Really enjoyed this book!

Maybe a touch too much detail at times with the world building, but once I got into it, I loved the world, the dragon (of course!) and the magic system. I liked the characters, and enjoyed their developing relationship. The author used first and third person narrative to good effect.. Reminded me a bit of certain Megan Derr books - which is a compliment!

Dragonfall is an entertaining and well-crafted Fantasy Novel that will certainly appeal to fans of the genre. L.R. Lam is an author to watch. The dragons were, of course, the best part!

It took me longer than I’d like to finish this book and sadly I was very close to DNF-ing quite a few times. It’s a good story and has an interesting premise. I was hooked when I realized that the first chapter was written from the dragon’s pov and I really liked the writing style, which wasn’t too overpacked with descriptions but still enough to get a good vivid picture of it. However, eventually, the descriptions become too redundant and too long. The limited words that were used in the beginning soon spun out. Yet, world-building seemed to lack a lot at times. The deities and social construction weren't described enough for my liking while other things were over-explained.
Nevertheless, I would still recommend the book to fantasy readers who enjoy their fair share of dragons. While I felt like some characters were flat (the romance therefore forced) I believe that "Dragonfall" is a great read for people who want a story that centers around dragons.

Insert accidental magical bond here! I enjoyed this, I think around 1/4 way through was when I started to get into it, I enjoyed seeing the romance play out.

I liked the descriptiveness of the prose, but in areas it was a tad confusing. I felt like having a last male dragon would be more epic than it wound up being, but I’m interested to see what comes next!

First of all, I would like to say thank you for the review copy, which was provided to me by the publisher. This fact does not in any way affect my personal opinion of this book. This post contains advertising and the rights for the book belong to the publisher.

Of course, this is only my personal opinion of the book and just because I give this rating to the book doesn’t mean, that everyone will have that opinion.

I was so excited to read this book. The premise sounded right up my alley and I was curious after spotting the gorgeous simple cover.

Sadly, I decided to not continue this book for a while after reaching 50%. It was clear to be that I did not vibe with the reading style and the characters. I think the idea of the gender-neutral perspective of the dragon was a nice touch and I found the concept of gender in this story very interesting but it wasn’t enough to grip me thoroughly. I will think about continuing this book one day but at the moment I think I wouldn’t like it. So far, I would give around 3 stars, because I see a lot of potential in the story itself.

Conclusion
Well, this wasn’t for me

/!\ This review contains some spoilers

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Dragonfall is L.R. Lam's first book in the Dragon Scales trilogy, which was published on May 2nd, 2023. In Dragonfall, we follow Everen, the last male dragon, as he tries to regain his true power and fulfil his destiny by convincing Arcady, a thief, to trust him.

The writing was good, I had no problem understanding the words and reading the book. I really liked the fact that at the beginning of the book, Everen uses "dragon" elements to describe some things, like "mammary glands" instead of "breasts", it is a nice addition and even though it is weird from our human point of view, it totally makes sense from a dragon's point of view. Speaking of points of view, I struggled a little bit with them in this book. Everen and Arcady, i.e. the main characters' points of view are written in the first person, whereas the secondary characters' points of view, such as Celestia's, Sorin's and Magnes's, are written in the third person ; and I didn't really understand why.
The worldbuilding was also a little bit confusing ; some concepts were introduced but I felt like I didn't grasp the full meaning of things (e.g. what are a paire, a maire and a taie?). But I loved a few aspects of it, such as the queernormative society, the use of sign language, the genderfluid and LGBTQIA characters' representation, and the concept of honorifics which reminded me a lot of the Japanese politeness system (like the sonkeigo).
The book ends on a revelation that will make you want to read the second one!

Overall, I would rate this book 3.25/5 stars and recommend it to people who like dragons, queer books and high fantasy.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC. I really enjoyed reading this book. I fell in love with the world and the characters. The story is quite fast-paced and full of little twists and turns. I can't wait to see what's going to happen next.

Another queernormative world with really good worldbuilding! It was a bit much at first though, and that's coming from someone who absolutely adores worldbuilding. The rest of the book continued in a similar way, it was almost too much information..

I find it tough to write this, because even though I really wanted to like this and it had such good promise, the fact that it dragged a bit, it just overpowered everything htat could have been.

I will say that the ending was good and keeps you wanting the next book. I'm just not sure if I'll be reading it.

I've been trying to get back into reading adult fantasy, but I've found that while I LOVE some books, others are really not for me. This one sounded really cool, especially because of the dragonshifter character, but it ended up falling in the category of adult SFF that's not my thing. I was very confused from the start and found the writing really dense, and after a couple of tries, this did not get better, and I couldn't see myself enjoying this book. Because of that, I decided to DNF.

