I had such high hopes for this book. The cover art is gorgeous and the premise sounded so interesting but I couldn’t get into the book.
From other reviews it sounds like the book doesn’t really pick up and get into the plot until around halfway through and unfortunately I couldn’t bring myself to keep reading to get to that point. I ended up DNFing the book at 15%.
The beginning is just too much of an info dump that doesn’t draw the reader into the story, in my opinion.

Just the title of this book was enough to draw me in. Dragons? Yeah, sold. I'll figure out the rest later, haha. Even better, there's a heist plot, lots of betrayal, touches of political intrigue, and some great representation regarding sign language, gender fluidity, and LGBTQIA characters. Dragonfall is the kind of story that will draw you in with its potential. It, unfortunately, didn't quite live up to what I thought it could be, but I'm invested enough (especially after that ending!) to continue forward.

The book starts off slow, with a lot of info dumping. It's important information but I do wish it had been woven into the story better. It took about half the book before it really warmed up, but from that point on it was fantastic.

The story is told through two main POVs, with a small sprinkling of side characters in between. Everen's, our dragon, POV is a bit strange, but don't let yourself be put off by it. It makes much more sense by the end of the book, and I think will be more appreicated upon reread. Both Everen and Arcady (second main) have distinct voices and I enjoyed the story equally through both of them. I also really loved their interactions and how Everen learned about the world through Arcady.

The world building is done well, but is not as descriptive as I would like. I don't need to be drowned in Tolkienesque words, but there are a lot of references to common things that aren't really described (i.e. the sweet/saltspheres) or are assumed already known by the reader. Its a small complaint, honestly, as someone who reads almost exclusively fantasy, it was not hard to fill in the blank, though newer readers might have some issues.

As I mentioned earlier, the ending is really the shining star here and has guaranteed I will pick up the sequel when it comes out. I think the story will only improve from here on out and I am very excited for it.

Somewhere between 3.75-4 stars.

Thank you Netgalley and DAW for the ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This new fantasy trilogy is filled with secrets, tension-filled romance and dragons. The reader is introduced to a new magic filled fantasy world where dragons are trapped in another dimension and trying to go home. The book follows a few main characters in a first person point of view as they go on this quest for power and magic. There is the last male dragon with the burden of his species survival on his shoulders, a desperate human sorcerer who is trying to gain wealth and power and the secretive spy priestess. There is also some forbidden romance and lots of secrets being held.

I liked the magical world the author created and thought the plot premise was interesting, however the writing style didn’t vibe with me and made it hard for me to be immersed in the book. I had a hard time distinguishing points of view and thought certain parts of the book were worded awkwardly. I also didn’t feel like the three points of views came together in a way that was satisfying for me, but this may be better in later books. I think the idea and backbone of this book is great but could be slightly better executed - however this may be my personal preference in writing style. I am still looking forward to reading the next book to see what happens next and I have hope that the writing will get better.

I would recommend this book if you enjoyed the world of Priory of the Orange Tree and are looking for a lighter fantasy read more focused on romance or if you are looking for an enemies to lovers romance with lots of tension and magic. I would not recommend this book to those looking for epic fantasy reads or those who don’t enjoy multiple points of view.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and the publisher (DAW) for an eARC of this book for my honest review.

I feel as if I went into this book with very high expectations.

The beginning felt slow and I just didn’t connect with the main characters.

The blurb of the book sounded so interesting and I think I just wasn’t a fan of the writing.

I’m sure some people will love this plot & story! It definitely has potential as a series!

This book was provided to me via NetGalley as an ARC for early review.

My thoughts are purely that. Thoughts and opinions. So please don't be dissuaded just because of one review. I implore you to read more reviews and read it for yourself to be the judge! :)

If you are a fan of Dragons....I suggest you avoid this book.

This book centers 2 main characters with another POV that is minimal and sporadic. Our main character Arcady is a thief and con artist living on the streets just trying to make it. Then we have Everen who is a dragon turned human. He is thrust into the human world where humans use the old magic of the dragons as their own and he is here to stop it.


