell flat for me. Even though I really loved the idea of Dragonfall, the execution was too lacking for me to want to continue reading it and I think it goes without saying that I will not be reading future entries in the series. I think readers who don’t mind the young adult genre as a whole and who like the familiar tropes that the genre encapsulates will enjoy Dragonfall, especially those who are also looking for novels with LGBTQ+ representation and aren’t intimidated at the prospect of reading from many different descriptive styles of point-of-views.
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June 26, 2024
dnf 2%
complimenti a chi è riuscito a superare il primo capitolo!
complimenti a chi è riuscito a superare il primo capitolo!
May 5, 2023
Identify the Trout!
Everen is a dragon. Dragons live in a dying world. Hundreds of years ago they lived in a green, growing world in partnership with humans. But the humans betrayed the dragons and exiled them to this dying world. That, at least, is the story as dragons tell it. Humans have a different story.
Everen falls into the human world, where he finds he is magically bonded to Arcady, a thief in the city of Vatra. Everen's sister Cassia tells him he can use this magical bond to allow dragons to escape their dying world
But then I thought, "I know how stories like this go. Will Everen go through with it, or will he have sympathy for Arcady and decide he can't betray them? In fact, who is the more adept at treachery: Everen the sheltered dragon prince, or Arcady, the thief of the corrupt city of Vatra?" The question answers itself. Perhaps Everen, not Arcady, is the trout. And then I thought further, "L.R. Lam didn't fall off the apple cart yesterday. Surely they know their readers will see these plot twists coming. Perhaps they are trying to trick me into expecting the obvious plot. In fact, this is advertised as the first book of a trilogy, so we need something unexpected. Am I the trout?"
Now, to be clear, these were just my thoughts as I began to read. I am not telling you that the things I just hinted at happen. I am not telling you that they don't happen. I am telling you only that Dragonfall is a book about treachery. Treachery and magic and dragons and perhaps friendship and love, but definitely treachery.
Dragonfall has the now familiar structure of a multiple first-person point-of-view novel. Each chapter is told by a single character. There are three main points of view: Everen, Arcady, and Soren. I have not mentioned Soren before. Arcady and Soren have twisty minds, and I enjoyed their points of view a lot. Everen was a little less fun, but I expect him to become more interesting in the next books.
I certainly look forward to the future books and intend to read them.
Thanks to NetGalley and DAW for an advance reader copy of Dragonfall. This review expresses my honest opinions.
Blog review.
Everen is a dragon. Dragons live in a dying world. Hundreds of years ago they lived in a green, growing world in partnership with humans. But the humans betrayed the dragons and exiled them to this dying world. That, at least, is the story as dragons tell it. Humans have a different story.
Everen falls into the human world, where he finds he is magically bonded to Arcady, a thief in the city of Vatra. Everen's sister Cassia tells him he can use this magical bond to allow dragons to escape their dying world
--Yes, she said, as she faded from view. Make your little human love you. Do what you must. And then kill it. Her gaze was unblinking. Bring us home, Everen. Give us our world.This immediately reminded me of something I read long ago in Glory Road by Robert Heinlein,
You tickle trout by gaining their confidence, and then abusing it.(Trout tickling is a way to catch trout with ones bare hands.) So, it transpires that Cassia has sent Everen on a fishing expedition. He is to catch the human world by gaining Arcady's confidence, then betraying it. Dragons view humans as treacherous vermin, so it is plausible that Everen and Cassia would have no more compunction about betraying a human than Heinlein's hero Oscar had about betraying a trout. By the way, what I've told you so far is in the publisher's blurb, so no spoilers yet.
But then I thought, "I know how stories like this go. Will Everen go through with it, or will he have sympathy for Arcady and decide he can't betray them? In fact, who is the more adept at treachery: Everen the sheltered dragon prince, or Arcady, the thief of the corrupt city of Vatra?" The question answers itself. Perhaps Everen, not Arcady, is the trout. And then I thought further, "L.R. Lam didn't fall off the apple cart yesterday. Surely they know their readers will see these plot twists coming. Perhaps they are trying to trick me into expecting the obvious plot. In fact, this is advertised as the first book of a trilogy, so we need something unexpected. Am I the trout?"