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this book in the beginning because the pace started off slow and the world-building and info-dumping was overwhelming.

However, once I got into the flow of the story I started to really appreciate the world L.R. Lam has created.

There were once five dragon gods who lived in harmony with humans until they were betrayed. Humans stole their magic and banished them to a parallel world. Centuries later, humans have forgotten what happened, but dragons haven't and are desperate for revenge.

One of our main characters is Arcady, a thief who is seeking revenge on behalf of their family. While casting a spell to steal a magical artifact, they accidentally pull Everen, the last male dragon, into the human world and find they have been bonded together through magic.

Everything about this book intrigued me. I loved the atmosphere, the magic system, and the enemies-to-lovers romance. It has lots of queer rep too.

Usually when I read a fantasy book featuring dragons, I expect the dragons to feel animalistic, however, in this book, they felt more human so I think it's important to have that expectation going in.

Definitely interested in continuing the series!

4.75/5⭐️
Uhm WHAT?! First of all I’m going to need the second book ASAP after that ending.
If one could not tell by my rating, I absolutely loved this book from beginning to end! I can honestly not remember when I last read a fantasy book with dragons in it, so that was immediately a win for me. What I also loved was that the dragons were actual characters and not only magical creatures featured in the story. One of the main characters, Everen, my favorite, is actually a dragon, although he appears in human form for most the book.
The beginning was a bit of a slow star, but around the 100/150 page mark the pacing picked up quite a bit and I kept turning and turning the pages, which led me to devour this book in the span of two days.
As I already mentioned I really loved Everen, the dragon character. His chapters were always so interesting, especially when we were learning more about his dragon life. What was also quite interesting, was how in his chapters, when talking about Arcady, the other main character, he referred to them as you. I also always enjoy a good heist story and characters that are thieves and criminals, like Arcady.
Arcady and Everen together also had an interesting dynamic and I found myself shipping them quite quickly :)
Another thing worth mentioning is the amazing LGBTG+ representation and overall diversity of this novel. Arcady is non binary, a queer love story is a sub plot of the story and there’s nonverbal and hard of hearing representation. The general world is also really cool to read about, the way gender is talked about and how a person who’s pronouns are not known are just referred to as they.
Towards the end the book it also became pretty action heavy, which I always love.
All of these factors combined made for a really great start to a trilogy I’m more than looking forward to continuing!

This is a great fantasy. I loved the magic system and the storyline was so well done with a great pacing. Not whirlwind YA rushing through the story but not too slow.
I enjoyed the romance as well. The tension!!! So good.
I loved the attitude to gender norms as well. It wasn’t over explained or forced. A non binary MC! So effortless. Just how it should be. I was very grateful for this.

I love a good queer fantasy. Throw in some dragons and you have me hooked! This book has all the elements you need in a fantasy:

🐲 enemies to lovers
🐲 fallen dragon angel
🐲 gender-fluid thief
🐲 forced proximity
🐲 slow-burn

I’ve adored exploring this stunning new fantasy world. The world-building is intricate, and was a little overwhelming at first. Once I got a few more chapters in, everything became clear and I started to appreciate the author’s style. The queer-normative world is wonderful, and there are so many inclusive elements and characters. I’m a sucker for a good magic system, and I feel like there were so many interesting threads to unravel. The enemies to lovers dynamic is a serve, and y’all know I only approve romances that are slow-burn, so sign yourself up for this if you like those elements too!

I will admit that it took me a while to get through this book as I felt like there was a lot going on at times. I really did enjoy the conclusion to the book, which made up for it.

I loved the genderfluid rep and how seamlessly queer identities fit into the world. I would recommend this to anyone that loves queer fantasy and dragons!

It's not often I don't finish or like a book from Hodder & Stoughton, but for some reason I just could not get in to this. It took me weeks to get to around 20% of the book, I was just never engaged in it - any time I put the book it took me forever to pick it up, and reading a page felt like I had read 10.

I'm not sure if it was the writing style that just failed to grip me? I've seen similar reviews from friends who couldn't get in to this book / pushed further than me and only began to enjoy it near the end. For that reason, I am sad that this book was archived (and therefore my access was revoked on the netgalley app, as it expired) because I would've attempted to push through further in to the book.

Unfortunately though, for now this book is a DNF although I may come back to it in the future - if so, I will revise my rating and review.

I picked this up because of one thing - dragons! Thankfully this did not disappoint. Action packed, fantasy filled adventure that will take your breath away - brilliant!

