Exciting fantasy story for older teenagers and up. The story is totally fictional, but has some undercurrent of the history of Bletchley Park, world war and political manoeuvring. Impetuous and self-centred, Vivian finds herself forced into solving how dragons communicate to protect her family. At Bletchley park she finds there is more going on than she knew. Suddenly danger is all around her. Which makes for a thrilling story. I found the first couple of chapters didn’t hint at the pace, and depth of story to come. Thank you to Harper Collins Uk, Children’s and Netgalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

“Tell me, Atlas… if God turned the dragons into swallows to make them light and carefree, do you think He’ll do something similar for us?”
What a gorgeous little book! Vivian is a fun character. A little immature, but as is expected for a YA novel, and she shows great character development throughout the book. So lovely and quick paced with some really decent twists and turns. I loved it!! ❤️

A Language of Dragons is a wonderful YA exploration of privilege, code breaking and rebellion. First off the academic historic setting was vivid and rich, I especially loved how dragons 🐉 are portrayed. I would love to have seen more about the times when people and dragons lived together in harmony, hopefully this is to come. The social injustices and rebellion are intriguing and how dragons are treated within this pulled on my heart strings.
I enjoyed the linguistic code breaking and this brought the academic vibes to the forefront.
In terms of characters, the book delivers on flawed humans and different relationship dynamics. For a YA I felt they were well fleshed out. The dragons also felt full of personality and I loved their secrets.
Overall a great dragon story that satisfied my soul.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the e-arc. All opinions are my own.

I had such a good time reading this book. It’s YA Fourth Wing meets The Imitation Game meet The Hunger Games. There’s dragons, code breaking and a lot of political intrigue and a rebellion!
The FMC is morally gray and will do anything for her family to keep them safe, even if that means f-ing up everyone else around her.
I liked (most of) the side characters, and felt like it was a good diverse group of Individuals.
(And also there’s a pink dragon, need I say more?).

The book revolves around language and translations a lot, especially in the middle part where it’s the main focus. If you think this is a boring subject, you might find parts of the book boring. I personally really liked this.

The ending made me cry, I’m both heartbroken and excited, and I can’t wait to see where this story goes from here.

This book was 5🌟
Now that’s over let me tell you why…I’m not normally a fan of fantasy but this story line had me hooked from the beginning.
The main part of the story takes place at Bletchley Park, 1923. A world full of corruption, rebels and dragons. Vivian (female MC) wants to follow the rules and take care of her sister. One night this changes in the blink of an eye, her parents are arrested and her sister placed with another family. A lifeline is thrown to Vivian by the prime minister to work as a code breaker - if she accepts and succeeds her family will be freed.
The more she learns, the more she begins to understand how corrupt the government really is. She has to make some tough choices and choose which side she is fighting for.
A sort of dark academia setting, slow burn romance, twists, turns and betrayals. I couldn’t put it down! I can’t wait to follow this author and see what else she writes.