Now, to be clear, these were just my thoughts as I began to read. I am not telling you that the things I just hinted at happen. I am not telling you that they don't happen. I am telling you only that Dragonfall is a book about treachery. Treachery and magic and dragons and perhaps friendship and love, but definitely treachery.
Dragonfall has the now familiar structure of a multiple first-person point-of-view novel. Each chapter is told by a single character. There are three main points of view: Everen, Arcady, and Soren. I have not mentioned Soren before. Arcady and Soren have twisty minds, and I enjoyed their points of view a lot. Everen was a little less fun, but I expect him to become more interesting in the next books.
I certainly look forward to the future books and intend to read them.
Thanks to NetGalley and DAW for an advance reader copy of Dragonfall. This review expresses my honest opinions.
Blog review.
July 2, 2023
3.5 stars
Dragonfall feels like a passion project in so many ways. It’s clearly a love letter to the dragon stories of the last 30 years (Priory, Realm of the Elderlings, Seraphina) but doesn’t feel derivative or underwritten.
Arcady, a human, and Everen, a dragon, have become bonded through a magical accident where Arcady pulled Everen from his world and trapped him in his human form, power diminished. They have to work together to complete the bond, complicated by their romantic tension and opposing goals.
I loved the worldbuilding, particularly the additional perspectives which helped to contextualize both the dragon and human societies. There’s a fine-grained level of detail that does a good job grounding the setting. Arcady and Everen also had a good amount of chemistry, and I’m really interested to see where their relationship goes. The story takes place in a queernormative world with a disabled (hard of hearing) protagonist, and it felt like these elements were incorporated really smoothly.
However, this book could have benefited from one more set of revisions, especially at the very beginning and very end. I don’t usually mind infodumping, but the first 40 pages of this book was pretty confusing, even for me. Which is weird, considering the rest of the book didn’t seem to have this issue at all. The plot feels messy towards the climax, and even though I liked the enemies-to-lovers dynamic between our main two characters, I felt like I never really understood Arcady’s interest in Everen beyond physical attraction.
Finally, this book plays with a lot of themes - trust, consequences, fate - but does so superficially. It’s so close to diving into those concepts more deeply, and I’m hoping books 2 and 3 explore that.
Overall, I would recommend this book to people looking for a diverse fantasy with a strong romance subplot, but who are comfortable with a little debut-novel-esque roots.
Thank you to DAW for the review copy!!
Dragonfall feels like a passion project in so many ways. It’s clearly a love letter to the dragon stories of the last 30 years (Priory, Realm of the Elderlings, Seraphina) but doesn’t feel derivative or underwritten.
Arcady, a human, and Everen, a dragon, have become bonded through a magical accident where Arcady pulled Everen from his world and trapped him in his human form, power diminished. They have to work together to complete the bond, complicated by their romantic tension and opposing goals.
I loved the worldbuilding, particularly the additional perspectives which helped to contextualize both the dragon and human societies. There’s a fine-grained level of detail that does a good job grounding the setting. Arcady and Everen also had a good amount of chemistry, and I’m really interested to see where their relationship goes. The story takes place in a queernormative world with a disabled (hard of hearing) protagonist, and it felt like these elements were incorporated really smoothly.
However, this book could have benefited from one more set of revisions, especially at the very beginning and very end. I don’t usually mind infodumping, but the first 40 pages of this book was pretty confusing, even for me. Which is weird, considering the rest of the book didn’t seem to have this issue at all. The plot feels messy towards the climax, and even though I liked the enemies-to-lovers dynamic between our main two characters, I felt like I never really understood Arcady’s interest in Everen beyond physical attraction.
Finally, this book plays with a lot of themes - trust, consequences, fate - but does so superficially. It’s so close to diving into those concepts more deeply, and I’m hoping books 2 and 3 explore that.
Overall, I would recommend this book to people looking for a diverse fantasy with a strong romance subplot, but who are comfortable with a little debut-novel-esque roots.
Thank you to DAW for the review copy!!
