A Language of Dragons Series: A Language of Dragons #1 Published by Harper Fire on 2nd January 2025
Genres: Historical Fantasy
Pages: 480
Format: Paperback
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads
Welcome to Bletchley Park… with dragons.
London, 1923. Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivien Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get an internship studying dragon languages, and make sure her little sister never has to risk growing up Third Class. By midnight, Viv has started a civil war.
With her parents arrested and her sister missing, all the safety Viv has worked for is collapsing around her. So when a lifeline is offered in the form of a mysterious ‘job’, she grabs it. Arriving at Bletchley Park, Viv discovers that she has been recruited as a codebreaker helping the war effort – if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.
At first Viv believes that her challenge, of discovering the secrets of a hidden dragon language, is doable. But the more she learns, the more she realises that the bubble she’s grown up in isn’t as safe as she thought, and eventually Viv must decide: What war is she really fighting?
A Language of Dragons promised to include everything that I love in a story – an exploration of linguistics, alternate history, enemies to lovers romance, and dragons. What it actually ended up delivering was about half of those things, if we’re also going to include the mediocre parts as well. To say that I’m disappointed is an understatement.
Don’t get me wrong, A Language of Dragons had its appeal, and I think for a younger reader and someone who is less familiar with the tropes of the genre and age category, I’m sure this book is exciting. Unfortunately I’ve read a lot of the same, and this one wasn’t particularly stand out.
My first issue was Vivien, the main character. I loved that she was an intelligent linguist and the way the author wrote her passion for languages was fun and enticing. Vivien, however, ended up leaning too far into the whole “amazing at everything yet keeps effing up” category, and I found myself becoming incredibly frustrated with her very early on. I did sit back to watch it unfold because I thought that, perhaps, Vivien would experience a lot of character growth. The author did not manage to pull that off.
The romance between Vivien and Atlas was mismarketed – it was certainly not enemies to lovers, and I wouldn’t even say it falls under any of the category’s many off shoots. The two of them actually got along very well from the beginning, and while each were keeping secerts from the other, they still managed to mostly openly communicate. As much as was safe to do so. I thought the romance was quite sweet, but of course I’m a lot older than these characters now so I was just quietly hoping they’d be okay rather than full on shipping them.
The setting of post-war Britain in the 1920’s was promising, but the world building as a whole fell completely flat for me. The setting itself didn’t feel much like the 1920’s, probably because the characters spent most of their time at Bletchley Park, hidden away from everyone. The author didn’t spend much time describing the setting either, so the characters could have been at a random school anywhere in time for the most part. The characters also spoke in a very modern tone, and I didn’t get the impression that the author tried very hard to make this historical.
I was intrigued by the dragon linguistics and their position in the world. Their history, particularly the history of dragons in Bulgaria, was interesting to read about. I wouldn’t say it was anything mindblowing, though.
The ending of A Language of Dragons did make me a little emotional, although without the strong connection to the main character or indeed any of the side characters, “a little” is all this one got from me.
A Language of Dragons is overwhelmingly average, and I’m happy for those who have enjoyed it and who have blown it up on the bookish internet, but I don’t want to continue with the series as my feelings towards this book can simply be described as “meh”. I went ahead and read some spoilers for the sequel and that definitely doesn’t sound like something I would enjoy.
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