I was immediatley grabbed by the premise of this one- languages *and* dragons! Two of my favourite things! I also just love books that throw fantasy elements into the real world so this premise really worked for me.
And yeah, I loved the dragons! They had personalities and society (though I wish we'd explored it a little more!) and were just super fun to read about. I would have liked a little more exploration of just what the world is like with dragons in it, but that's just personal taste really (I'm a worldbuilding lover at heart) and the book is already long enough so it could've just bogged it down. Williamson does do a really good job at setting up the world and its politics without anything feeling 'infodump-y' or like reading a history textbook!
In terms of the languages, what we got was super interesting! Linguistics is a bit of an interest of mine and I always love reading explorations of it in fantasy settings. The concept of the 'code' Viv is working to crack is really, really cool and unique. My one gripe would be that, despite being told that Viv speaks all of these languages, we don't actually hear a lot about them. I would've loved to see a bit more about how they're structured and some of the words and translations and how they're similar/different to English. I've seen this compared to Babel a lot, and I sort of wanted a similar depth in the exploration of language itself. There was some and I enjoyed that, but it felt a bit surface level.
The characters were a very key aspect of the story and I really loved Marquis, Sophie, Chumana and all of the side characters: each felt different and unique with their own set of motivations. I did, however, struggle a little bit with our protagonist, Viv. She was deliberately written to be a very flawed character and that is something very refreshing for a ya book. Her development throughout the book was very satisfying. But for the majority of the book, she was so unlikeable that it was really hard to get invested in the story. I do often like 'unlikeable' characters as they have more depth than most protagonists, but Viv was honestly just pretty frustrating to read about for most of the book. She was written to be so ignorant and so blind to the obvious that it was almost unrealistic at times and a little painful to read.
Despite this, I did enjoy the plot. It was fast-paced and the writing style was very easy to follow, meaning I only finished this in a couple of days. Everything about the dragons, human relationships with dragons and in Bletchley was super interesting and fun. I wasn't particularly convinced by some of the plot relating to the love interest- I honestly think the whole 'priest in training' subplot could have been cut and it would have had no impact on the story, though I did like how the relationship grew as a whole.
A final thing I noticed- though it didn't actually affect the story very much- is the repeated line "People shouldn't be afraid of their prime ministers, prime ministers should be afraid of their people". It's presented as a big, revolutionary thing but it's just nearly line-for-line the famous quote from V for Vendetta ("People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people"). I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but it's just something I noticed that I found interesting.
Overall, a fun concept and engaging story overall. I loved the dragons and the languages but wish both had been explored in a bit more depth. I also think the characterisation could have been handled a bit better. But, if you ignore this (and honestly some of my gripes are just because I'm typically an epic fantasy reader), then you're left with a really fun mash-up of dystopia, fantasy and alternate history with plenty of twists and turns. I'd reccommend this to anyone looking for a unique dragon story that's like a mix between The Secret Breakers and Temeraire (I think calling this "Babel meets Fourth Wing" is a bit of a mislabel).

I really enjoyed this dark academia/dragon/Bletchley Park code breaking story. We follow Vivien, a privileged scholar as her world gets turned upside down and she has to face her own ignorance, her society´s unjust class hierarchies, contrary dragons and more. I also really liked some of the other characters we meet along the way, for example Marquis and Atlas. It did remind me of the Atlas Six in a few ways, as we get to know more and more about this deal the recruits have gotten themselves into.
Definitely going to read the next book in this series.
Thanks to HarperCollins and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Fantastic read, and although you can tell it is aimed at YA, me as a 30 year old still enjoyed reading it and wants to find out what happens next

A very solid debut and a very ambitious first project, but what I would have given for another round of edits to just take this over the edge.

As a fellow translator, I deeply appreciate the themes of multilingualism as a bridge between people and cultures, and how machines suck out the soul out of the original message's meaning. And as a lover of dragons, I was so happy to have them here as these incredible creatures with immeasurable intelligence and strength.

For all I've seen people compare this to Fourth Wing and Babel (both of which I have yet to read), I only saw one other reviewer mention The Hunger Games. Interesting, since it's all that popped into my mind throughout the entire story, from the way the world was structured, to the character archetypes, to plot beats. And maybe that was a bit of a problem...

I had three main issues with this book. One, the technical aspects of the writing, which at times took me out of the story. This could be poorly structured paragraphs or characters dumping information that made no sense given the context (Ralph. It was bloody Ralph. Iykyk).

Two, character motivations and their impact on the environment around them. The inciting incident is a good example, since before and after Viv gave no indication she would have (or even *known* how) done all that. The second example of this is the villain, who failed to have any proper impact that made me fear them.

Three, character development. A shame, since the cast of characters could be really interesting. But just like I didn't believe or care for the romance for all they interact (that's not a slow-burn romance, sue me), I didn't really care for individual characters because beyond Viv, no one gets enough attention. And Viv could be... hard to root for, let's say. Sophie and Marquis are better people than me for sure, because I would need more than a few business days just to process.