May 18, 2023
❤️ Dragonfall - L.R. Lam ❤️
❤️🔥 enemies to lovers
🔮 magic
🐉 dragon(s)
🏰 worldbuilding
💰 heist
Dragonfall was a BIG MOODREAD and WOW it did not dissapoint! 🤩 queer enemies to lovers including a street thief and a dragon shapeshifter?! yes, yes and YES. I literally cannot wait to read book 2 of this series as this one ends on a massive cliffhanger... 😱 also the GAY 🌈 PINING in this book?! *chef's kiss* 😘
❤️🔥 enemies to lovers
🔮 magic
🐉 dragon(s)
🏰 worldbuilding
💰 heist
Dragonfall was a BIG MOODREAD and WOW it did not dissapoint! 🤩 queer enemies to lovers including a street thief and a dragon shapeshifter?! yes, yes and YES. I literally cannot wait to read book 2 of this series as this one ends on a massive cliffhanger... 😱 also the GAY 🌈 PINING in this book?! *chef's kiss* 😘
April 25, 2023
First of all, DRAGONS. Second of all, enemies to bloody lovers. Third of all, queer rep. Yes please and thank you to all of that in every book I ever read in the fantasy genre. Okay, my love of dragons aside, the world building in this dang book was absolutely phenomenal, the banter was great, and the character development was chefs kiss.
When I tell you I flew (see what I did there) through this one very quickly, I mean it was VERY quickly. I found myself yet again unable to move or do anything once I had started this one, I just needed to inhale the words from the page.
Oh, did I mention queer? Okay, what about enemies to lovers? I did? Damn okay, what about F*CKING DRAGONS?! Please authors of the planet, give me more dragons. I beg you.
Great writing, even greater world building, the greatest characters, and DRAGONS. Buy this book.
Thank you to Hodderscape for sending me a proof of this glorious book.
When I tell you I flew (see what I did there) through this one very quickly, I mean it was VERY quickly. I found myself yet again unable to move or do anything once I had started this one, I just needed to inhale the words from the page.
Oh, did I mention queer? Okay, what about enemies to lovers? I did? Damn okay, what about F*CKING DRAGONS?! Please authors of the planet, give me more dragons. I beg you.
Great writing, even greater world building, the greatest characters, and DRAGONS. Buy this book.
Thank you to Hodderscape for sending me a proof of this glorious book.
May 4, 2023
5 stars
HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY TO THIS BEAUTY!
Dragonfall is easily the best book I've read so far this year. The story draws you in with the phenomenal writing and fast-paced plot. It's enemies to lovers, featuring a human and a dragon and it's oh-so delightfully queer. Diving into the story, I felt that much sought-after reader's bliss. The moment you read the first page and you know that this story is going to be a special one. One that will stay with you for a long time. I always have a terrible time writing reviews for books I love, so bear with me.
The worldbuilding is lush and I was especially intrigued by the dragon realm and its mythologies. I loved the narrative style adopted for the dragon's POV. The payoff is wonderful, and I hope the same style is adopted for the sequels, though I'm not sure considering where lam chooses to take the story next. I loved how it mirrored the prophetic nature of dragon kind in this book and came to such an emotional close at the end. The narrative style might also be the reason why I found the dragon's chapters so much more fun to read than the human's, unlike other reviewers. One thing is obvious, L. R. Lam can WRITE. This is the first book I've read by them and will probably not be the last. The story flows so effortlessly, I found myself immersed in reading it for hours on end. For a genre as over-saturated as epic fantasy, Dragonfall stands tall and distinct with the phenomenal slow burn and well-explained magic system.
I was surprised to see how big of a part the romance played in the book. Like I knew there would be a romance since I'd read the blurb, but the romance seemed to take up a pretty large chunk of the plot. So readers who are looking for less romance in their epic fantasy might not like it. I actually loved the romance. The build-up was torturously slow, but it made the payoff and the angst even better. Since this is the first book of a trilogy, I expect the romance was focused to build up the rest of the books on it.
The characters were also all pretty well written. While we primarily follow the dragon's and the human's POVs, both of which were engaging in their own ways, we also have a smattering of chapters from a warrior priest called Sorin and the dragon's sister Cassia. While they were sparse and few, I loved how the author developed Sorin's character and I am excited about what role she ends up playing in future books. At the end of the book, I don't know who I felt more sorry for Arcady (the human) or Everen (the dragon). I was obviously rooting for both of them but this book ends on a MASSIVE cliffhanger, I don't know how I'm supposed to wait for the next book because finishing this book felt like emerging out of a pool after nearly drowning.