I had a few pros to this book:
1. I enjoyed Arcady as a character overall. She starts really strong and kept me interested for as long as I could manage.
2. The concept of the book was really intriguing but just lacked some depth that I wanted.
3. I thought there was good representation for gender and LGBTQ+.

Now unfortunately onto my cons:
1. Everen was an insufferable character who I just could not get myself to care about one single bit. He was annoying and frustrating at best. His lack of understanding over everything also didn't come across well, as it only added to the confusion of the world, not made things clearer.
2. The plot of the book didn't begin until about 50% of the way into the book and at this point I was very bored of the back and forth with two MC's.
3. The very FORCED love interest was horrible. It didn't feel real or believable at any point in this story. They are forced to love one another to break the bond?? Like come on? We can't be a bit more creative here?
4. The worldbuilding was lacking here. I found myself often times lost or confused by who was who and who was important with all the different people described and talked about. I thought it could have been done a bit more gently to help make things less confusing.

Overall I ended up giving this book a 2.25/5 star rating. I think this book just lacked all the right things for me....especially dragons. I wanted more dragons and more plot!

I’m sure everyone has heard the expression ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’. Unfortunately, this book is a perfect example. The cover is absolutely stunning, but I could not get drawn into the story.

We follow Arcady, a thief, and Everen, the last male dragon, who was drawn into the human world. First of all, I struggled to keep the two perspectives straight because they read similarly even though Everen’s chapters were told in second person. I didn’t care about either character or what was happening to them.

DNF at 25%.

Danke an Netgally für den Arc!

Leider hat mich dieses Buch krass enttäuscht und ich musste es ehrlich gesagt auch bei 15% abbrechen.

Man versteht absolut überhaupt nichts. Die Welt wird nicht erklärt und die Begriffe werden nicht erklärt. Die Charaktere sind boring af, die Story ist boring af und der Schreibstil ist schrecklich. Nichts an diesem Buch hat mir das Gefühl gegeben weiterlesen zu wollen.

Another reviewer mentioned this and I think it's the perfect hook: "queer enemies-to-lovers with dragons."

This is a great fantasy with fun tropes and DRAGONS. There are just simply not enough dragon books these days.

The world building is fantastic.

Eager to see where this trilogy goes.

A prophecy. A lost dragon. A heist. And a whole lot of angst.

L.R. Lam’s phenomenal writing and world building, beautiful prose, 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 for 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.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW Books for allowing me early access to an eARC in exchange for my review.

The start was a bit slow and harder to get into. I liked the world-building in the beginning but the characters were hard to like.

Once we hit ~70% through it the plot definitely picked up immensely and I soared through that last little bit. The ending had left me unsure if this was a 4 ⭐️ or 5 ⭐️. Definitely was a solid 4 ⭐️ before that last section.

I really enjoyed that we got a gender-fluid main character, the societal utilization of sign-language, and the usage of neutral pronouns to refer to characters when we didn’t know how they presented. Also, it was refreshing that while our characters were “bonded” it was far from insta-love and the secrets they had between them did have intense ramifications on the relationship between them.

When the bond broke between our characters my heart broke at the same time. I desperately want to learn the true past connection between Arcady and Everen. I want to know what motives Ammil has been plotting to achieve. I need to know what happens to the rest of the dragons and if they will be able to coexist and allow all to survive.

3.5 ⭐️, rounding up to 4. This was my first read from this author. I genuinely liked this book. I enjoyed the premise, really liked the main characters and the LGBTQ representation all throughout. I thought the first half of the book was a little slow and dragged on a little too much for my taste. But the second half made up for that and definitely kept my interest, much more fast-paced. I really enjoyed the exploration of the masculine and feminine assumptions in this world and how the society didn't assume one's gender based on appearance alone. That theme continues throughout the book in different ways and it's woven in in a way that is both informative and also thought-provoking. I really appreciated that from this story. I found Everen's preterit form to be fascinating, kind of reminding me of an anime character I've seen, haha. But I was a little disappointed we didn't get more full dragon action. The world building was pretty good, although I think I had a hard time following for the first few chapters, but I think I eventually caught up 🤣 Still a little confused on the magic system, but I got the gist, I think.

