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.

Rating: 3.75

I received this book as an E-ARC from Netgalley & Hodder 🥰

Okay so the first 50-60% of this book was REALLY SLOW. I persevered, plainly because this book was so highly anticipated for me. I’m glad I did because the ending was SO much better. It did take me about a month to read though👀

I felt like the beginning of the book wasn’t set up as well as it could have been - Everen (the dragon) didn’t feel very dragon-like to me. I did get confused between the different POVs as they all felt quite similar.

However once I grasped the characters and their separate plots, once they all came together I couldn’t put this book down! The sexual tension between Everen and Arcady was addictive, and I got super invested in Sorin’s storyline too.

I thought the ending was done really well, everything happened at a much faster pace which is what I prefer! And that CLIFFHANGER??? I will be reading book 2 when it comes out, I need to see where the author goes with this!

I would recommend that you read this if you don’t mind a slower start to your books, and you fancy a queer, I’m-meant-to-kill-you-but-now-I’m-in-love-with-you trope, with a side of thievery!

I love a good fantasy, and I think this took a lot of risks, some of which paid off, and others of which hurt the book. There was a lot of info dumping throughout the book. I think this information could have been presented in a better way. I also think Lam was trying to write an old-fashioned fantasy novel. The prose was very longwinded and poetic in lots of places, which made it a little difficult to get through at times. However, I thought the magic system was interesting, and I mostly enjoyed reading this.

Thank you for letting me review this book.

There is magic, feels and action. Oh, and dragons!

The very beginning had too much telling, not enough showing for my taste. It didn't quite hook me, but I was interested enough to keep reading, just thanks to the cover. But when the worldbuilding in chapter 2 began, I wanted to read more and more. And after the first fourth of the book, I was hooked until the end!

I love the cover. It's what made me want to read this book.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who loves to read fantasy with interesting magic system, including shapeshifting. If any readers love to play Skyrim's Thieves Guild quests, this book is literally written for you. Parts of it really have Skyrim vibes and I love that.

Includes:
Dragons
Shapeshifting
Secrets
Enemies to lovers vibes

A story about dragons. How can you go wrong? The chemistry between Everen and Arcady was really good and I enjoyed the political/religious background story of the dragons and their history, along with the magic here and there. The Sorin parts of the story added absolutely nothing for me and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I should care about this second storyline that didn't connect with the main storyline until the last few chapters. Even then, her story didn't add much.

I don't think I will be reading the sequel because there are too many better stories out there and I kind of get tired by the enemies to lovers to sort of enemies to friends to enemies again to almost lovers to enemies storyline. And I despise when the characters end up hating each other simply because of a miscommunication.

So.. Where do I begin.
I really, really wanted to love this book, I had the highest expectations for it. But for as much as I loved certain things, other I strongly disliked.

THE PLOT GETS AN EASY 5 OUT OF 5
Everen is a dragon. The last male dragon, and therefore he is a seer, and he's tasked with the mission of saving his kind and either save the world (Vere Celene) they had been exiled to by humans, or bring dragons back to their original world, which now is inhabited by humans.

Arcady is a thief. With every means necessary he wants justice for what happened to his family, of which he is the last living member.
In order to do so he unleashes a magic spells that surprisingly brings Everen into the human world.

Quickly Everen understands that he is now bonded to that human, and that the only option he has to save everyone he love is cherishing that bond, make sure Arcady grow to love him, and then, at last, kill him.

How can you not be hooked? And did I mention it's queer?

I also love how you can see how Lam commited do this story. It is very clear that she has researched and worked on this universe they created. And, truly, I wish I could find this same level of commitment in other books.

THE WRITING HOWEVER NEEDS A LOT OF IMPROVEMENTS, AND GETS A 1 OUT OF 5.
The downside of this book, in my opinion is the writing style.
Mind that I read an ARC copy, so the final book might be different.

There are a few things that made my reading experience very, very difficult, I'll try and brake it down to you:

The Info-dumping: It is well known that a good fantasy book needs worldbuiling, sometimes very complex and though to read.
Dragonfall is a complex world, with a complex magic system, and, you guessed id, complex characters. Which in itself doesn't have to be a problem.
Lam however (maybe due to inexperience? IDK) bombards you with informations since page 1.
The first chapters feels like almost a list, you get 90% worldbuiling (aka why does the world have this shape, why are the character where they are, why they do what they do, why is the sky blue, why do they look like they do and so on and so forth) and 10% actual story. And more than once I seriously though of DNFing due to this.