Dragonfall is a submersive, atmospheric epic fantasy with high stakes, slow burn, and gorgeous writing. Come for the dragons, stay for the gay pining. Storytelling at its best.
Dragonfall comes out 2nd May 2023. Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder&Stroughton for sending me an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY TO THIS BEAUTY!
—So I only fly where you tell me. Hunt what I must. Kill what I must. You are the wind and starfire and quicksilver. I am nothing but the shape you make me.
Dragonfall is easily the best book I've read so far this year. The story draws you in with the phenomenal writing and fast-paced plot. It's enemies to lovers, featuring a human and a dragon and it's oh-so delightfully queer. Diving into the story, I felt that much sought-after reader's bliss. The moment you read the first page and you know that this story is going to be a special one. One that will stay with you for a long time. I always have a terrible time writing reviews for books I love, so bear with me.
The worldbuilding is lush and I was especially intrigued by the dragon realm and its mythologies. I loved the narrative style adopted for the dragon's POV. The payoff is wonderful, and I hope the same style is adopted for the sequels, though I'm not sure considering where lam chooses to take the story next. I loved how it mirrored the prophetic nature of dragon kind in this book and came to such an emotional close at the end. The narrative style might also be the reason why I found the dragon's chapters so much more fun to read than the human's, unlike other reviewers. One thing is obvious, L. R. Lam can WRITE. This is the first book I've read by them and will probably not be the last. The story flows so effortlessly, I found myself immersed in reading it for hours on end. For a genre as over-saturated as epic fantasy, Dragonfall stands tall and distinct with the phenomenal slow burn and well-explained magic system.
I was surprised to see how big of a part the romance played in the book. Like I knew there would be a romance since I'd read the blurb, but the romance seemed to take up a pretty large chunk of the plot. So readers who are looking for less romance in their epic fantasy might not like it. I actually loved the romance. The build-up was torturously slow, but it made the payoff and the angst even better. Since this is the first book of a trilogy, I expect the romance was focused to build up the rest of the books on it.
The characters were also all pretty well written. While we primarily follow the dragon's and the human's POVs, both of which were engaging in their own ways, we also have a smattering of chapters from a warrior priest called Sorin and the dragon's sister Cassia. While they were sparse and few, I loved how the author developed Sorin's character and I am excited about what role she ends up playing in future books. At the end of the book, I don't know who I felt more sorry for Arcady (the human) or Everen (the dragon). I was obviously rooting for both of them but this book ends on a MASSIVE cliffhanger, I don't know how I'm supposed to wait for the next book because finishing this book felt like emerging out of a pool after nearly drowning.
Dragonfall is a submersive, atmospheric epic fantasy with high stakes, slow burn, and gorgeous writing. Come for the dragons, stay for the gay pining. Storytelling at its best.
Dragonfall comes out 2nd May 2023. Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder&Stroughton for sending me an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
July 2, 2023
Why is one of my most anticipated books of the year *so bad*?! 😭 I am deeply pained by this situation and hate my inability to just DNF a book. Why do I make myself suffer so?
This was genuinely terrible. From plot holes to the relationship development to pointless story events to the incredibly boring first 200 pages. Some of my major issues:
- The first 200 pages do nothing except teach how to pickpocket
- The underdeveloped romance where feelings suddenly spring out of nowhere half way through.
- The character whose tongue is attached to the roof of her mouth and can’t speak…yet keeps whispering spells and talking?
- Please god the whole trying to touch Dwell events: why. why. what was the point of the gambling scene when they broke into his house anyway and could have touched him then??????
- If all the dragons records were burned in a fire, how do they know so much specific history and info about the culture of humans
- the main character whose magic is supposedly not great right now because they are in a half bond with the dragon and yet is somehow just amazing and so good and can get past super complicated wards??
- And on the magic: the magic!!! Okay so there’s 5 gods who each have a different magic…Healing, Form, Stength, Clarity/Weather, and Fire? I think. So then where does all the other magic mentioned come from?? Like the aforementioned WARDS everyone keeps mentioning!
Anyway this was an absolutely massive disappointment. A queer fantasy romance dragon book should’ve be an absolute favourite and all I could focus on was all of the glaring issues.