The changing of narration types in this book was definitely different for me. I didn't know how I felt about it at first, but in the end, I think I kind of liked it. Arcady had their way of speaking (traditional 1st person), Everen had his way (modified 1st person, I'll call it), and the others had something separate (3rd person). It kind of created two concurrent stories, which I found interesting. I hadn't read a book with narration like that before. Not sure how I would like it in others, but for this one, it worked.

Arcady and Everen's relationship throughout this book was the epitome of tension. I would say slow burn, but we really never got the burn. Ok, maybe once, but coming from someone who reads 4-5🌶 level smut, it was nothing, 🤣. I still thought their build-up was precious though. They came to a sweet place with one another and in the end I was very disappointed with how the book ended. For multiple reasons.

The Sorin POVs seemed a little unnecessary to me, they broke up the story at the most inconvenient moments and I found myself skimming through them and not even really reading them. I found her character boring, to be honest. I understand she was there to show pieces of Magnes but without giving away too much, but I feel like we really didn't need all of it.

I felt like I was missing a lot of the background of why the dragons were where they were and how they got there. I know they got cast out by humans who stole their magic, but the dragons were supposedly worshipped as gods, so that just didn't make sense to me. I also didn't understand the dynamics between Everen and the rest of the dragons. Clearly there was something of strain or animosity between him and his mother? But it seemed like him and his sister were close. But what about the others? We got quite a bit of Arcady background but not as much from Everen as I would have liked, although his POV was substantial.

Overall I'd probably recommend for traditional fantasy readers and would definitely recommend for those looking for more high fantasy LGBTQ recs. I'm not entirely sure if I'd continue the trilogy, I think it would depend on the blurb for book 2 honestly, but I'm open to it! Happy reading! 🤙🏼💕

I quite enjoyed this one and the very unique approach it took a classic fantasy tropes. Shapeshifting dragons revered as gods in a dying world? Love it. Add in some oppression and authoritarianism and overcoming interspeciecs prejudice and conflict? Excellent!

First and foremost, thank you so much to the team at DAW for supplying me this e-ARC through NetGalley!

I want to start with the one thing I do love about this book: how it incorporates queer identity in a natural way. The “country” we’re thrust into has a queer society, and while the MMC Everen is a male dragon, the FMC Arcady’s pronouns are “any.” We need more fantasy books like this! If we’re reading about dragons and elves and magic and whatnot, how is it that a queer society is unattainable and discrimination is still a thing in most novels? Like come on. But I digress.

Unfortunately, that’s kind of where my praise ends. I don’t really love how the author kind of highlights the idea of queerness over and over again. While I understand L.R. Lam’s motives here, and I know the intention is good, it kind of cheapens the originality and importance of it. Everyone chooses their own pronouns and physical appearance. There’s no need to overexplain it.

(Actually, rather than over explaining the characters’ queerness, can you please overexplain the magic system??? Because I still don’t get it.)

The first few chapters of this book are purely there for info-dumping, which makes it really confusing until you get a few chapters in. In fact, I almost DNF’d at 10%, but I made myself push onward since I really wanted to give this ARC review justice.

The author’s writing style isn’t my favorite, and things aren’t described as well as I would prefer. The world building is tedious and a lot of names and places are thrown at you at once. Plus, once again, I never understood the magic system (!!!)

I love dual-POV books, and I really liked jumping from Everen to Arcady to Sorin. That being said, I feel like Everen’s narration wasn’t… “dragon” enough. He just got dumped into this world he’s never known, surrounded by things and people and items he’s never heard of, yet he’s super calm and knows exactly what to do and where to go? AND he speaks the language? It’s just all a bit unbelievable (and this is literally a book about dragons and magic.)

Anyways, overall, this book definitely wasn’t “bad,” I just don’t think it’s for me. I’m not sure that I would pick up another Lam book after this, which is a shame, because I’ve heard great things about the author. I just don’t think I can deal with another painful 10 chapters of confusing world building that doesn’t deliver.