I loved this book so so much.

The world-building (buildings plural?) was fantastic, and I love that we got this from both the magical fantasy element but also the cultural element too with the multiple discussions on how gender is approached in this world (which was just so simple and yet so groundbreaking and innovative?)

One of my favourite things about this book was the chapter structures. I quite often struggle to switch between POV's when they're all from the same perspective, and so giving Arcady 1st person and Everen 2nd, and then the side characters 3rd worked beautifully and really added to each person's individuality and helped me connect with the characters so much more.

I really enjoyed the character development too, both as Arcady (slowly) begins to trust more and reveal more of themselves (Arcady is a damaged little baby and must be protected at all costs) and as Everen really fought against his feelings but couldn't help them in the end, and then the relationship between the two of them as this grew and changed throughout the book too.

Some of my favourite tropes are magical bonds and mind-speak so I was slightly obsessed with the entirety of this book. I now need the second one pronto.

Me llamó mucho la atención Dragonfall desde que se anunció en su momento, con una sinopsis interesante sobre dragones convertidos en dioses que podrían volver al mundo humano en cualquier momento.


Por desgracia, el libro me ha parecido bastante lento. De los dos puntos de vista, es más arriesgado el del dragón Everen porque se refiere a Arcady con una segunda persona que pretende focalizar en el lector la narración, pero no sé si la jugada le sale bien. La parte de Arcady es mucho más convencional, está bien construida pero tampoco consigue captar totalmente nuestra atención, con algunos problemas de ritmo bastante patentes.

Diría que la peor parte de la novela, muy a mi pesar, es cuando se pasan literalmente capítulos y capítulos leyendo libros. Mira que me encanta leer, pero leer sobre gente que está leyendo, que ni siquiera comentan lo que está leyendo, es un poco frustrante. Vale que para llevar a cabo el timo que pretenden realizar se necesitan ciertos conocimientos y no hay otra forma de que Everen se ponga al día, pero para algo se han inventado las elipsis y otros recursos estilísticos.

La relación entre ambos también se ve un poco forzada. La creación de la unión entre ambos es rocambolesca, pero es que la consolidación de este vínculo tampoco es una maravillas.

Un punto bastante positivo de la novela es el tratamiento de los personajes no binarios y el género. Entiendo que la autora hace especial hincapié en este punto sobre todo en algunos pasajes del libro y es un detalle muy de agradecer.

Es cierto que la autora se ha guardado algunas cartas bajo la manga que consiguen despertar algo más de interés en el último tercio de la novela, pero no sé si compensa el aburrimiento de la otra parte. Esperaba más de una historia donde se combinan magia, dragones y ladrones, pero me he quedado bastante chafada con el resultado.

ok worldbuilding, fun premise, perhaps a little too detailed. i'm a high fantasy lover but this was not the one for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book for review!

I admit this was an easy sell to me: a thief with secrets and banished dragons with secrets??

The world was built very well, with the reader learning along with Everen during his POV chapters, but with context being added in Arcady's.
I quickly became invested with Arcady's mission, with their shape shifting being an exhaustive use of magic for them to just get by and needing to lie about who they are constantly due to nothing they'd done, but because of their family line. At first, I admit, I thought Arcady was being a bit naive in thinking their grandparent truly innocent but clearly human history in this world has been warped many times over.

Perhaps none more than with dragons! Imagine worshipping the beings you banished to another world. I understand Everen's early disdain for humans, though they are also not the easiest to like initially. But he has flaws, along with Arcady, that sometimes I was just willing them to be honest with each other (but where would the story be then?)

For the first in a new fantasy series, I found it very easy to pick up the world, and really loved the use of sign language throughout, sometimes used to provide context to what is spoken (this reminds me of thieves cant in DnD which I loved, though I imagine potentially unintentional).

The spark of romance was fine, though there was a lot of dread considering all the secrets and subterfuge.

As a nonbinary person though, I do have a lot of envy towards Arcady (they don't use the term, they predominantly use they/them pronouns but state they use any pronouns when introduced to Everen)

First book I've read by this author but I definitely look forward to the next in this series

I was really really excited for this. There had been so much hype surrounding the book.... Gay Romance with dragons.... Whats not to love?
But honestly, I just felt like it fell short for me and I actually found it boring.
Compared to the likes of Fourth wing which have also been released recently, I felt the hype wasn't earned for this book like fourth wing was. I feel like if you're going to write about dragons, make them epic and make them interesting. Unfortunately I didn't feel like this book did these things and I just didn't enjoy it.