This was genuinely terrible. From plot holes to the relationship development to pointless story events to the incredibly boring first 200 pages. Some of my major issues:
- The first 200 pages do nothing except teach how to pickpocket
- The underdeveloped romance where feelings suddenly spring out of nowhere half way through.
- The character whose tongue is attached to the roof of her mouth and can’t speak…yet keeps whispering spells and talking?
- Please god the whole trying to touch Dwell events: why. why. what was the point of the gambling scene when they broke into his house anyway and could have touched him then??????
- If all the dragons records were burned in a fire, how do they know so much specific history and info about the culture of humans
- the main character whose magic is supposedly not great right now because they are in a half bond with the dragon and yet is somehow just amazing and so good and can get past super complicated wards??
- And on the magic: the magic!!! Okay so there’s 5 gods who each have a different magic…Healing, Form, Stength, Clarity/Weather, and Fire? I think. So then where does all the other magic mentioned come from?? Like the aforementioned WARDS everyone keeps mentioning!
Anyway this was an absolutely massive disappointment. A queer fantasy romance dragon book should’ve be an absolute favourite and all I could focus on was all of the glaring issues.
May 3, 2023
It breaks my heart to give this book 2⭐️
Details to come when I’m feeling less under the weather
Details to come when I’m feeling less under the weather
June 12, 2023
I’ve finally made it through this book, I doubted that several times.
I started this book right after Fourth Wing, which I loved and I wanted more amazing books with dragons. But that didn’t really happen, it took me three weeks to finish this and I had to take a break and read two other books in between to pull myself through this.
I picked up this book because of the premise about the dragons, but there’s barely any dragons in this book at all. Everen spend the majority of the book in his human form and even though it’s called Dragonfall, any plot that revolves around dragons is more like an afterthought.
I couldn’t for the life of me connect to the style of writing. There’s several POV and they switch between first person to second person to third person. Everen’s part is in second person and it was really not my thing.
I also found the writing to be both too detailed and not detailed enough. There’s an abundance of descriptions, but I still know nothing about the world, the magic, the society or how the characters look or their personality.
We get to know that the society is really accepting towards gender fluidity, but we don’t get to know how that affect anything. Everen got a lesson in pronouns from an hooker and that’s about it.
I also found Sorin’s chapters totally useless.
If I didn’t have a rule that I don’t DNF books, I would’ve quit this book after 40 pages. It was not my thing AT ALL.
I started this book right after Fourth Wing, which I loved and I wanted more amazing books with dragons. But that didn’t really happen, it took me three weeks to finish this and I had to take a break and read two other books in between to pull myself through this.
I picked up this book because of the premise about the dragons, but there’s barely any dragons in this book at all. Everen spend the majority of the book in his human form and even though it’s called Dragonfall, any plot that revolves around dragons is more like an afterthought.
I couldn’t for the life of me connect to the style of writing. There’s several POV and they switch between first person to second person to third person. Everen’s part is in second person and it was really not my thing.
I also found the writing to be both too detailed and not detailed enough. There’s an abundance of descriptions, but I still know nothing about the world, the magic, the society or how the characters look or their personality.
We get to know that the society is really accepting towards gender fluidity, but we don’t get to know how that affect anything. Everen got a lesson in pronouns from an hooker and that’s about it.
I also found Sorin’s chapters totally useless.
If I didn’t have a rule that I don’t DNF books, I would’ve quit this book after 40 pages. It was not my thing AT ALL.
July 5, 2023
Wow, this is bad…. This book is marketed as enemies to lovers with a dragon shifter and prophecies. What we get instead is confusing narration switching from first to second to third person, and is mostly a lecture about the Gender Agenda. What ends up happening when authors want to include non-binary/gender fluid characters in literature is a mess where no one is described, you don’t know enough about any of they/them/it/he whatever characters to adequately picture anyone. If you’re someone that thinks it would be great to erase gender entirely and have everyone be referred to as “they” then this might be for you. I just wanted a good fantasy/romance with dragons in it!!! Not a lecture about gender identity.
May 18, 2023
I love dragons, so I'm always immediately intrigued by the mention of them. With Dragonfall, it was the cover and the premise that lured me in - sadly, the story did not meet my expectations.