ARC Read of Dragonfall by L.R. Lam - Publish Date May 2nd

Summary:
Dragons…need I say more? Dragons have been betrayed by humans and were exiled to a dying world. Fast forward a few hundred years and humans now worship the dragons as Gods and the worlds begin to collide. We have magic artifacts, amazing magic and oh did I mention that the main Dragon Everen is the last male dragon that has learned of a prophecy that he will save his kind. He learned that in order to save the dragons and their future is to convince a human to bond with him completely and then he has to kill them. After learning this he finds himself falling between the veil to wake up and find himself amongst the humans…and he is disguised as human.

Pros;
Amazing character development
Amazing representation
Plot is layered by reveals itself throughout each chapter

Cons:
Seriously can’t think of any, I am obsessed with this book I guess the fact that I have to wait for the next book to come out is a con ;)

ARC read provided by NetGalley.

This book had my attention from the second I heard of it. Dragons and a beautifully done world? Say less! I loved everything about this book. The magic and characters kept my attention throughout the entirety. I realized another trope I didn’t know I loved with the “can’t physically touch each other” trope. I’ll be buying this one in a physical copy asap 😍🥰

I was already a fan of Lam's work, but this might just be my favourite book by her yet. Long ago Human's betrayed Dragons and, though they may have no memory of it now, the Dragons have never forgotten. Arcady is desperate for a new life, where her past and family name can no longer catch up with her, and when she tries something desperate to enact this, she changes not only her own life and the world, but that of one specific other. Everen is the last Male Dragon and has yet to live up to the prophecy surrounding his life, but one day he flies into a storm that seems to call to him and finds himself in the human world. These two should be enemies, and in Everen's eyes they are, but the more time he spends with Arcady, the harder it is to reconcile this person with the Human's who betrayed the Dragons eon's ago. But his opinion matters little, and the Dragons are determined to return to the human world and enact their revenge, Everen just has to be willing to sacrifice the one thing he's come to care for to make it happen.

This book had an almost seductive nature about it, and I can't explain what exactly it was that gave me that feeling, but from the first page I just found myself getting drawn deeper and deeper into the story until I found it impossible to put down. Lam's choice to have her chapters switch, not only between differing POV's, but also between tense & style was excellent and I found the shift to be a vital part of the plot. Not only do our POV's show us similar events from differing POV's, but we also get to read them in a present and past tense form which is incredibly rare, but something that I adored about this book. The writing style seemed incredibly different from Lam's other books that I've read, but thanks to the switch in tense we got the best of both - the high octane and edge of your seat feeling from the present tense line, and the slow and seductive re-telling from the past.

Our two main POV's are Arcady and Everen, two extremely different people, but also two people just trying to escape the lot life has given them and live up to their potential. Arcady is a thief, but she longs to return her fallen families name to the honour it deserves and enact revenge on those who saw over her families fall from grace. She is not quick to trust, and someone who carries more than one secret that could see her killed by the ruling families, but she is not one to go down without a fight, and she has a plan. Everen is the last Male Dragon, prophesised to save Dragonkind from destruction, something he has yet to live up to. When he finds himself stuck in the Human world, he finds a fury within himself he didn't know existed, something that intensifies when he realised that he has started to bond with one of them. Both of these characters yearn for a purpose, for a place to belong without the weight of expectations dragging them down, and when they start to open up and come to trust one another their decisions have the ability to change the world, they just have to decide whether it will be for the good, or for the bad.

Alongside our two main MC's we get the perspectives of two vastly different characters. Sorin a sort of warrior priest whose role in the story is kept quite close to the vest and Cassia, Everen's sister who has tasked him with opening the portals between the worlds so that Dragons can reclaim their home. These characters, and the parts they played in the story were so well developed and executed. Perfectly timed to add the right amount of tension & deliver the biggest impact to the story. Lam also treats us to a well built cast of side characters that make an impact despite not getting a POV, and through them she shows the hierarchy of both the Dragons and Humans, as well as how it's not always those in charge that do the most good.