With all that said, I loved what we did with the political conflicts, misinformation, and the historical bits (I see you using this setting and codebreaking, Williamson, well played). The weight of the global consequences felt very real, and I think with a stronger attachment to the characters, this book would've become a new favourite.

But I'm super excited to read the next instalment and see how Williamson handles all the loose threads!

Many thanks to NetGalley, S. F. Williamson and Harper Fire for the chance to read and review this book.

The premise was good and I liked the idea of an incredibly ambitious FMC, however the pacing was slow to start and the ending was far too quick.
The romance was good, if a little rushed, and I really liked Atlas.
The plot had such good promise and some things were done really well, like the echolocation decoding and the different dragon species. However I wish there had been more opportunity for the characters to bond and to make the side characters a little more fleshed out.

3.5-4 stars

I love fantasy stories and with dragons it had me gripped from chapter one. I really enjoyed the characters and the world building. I found as the story unfolded I kept reading to the next chapter and just couldn’t put this down.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book has literally everything I am intrigued by: dragons, code-breaking, linguistics! The setting of Bletchley Park was also great! In fact, the world-building was pretty amazing, but the mc not so much... So no one is sadder for my 3 - 3.5 stars rating than me. 😫

We are in England, and there's this Peace Agreement between humans and dragons. However, neither the peace agreement nor the living conditions of humans (or dragons for that matter) are respectable and just. Only the elite is able to live well, and if you don't do well academically, you are punished with class demotion. The author's bilingual and academic background made the worldbuilding flourish! The linguistic elements were absolutely amazing and clever. I loved how the author portrayed dragon languages.

However, the mc was insufferable until the 60% mark. Between 60 and 80% she was actually tolerable, and I got hopes that we finally got through to her. Then she disappointed me again, and around the 90% mark, she was okay. Now let me explain: Viv is a very naive girl who has eaten up the whole "the system is strict because we need it to survive" propaganda. Naive characters aren't really my thing, but I can appreciate a great character arc! Well, Viv closed off every time someone tried to explain that the system is unnecessarily cruel and that they need change because nobody deserves to live like this. Instead of slowly opening her eyes to the reality, she closed them even tighter because she was a coward (she said so herself!) and didn't want to admit that her beliefs have been wrong all her life. I just couldn't deal with all this, personally. Though, I should say that her parents who have been rebels contributed to this. They punished her if she didn't do well enough or if she didn't follow all the rules, without really explaining what they truly believed. On the other side, it was the same for her cousin, and he had his head straight.... Honestly, though, any other character was more interesting than Viv. Sure, she's a linguistic genius but that was all that was noteworthy. And what she did to Sophie?! Heck no! That was a low and unnecessary move. The irony is that Sophie wasn't nearly as angry as she should have been...

I also didn't feel the romance. It felt forced just for the sake of the story, which brings me to the fact that I was never really invested. I liked Viv's cousin the best!! He would have made an amazing mc, in my opinion.

The book ends with a big cliffhanger, and I could be tempted to read the sequel. I think that book 2 will be much better than this because Viv will hopefully be better, so I'll probably read the sequel.

I didn’t connect to the characters as much as I thought I would and it felt quite generic at times, I think I was expecting more of an epic fantasy which was more on me for maybe not reading the club well enough.

I did really enjoy the concept of dragon languages!

4.5 ⭐️ /5

It's the 1920s, and humans live alongside talking dragons.

A Language of Dragons has a unique take on dragons with a plot that starts with a bang. Romance is a sub-plot in this book but the little glimpses we get are excellent.

I hear this compared to Fourth Wing and Babel a lot so here is my take on that: It's got dragons like Fourth Wing with a minor romance component and the linguistics aspect from Babel but I don't consider this a full academia book. You don't have students sitting at desks attending class all day. You do however have interesting side characters that you hope stick around.