Considering there's a dragon on the cover, in the title of the book, and one of the main POVs is a literal dragon, there was a lot less dragon content in it than I thought there would be. I didn't get a sense from Everen what it actually meant to be a dragon - he felt more human than anything else. Their culture or history wasn't really explained and descriptions in general were very vague. Funnily enough, there was a lot of info dumping but more so in the form of made-up words, which just added a lot of confusion. There was no depth to the world-building and the characters, I felt disconnected a lot. Also, the different narrative styles made no sense to me. I was having a hard time with the prose in general, but the jumping between Arcady's first person and Everen's second person chapters interrupted the flow of the story even more. And the addition of a third POV (in third person) later on seemed to serve no purpose. Maybe that's something that will be revealed in book 2? I guess, I'll never know.
It took me a long time to get through this book and I almost DNF'd it but didn't wanna give up, 'cause I was determined to find something to hang onto. I really liked the idea of the story and some of the plot points were interesting, however, the execution fell flat for me. The pace dragged on a lot, very little was explained (world, magic system), and I couldn't warm up to the characters. Things did pick up a bit towards the end and I was surprised by a certain reveal, however, it wasn't enough for me to wanna invest more time into this series!
Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Considering there's a dragon on the cover, in the title of the book, and one of the main POVs is a literal dragon, there was a lot less dragon content in it than I thought there would be. I didn't get a sense from Everen what it actually meant to be a dragon - he felt more human than anything else. Their culture or history wasn't really explained and descriptions in general were very vague. Funnily enough, there was a lot of info dumping but more so in the form of made-up words, which just added a lot of confusion. There was no depth to the world-building and the characters, I felt disconnected a lot. Also, the different narrative styles made no sense to me. I was having a hard time with the prose in general, but the jumping between Arcady's first person and Everen's second person chapters interrupted the flow of the story even more. And the addition of a third POV (in third person) later on seemed to serve no purpose. Maybe that's something that will be revealed in book 2? I guess, I'll never know.
It took me a long time to get through this book and I almost DNF'd it but didn't wanna give up, 'cause I was determined to find something to hang onto. I really liked the idea of the story and some of the plot points were interesting, however, the execution fell flat for me. The pace dragged on a lot, very little was explained (world, magic system), and I couldn't warm up to the characters. Things did pick up a bit towards the end and I was surprised by a certain reveal, however, it wasn't enough for me to wanna invest more time into this series!
Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 29, 2023
this was such a wild ride and made me question my loyalty to the characters from beginning to end - it was amazing!
Dragons, magic, a heist, a forbidden attraction between the two main characters that can't physically touch, a genderfluid main character, what more could one ask for in a great fantasy book?
The world of magic quickly had its grip on me and I was unable to put this down. I loved the way it switched between different POVs and left you wanting more after each chapter. Many fantasy books seem to cover the same areas, but this book was truly refreshing in its approach to magic, dragons and gods. It was very interesting to learn more about the way the human world worked, and how the dragons got separated from it. I especially appreciated the bond between the two main characters, how they shouldn't and couldn't be attracted to each other. Had me kicking my feet, smiling to myself, and I might have shed some tears.
The ending had me holding my breath and I cannot wait a second longer to read the rest of this series!
Big thanks to NetGalley for the eArc 🫶
Dragons, magic, a heist, a forbidden attraction between the two main characters that can't physically touch, a genderfluid main character, what more could one ask for in a great fantasy book?
The world of magic quickly had its grip on me and I was unable to put this down. I loved the way it switched between different POVs and left you wanting more after each chapter. Many fantasy books seem to cover the same areas, but this book was truly refreshing in its approach to magic, dragons and gods. It was very interesting to learn more about the way the human world worked, and how the dragons got separated from it. I especially appreciated the bond between the two main characters, how they shouldn't and couldn't be attracted to each other. Had me kicking my feet, smiling to myself, and I might have shed some tears.
The ending had me holding my breath and I cannot wait a second longer to read the rest of this series!
Big thanks to NetGalley for the eArc 🫶
January 24, 2024
Ако търсите книга за дракони, защото сте харесали Fourth Wing - не почвайте тази книга.
Това е най-безинтересната, най-скучната и възможно най-безмислената книга, която съм чела. Абсолютна загуба на време.