The Dragons in this book are both beautiful and terrifying and I would be equal parts desperate to meet them and see them in all their glory and absolutely terrified to see them in person. I do feel like the world building could have done with a tad more development, but I'm not sure if that's more to do with my desperate need for knowledge when I enter new worlds, rather than an actual lack of information. One thing I adored though was Lam's decision to make her world gender queer. In Vatra it was normal for people to choose their own gender, and no one was judged for their decisions. They even had their own almost sign language that allowed people to show their chosen gender and ensure that people gendered them correctly. I loved this and just the normalcy that Lam showed with it, not making it a big deal, rather just the daily business of her world.

The romance was incredibly well executed and I think this was largely in thanks to the shift in tone and style with our two main POV's. Through Arcady's eyes we see them come together and watch them slowly start to fall for each other, no matter how forbidden or dangerous their love is. Whereas Everen is almost retelling their story from a past tense pov and he gives us deeper insight into his thoughts surrounding Arcady at the time as well as his desires and wants when it comes to her. The steam, the slow burn the fact that physical touch literally hurt them but they couldn't resist one another just made their romance so incredibly swoon worthy, but I also adored how Lam allowed them to explore themselves and each other before inserting the romance. It wasn't too fast, rather tortuously slow in parts, but allowing them that development just made the inevitable fall all that much better.

The ending of this book nearly broke me. I can't believe I have to wait for over a year for the next book because I need it now! The story built and built to this inevitable ending, but we were never sure which was it was going to turn out and boy was I blown away by a certain plot point. Safe to say I will be getting my grabby hands on book two as soon as it's out because i'm desperate to know what happens next.

This book was interesting to say the least.

I was initially drawn to this book because of the premise. I thought it sounded like something I would enjoy. Now this book did instill that curiosity in me where I couldn't put it down, but it wasn't necessarily in a good way.

Overall, I did like the premise of the book. I thought it was unique, but it was very detailed. The entirety of the first section of the book felt like chunky world building. It felt like nothing super important happened in the first part of the book because it was all mainly devoted to building the world. Once I was past that section, I did feel like the pacing picked up.

One of my biggest peeves about this book was Sorin's POV and plot line. In my opinion, it felt completely unnecessary, and I found myself losing interesting in the book because of it. I didn't feel like this plot line was needed to be honest, and I feel like it messed with the flow especially when there would be an intense moment in the main plot and it would then switch to the other plot. It lessened the intensity for me.

I did find myself confused about a lot of aspects in this book, and I feel like part of that is because of the ambiguous nature of some of the detailing. Overall, I liked most of the book, but I found the moments I didn't like really took away from my overall enjoyment of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Overall Rating: 4/5

So this was interesting, not what I thought it would be but still Interesting. I wanted to read more dragon books and there are dragons in this book but it was hard to connect with any of the characters. It has a super fun premise and I really wanted to like it but I just didn't get into it, that being said it seems like it might be part of a series, and givien the ending I will need to see what happens next.

I had to dnf this book at 20℅. Maybe it Is the uncorrected proof, but I just could not continue reading this. I found the plot confusing and sime terms were not explained. And I absolutely hate the first character pov.
I could not care less about the main character, really.
I can see why the idea is good, and maybe it's not the time for me to read this book, but right now I would not recomend it.
Maybe I will pick it in the future.
Not gonna post this review on my socials because it will influence my audience, and I really see the potential of the book and why people Are gonna love it.
But I won't love it, sadly. Had really hype for this

This is the type of the book where...if you could get through the worldbuilding you'll like it.

At first I'm overwhelmed by the info dump and the worldbuilding, the names of the characters, places, magic systems and the made-up words are too confusing. I wish there would be glossary provided somewhere. The switching POVs between the chapters are also bewildered me, especially the sudden change to side characters's third POV.

On the other side, I really like the gender fluidity theme that author brought into. The characters are pronounced according to what they want to be called. They even have hand-signs for that! I mostly always look forward to Everen's POV. I find his chapters fascinate me, the way he sees humans and of course, Arcady. I also feel that Everen's thoughts of Arcady are really so sexy. He is so passionate about Arcady! The slow burn enemies to soon-to-be lovers (hopefully) is on the spot. I am aching for it.

Honestly I almost dnf-ed it, but thank goodness I didn't.
After that twist and ending, now I'm wondering when the second book will be out. I NEED IT!

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.