Some general notes:
- Single POV
- Romance is sub-plot
- No spice
- Morally grey FMC

What I loved:
- The dragons
- The plot is fast-paced
- Unique world

What I didn't like:
- The FMC is naive and comes across as a little dense despite being a high-intelligent academic scholar.
- The cliffhanger (played a particular Game of Thrones scene for me)
- The MMC's "occupation". He didn't act like someone who would want to pursue that kind of career.

Overall, I'm looking forward to book 2 and had a lot of fun reading this one!

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Languages, rebels, code-breaking, corrupt governments, betrayals and romances. This has everything I wanted a war-time dragon fantasy story to have, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I was anticipating I would. If you enjoyed Divine Rivals, you'll enjoy this. It gave the same kind of vibes.

The writing was engaging and the characters were realistic and well written. I loved that Viv was flawed, admittedly selfish and self-serving at times and wasn't perfect and morally superior to everyone else in the book. Her growth from the beginning of the book to the end was also done really well, although there were a couple of times throughout her journey that I wanted to smack her for being so naïve.

The last sentence of the book has me desperate for book 2, which is annoying since book 1 isn't even out yet. I'll definitely be continuing this series.

Wow, this is a very strong debut. Very creative, based on phenomenal linguistic research, and simply a great idea for a fantasy novel.

First and foremost, the worldbuilding in this book is fantastic. It’s strongly based on post-First World War Britain, but with dragons. Add to this a Hunger Games-like class system that divides society into categories. I truly appreciate how the author introduces us to this world; she avoids clumsy exposition and unnatural dialogue. What we know about the world, we learn step by step as the plot progresses.

Speaking of the plot, it's extremely engaging and well-crafted. I was invested from the very beginning. The stakes are high, and the tension is palpable. I couldn’t put it down—I was eager to know what would happen next! I also really appreciate the deeper layer to the story - structural oppression and society’s reaction to it. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you liked Babel for its anti-colonial and anti-racist themes, you'll surely love this one too.

I also liked the characters. All of them, not just the FMC Vivian are multidimensional and, quite honestly, morally grey. It works great in a plot like this, where characters are dealing with a war situation and all have so much to lose. Some people complain about how the romance is developed—or rather, underdeveloped—in this book, but for me, it was not a problem at all. I was convinced by it as just a subplot. This isn’t a romantasy novel. The romantic arc definitely adds stakes to the story but is not supposed to be the main focus.

My only quibble with this novel is that it seems to have been pushed into the YA category for marketing reasons only. Plotwise, it feels very much like an adult book. It’s hard for me to believe that a character who works as a secret agent, speaks nine languages and goes through everything that happens in this story could be 17 years old.

Still, this is a great book, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fast-paced high fantasy that feels truly unique. I’m sure it will become a bestseller—it has everything a fantasy novel should: incredible worldbuilding, multidimensional characters, a gripping plot, and valuable social commentary. I can’t wait for the sequel!

A Language of Dragons is a promising debut, brimming with original ideas and fantastical elements, but unfortunately, its execution didn’t quite live up to its potential for me.

First, I think the marketing for this book does it a disservice. While comparisons to Babel are made, I believe they’re somewhat misleading. Babel intricately weaves linguistics, academic research, and cultural critique into its magic system. By contrast, A Language of Dragons doesn't quite delve as deeply into those aspects, even though it shares some thematic similarities.

That said, the plot is engaging, and I appreciated the diverse settings the author introduces. The world-building touches on significant, real-world issues like politics, social inequality, injustice, and war. The relationship between dragons and humans is one of the book's strongest points, and I enjoyed exploring the political dynamics that influence different social classes. The dragons themselves were fascinating and added a depth to the story I found compelling.

The protagonist’s journey of unlearning her internalized biases was also an intriguing element. However, while I sympathized with her, I felt her character development could have been executed more effectively. Her gradual shift in perspective doesn’t reach its peak until about 80% into the book, which made the pacing feel overly slow and repetitive. It seemed like she never fully committed to a stance, and by the time her transformation happened, it felt a bit late.