Дочетох я до края само, защото съм инат 🤣
Това е най-безинтересната, най-скучната и възможно най-безмислената книга, която съм чела. Абсолютна загуба на време.
Дочетох я до края само, защото съм инат 🤣
January 21, 2023
Thank you to Netgalley for providing the ARC in exchange for a fair review - I was really excited to get into this book having read False Hearts and Shattered Minds - False Hearts is one of my favourite books.
If you've read those then this is a totally different offering from Lam, I also read a lot of fantasy, so I can cope with Dragons and magic systems. Sadly I didnt think the magic system was explained all that well, and didnt really connect with any of the main characters.
The book is written from the different characters point of view, I did find myself waiting to be rid of the Dragon POV and being relieved when it was back to the Human. Those chapters just flowed a lot better.
My biggest issue with the novel is the clear 'Gender Agenda', I dont think it needed to be set out at the beginning in such a rigid way, almost as if the reader wasn't credited wnough to be able to deal with non-binary characters. It was a bit like being hit in the face with a sledge hammer and schooled in gender identity before being able to continue with the story. I don't think the over explaining was necessary. The characters are gender fluid - get over it, I can understand that from using the pronouns - huge paragraphs on gender not required!
I wanted to love this story, but I just found it slow to get to the plot, certain things were over explained and other things (magic system, prophecies) were under explained.
I sadly won't be reading the others in the series based on this one.
If you've read those then this is a totally different offering from Lam, I also read a lot of fantasy, so I can cope with Dragons and magic systems. Sadly I didnt think the magic system was explained all that well, and didnt really connect with any of the main characters.
The book is written from the different characters point of view, I did find myself waiting to be rid of the Dragon POV and being relieved when it was back to the Human. Those chapters just flowed a lot better.
My biggest issue with the novel is the clear 'Gender Agenda', I dont think it needed to be set out at the beginning in such a rigid way, almost as if the reader wasn't credited wnough to be able to deal with non-binary characters. It was a bit like being hit in the face with a sledge hammer and schooled in gender identity before being able to continue with the story. I don't think the over explaining was necessary. The characters are gender fluid - get over it, I can understand that from using the pronouns - huge paragraphs on gender not required!
I wanted to love this story, but I just found it slow to get to the plot, certain things were over explained and other things (magic system, prophecies) were under explained.
I sadly won't be reading the others in the series based on this one.
March 14, 2023
Okay so this was a very interesting and intense read.
First of all, dragons. Like you can’t go wrong with dragons…
Then the storyline was so interesting and the world building, the magical system, even though they were a bit confusing and hard to get into at first, they turned out to be quite unique and fascinating to read about.
Definitely needs some adjustments to make it a 5-star read for me but it was still such a great read!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an arc of this book in exchange of my honest review.
First of all, dragons. Like you can’t go wrong with dragons…
Then the storyline was so interesting and the world building, the magical system, even though they were a bit confusing and hard to get into at first, they turned out to be quite unique and fascinating to read about.
Definitely needs some adjustments to make it a 5-star read for me but it was still such a great read!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an arc of this book in exchange of my honest review.
March 31, 2023
DNF at 12% - too slow of a start with almost 0.1% of dialogue or character introduction and way, way too many info dump and confusing world-building.
February 14, 2023
I didn’t want to start yet another on-going series, but I’d been wanting to read this for so so long, so I requested an arc. And then, it got accepted! I dropped everything I was reading to get to this.
𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘭. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵, 𝘐 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘭𝘺.
This was SUCH an amazing start to a dragon fantasy trilogy, and really makes me want to read the next book and the rest of the trilogy.
The writing is so detailed, and just so amazing. There’s no other way to put it. At times a little slow, but otherwise I loved it!
𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘐 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘢 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘮. 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴.
Sorin was a really relateable mc, or as relateable as someone can be when they’re basically a dragon, and sorin’s a huge part of why I liked this as much as I did.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5
𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘭. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵, 𝘐 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘭𝘺.
This was SUCH an amazing start to a dragon fantasy trilogy, and really makes me want to read the next book and the rest of the trilogy.
The writing is so detailed, and just so amazing. There’s no other way to put it. At times a little slow, but otherwise I loved it!
𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘐 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘢 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘮. 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴.
Sorin was a really relateable mc, or as relateable as someone can be when they’re basically a dragon, and sorin’s a huge part of why I liked this as much as I did.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5
February 24, 2023
It has a dragon pov. That is the review. Enough said. The dragon pov should be enough to read this book.
Okay beyond that… this book has nice worldbuilding (I really like the intrigue of how both worlds intersect), two compelling main characters, and a side character that had an interesting plotline (and I also just wanted to give a hug). The romance between Everen and Arcady was nice and fit well within the overall plot.
There is also an interesting writing choice here, where Everen’s POV addresses the other main character, Arcady, as ‘You’ in the narration. It took a little to get used to but after two chapters it really worked for me
I was provided an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Okay beyond that… this book has nice worldbuilding (I really like the intrigue of how both worlds intersect), two compelling main characters, and a side character that had an interesting plotline (and I also just wanted to give a hug). The romance between Everen and Arcady was nice and fit well within the overall plot.
There is also an interesting writing choice here, where Everen’s POV addresses the other main character, Arcady, as ‘You’ in the narration. It took a little to get used to but after two chapters it really worked for me
I was provided an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
May 28, 2024
3 ⭐️ i’m still not sure what to think of this book. it was intriguing, but so bland at some points as well? the use of the different pov’s was pretty confusing.
i’ve seen people calling this an enemies-to-lovers romantasy, in my opinion the main characters were never really “enemies”. the last male dragon we meet, everen, gets stuck in the human world where he meets a thief called arcady. the humans banished the dragons long ago and stole their magic, that’s why they’re supposed to be enemies. it never felt like everen saw arcady as a real enemy. also the romance wasn’t that much present? love them being a queer couple tho.
i’m curious to see where the rest of the worldbuilding and plot will take me and i’m hoping the sequel has a much stronger plotline. also i hope there will be more dragons in the second book! i kinda missed that aspect, even though it’s promoted as a fantasy including dragons. the main dragon was mostly in human form throughout this book and we didn’t see that much of the dragonworld yet.
overall this was an okay first novel for a trilogy. i was definitely enjoying this one, although i’m still confused what’s going on exactly.
i’ve seen people calling this an enemies-to-lovers romantasy, in my opinion the main characters were never really “enemies”. the last male dragon we meet, everen, gets stuck in the human world where he meets a thief called arcady. the humans banished the dragons long ago and stole their magic, that’s why they’re supposed to be enemies. it never felt like everen saw arcady as a real enemy. also the romance wasn’t that much present? love them being a queer couple tho.
i’m curious to see where the rest of the worldbuilding and plot will take me and i’m hoping the sequel has a much stronger plotline. also i hope there will be more dragons in the second book! i kinda missed that aspect, even though it’s promoted as a fantasy including dragons. the main dragon was mostly in human form throughout this book and we didn’t see that much of the dragonworld yet.
overall this was an okay first novel for a trilogy. i was definitely enjoying this one, although i’m still confused what’s going on exactly.
July 11, 2023
2.5⭐️
Honestly I’m giving the extra 0.5⭐️ simply because I didn’t see that ending coming at all.
I thought around 80% of this book was disappointingly boring. I had such high hopes for it because of dragons, and it’s a queernormative world but the whole thing just fell very flat for me.
The writing wasn’t bad, it was just boring and slow - and I swear if I have to read the world preterit one more time I will lose my goddamn mind. I also didn’t hate the characters, I actually really loved them, it was just unfortunate that the story felt boring because I feel like there’s a lot of potential there, especially if there was more of a backstory for the characters because from what I read they seemed very interesting.
I unfortunately don’t think I’ll be reading the rest of this series, but you never know.
Honestly I’m giving the extra 0.5⭐️ simply because I didn’t see that ending coming at all.
I thought around 80% of this book was disappointingly boring. I had such high hopes for it because of dragons, and it’s a queernormative world but the whole thing just fell very flat for me.
The writing wasn’t bad, it was just boring and slow - and I swear if I have to read the world preterit one more time I will lose my goddamn mind. I also didn’t hate the characters, I actually really loved them, it was just unfortunate that the story felt boring because I feel like there’s a lot of potential there, especially if there was more of a backstory for the characters because from what I read they seemed very interesting.
I unfortunately don’t think I’ll be reading the rest of this series, but you never know.
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