The supporting characters are solid and fit the expectations of a young adult fantasy novel, though the villain, in particular, didn’t feel as convincing as I would have liked. This is often a key element for me in sustaining engagement, and unfortunately, the antagonist fell flat. The romance subplot, specifically the enemies-to-lovers arc, also leaned more toward insta-love than a slow-burn development. While the love notes exchanged between the characters were sweet, the romance felt more like a plot device to give the protagonist something to lose as the stakes escalated.

As the second half of the book progresses and more revelations come to light, the plot starts to show some cracks. One key example is the protagonist—who is repeatedly described as fluent in six dragon languages—struggling with dialects and nuances in communication that should have been well within her ability to understand. These inconsistencies detracted from the story’s overall coherence.

All in all, A Language of Dragons wasn’t a bad book—I enjoyed many aspects of it, especially the world-building and the portrayal of dragons—but I did feel let down by certain plot developments and character choices. I think many readers will still enjoy it, especially if they’re looking for a young adult fantasy with dragons and political intrigue, but for me, it didn’t fully deliver on its potential.

A Language of Dragons by S.F. Williamson – Book Review

In London 1923, amidst dragons in the skies and civil unrest in the streets, Vivien Featherswallow is secure the internship of her dreams studying dragon languages – an internship she even betrayed her best friend to secure. However, when the dinner that should allow her to secure this future is interrupted by the arrest of her parents and the revelation that they were rebels, hope of that future is lost.

With her parents imprisoned and her sister missing, Viv’s carefully constructed world unravels. When an unexpected opportunity arises in the form of a mysterious job, she seizes it, only to find herself aiding the war effort using skills only she has. The question is, is Viv on the right side of history, and can she work it out before she loses everyone it loves and Britannia loses its freedom?

A Language of Dragons by S.F. Williamson is released on 2nd January 2025, published by Harper Fire.

When I tell you, I haven’t been this excited about a YA series since, potentially, The Hunger Games, I’m telling the absolute truth. S.F. Williamson’s A Language of Dragons has crafted a story so imbued with real world experience and messages people need to be hearing and understanding in the current political climate that it’s almost possible to read this book and forget the fantasy elements because the story becomes about SO. MUCH. MORE.

That being said, the fantasy elements of the novel are truly fantastic. Having grown up in a bi-,tri-, even pentalingual family, the embedding of dragons into the narrative through linguistics was nothing short of a genius move. I can tell you now, people around me growing up would speak Greek, French, Turkish, and more around me and even if I didn’t understand it, emotion and intention always translated. This was a truly fantastic method of weaving fantasy into an already marvellously poignant story, and I cannot wait to learn more in future novels.

One surprise of the novel for me was my relationship as a reader with the protagonist with Viv Featherswallow. I’m not going to give any spoilers away, but what I will say is Williamson has taken some brilliant risks with her characterisation. There are moments in this book where she is unlikeable and Williamson leans into those moments exquisitely to round out Viv into a real person. In worlds of war and unrest, even the most likeable people are going to have their unlikeable moments, and it truly helps ring home the importance of intention in words and action.

The supporting cast of characters, from Cousin Marquis to a love interest, who’ll remained unnamed to stop spoilers, to the antagonists of the novel, every character is ambitiously thought out with so much to each of their stories and motivations, I’m astounded at how much each of them developed across the course of A Language of Dragons. Again, I haven’t seen a cast this size so thoroughly developed in a LONG time and I cannot wait to see how that continues in books to come.

There’s not much else to say except I think A Language of Dragons is as close to YA Fantasy perfection as you can get. This book is needed right now, and I truly urge anyone and everyone to read it, because its messages may hit home in more ways than one as you turn the page. S.F. Williamson has me in true anticipation for the future of this series and I cannot wait to see what the sequel holds.

The tagline comparing this book to Fourth Wing and Babel immediately piqued my interest, and it certainly lived up to the hype. The protagonist is a sheltered middle-class girl whose world is turned upside down when the strict elders in her household are arrested for their alleged ties to rebels. By midnight, she unknowingly sparks a war, forcing her to confront a series of tough decisions that pit selfish desires against selfless actions. Written from her perspective, the story delves into her introspective musings on friendship and budding romance. Central themes include xenophobia, war, and political corruption, offering a powerful reminder of how quickly political upheaval can push people to mature.

The book also explores the power of language—how it can unite people, but also be weaponized to destroy. This aspect reminded me of the Philippines under Spanish rule, where language was used as a tool of control. The world-building is straightforward and accessible, with the story moving at a brisk pace, even as it delves into complex topics like codebreaking and mathematics. I was initially concerned that these elements might be overly complicated, but the author skillfully brings us into the recruits’ world, making us feel as if we’re learning alongside them as they decode a complex language.

Okay where do I even start with this?
I loved every second of to that needs to be said first but it also had its downfalls.
I need to preface this review by saying that the ARC I was given wasn’t formatted correctly yet which lead to a rather unenjoyable reading experience BUT I know that will be fixed by the time of release so I’ll ignore it in my rating.

Historical Great Britain just with dragons, what is not to love? Let’s find out (I can tell you now there’s not much that’s not to love)

So as for the actual review:


The writing:
The book was incredibly well written with a lot of thought and emotion going into the writing. Despite my messed up formatting it flowed very nicely and I had a few emotional moments. The pacing was good, except when it came to the romance (more about that later), and flowed nicely.
Honestly I cannot fault the writing in any way. I full heartedly enjoyed it.


The world building:
10/10 absolute perfection.
The amount of care and thought that went into the world building, especially into the dragon languages was amazing. The languages were obviously a huge part of the story so there is a lot of talk about linguistics , which if you’re not interested may get a tad boring but personally I think it’s crucial to the story and its plot.

Which brings us to our next point.

The plot:
Look I’m getting a bit tired of all these teenagers being at the heart of a war but I also understand that it’s to be expected when reading YA.
The story itself was great with incredible and most importantly BELIVABLE character growth amidst a war torn London and loads of political intrigue. The story overall was quite emotional especially because of the moral/ethical conundrum the MC found herself in and while a reader may think she’s being naive/stubborn in certain situation I think her behaviour and growth is incredible realistic and human.
At times it cousin he rather predictable but again it’s YA I lowkey expect that and i didn’t mind it.

The romance:
For me this was the biggest let down, if the romance had been more of a subplot I may have been able to overlook it but it was definitely a central part of the plot so i was rather disappointed.
It was lukewarm and it felt like it came out of nowhere or was simply used as a plot device for the main plot.
It could have been great by all means the love interest was a layered and well written character.
The romance, when it happened it just felt very instant and then also very full on very quickly.

Characters:
The main character was incredibly well written and faceted, the same can be said for the love interest.
As for everyone else…they felt very one dimensional and as there were a lot of introductions happening at once some kinda got drowned out. Which was a bit of a shame because plot wise there were moments where we should have really cared for the characters but, at least I didn’t. Simply because the reader wasn’t given enough time to actually get to know and love those characters before serious things started happening.
Otherwise the book could have had a lot more emotional impact.
I do think this was just a product of getting everything in this book intro wise so that more can then unfold in the sequel but it still would have been nice if a lot of these side characters had been more fleshed out and given more time on the page.


Overall:
This book definitely has a lot of potential to be great. I immensely enjoyed reading it and can’t wait for the sequel. Or gives a very dystopian feeling in a historical Great Britain just with dragons.
Even though it was flawed in certain aspects I think these can easily be fixed in any coming books.
Most importantly the book covers a lot of important morality and political issues, that are valuable and I believe very relevant in our current political climate.
I think that’s what really made the book for me.



And lastly, thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for providing me with this ARC 🥹