The POVS: the other huge problem I had with this book are the POVs. They are in 1st person, which is not something I enjoy very mutch, but I was more than willing to ignore this, for the story hooked me that mutch.
Arcady and character 3 (I don't want to spoiler) POVs where ok, except for a lot of confusion.
Everen's POV was the one I disliked the most. He's telling the story to a specific character, so he talks to this person in his chapters, described every single useless information to them and sometimes stops mid-thought or mid-description to leave a message to this character he's talking to.
It was too much for me.

I really was sad to find so many things I don't like, also cause that finale.... the story deserve soo mutch!
I hope Lam went through another round of editing with this book after this ARC was finished, becouse I'd be sad if Dragonfall won't get the response it deserves.

I was priviledge to receive an ARC copy of this book from Netgally, in exchange for an honest review.

I received eARC of the book from the publisher in lieu of an honest review.

I genuinely wanted to enjoy this book. With dragons and queer normative world what was there to not like. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the writing style of the book. I couldn’t understand the magic system until the end. The story was a drag and I barely made it through. Unfortunately, this book is a pass for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Oh, how I wish I'd liked this book. Alas, it was not for me as I DNF'd at 32%. There was too much worldbuilding and not enough characterization. In fact, it felt like the author meant for the worldbuilding to stand in for the characterization at various points.

I also felt like the constant viewpoint switching (Everen in 2nd person, Arkady in 1st, and Sorin in 3rd) was disjointed and I didn't understand why the author chose to do this. Honestly, Arkady being in 1st felt like it was chosen solely to alleviate any confusion for the reader about who was talking due to Arkady using they/them pronouns.

The premise was interesting, but the rest of the book was too thin for me.

This story follows Everen, a young dragon trying to save his dying world, and Arcady, a thief who is trying to restore their family name. When a spell binds them together they must work together to undo the bond.

I enjoyed this book. It's enemies to lovers, has great disability, and LGBTQ rep! I will say that it was VERY slow. If you enjoy a slow-burn book with a great plot then this is the one for you!

**I have chosen to not post this review to any of my socials - however, thank you so much for the opportunity to read the ARC before release date**

Whilst I thought this book had such an interesting plot behind it, in the end it was not for me and I ended up DNFing at 25% in.

POSITIVES
- enjoyed how inclusive the book was and appreciated the gender neutrality
- interesting overall concept
- love dragons!

NEGATIVES
- disliked the jump between POV styles, first/second/third person found it quite disjointed
- did not warm to any of the characters
- gaps missing from the world building that I felt was needed
- despite that I loved how it was gender neutral (see POS) however felt a lot of the text made up for explaining to the reader why this was

As said I feel this book just wasn’t for me, can certainly see others loving it.

Thank you NetGalley and DAW Books for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“You dreamed of me for years, and now, I dream of you.”

This is a fantasy novel about dragons. Do I need to say more?

I really enjoyed this book. I had never read anything from Lam before, and I think it’s safe to say that this one was a great introduction.

Dragonfall has multiple POVs, including one for Everen, the dragon! It took me some time to get through the first third of the story because it has lots of world-building information and magic systems from both the human and dragon worlds, but once I got hooked, it flowed fast.

This book has representation for non-binary characters, with the main character Arcady being one of them. Their relationship with Everen was one of my favorite things from the book. It was great to see the development of their unexpected bond and their forced proximity, and how they reluctantly moved from enemies/strangers to friends and then to something more. Another interesting thing is Sorin’s POV. Her chapters were really insightful in showing her relationship with Magnes, how she’s in a power dynamic with him being the powerful one. He’s clearly grooming her, and I want to see her role in the next books and how the author will tackle this rapport (which I truly wish ends with her getting out of it).

The magic system felt really well thought out, and there’s a twist at the end that I, personally, didn’t see coming, but it all made sense in the end.

Arcady and Everen will definitely make the cut to my “Favorite couples I read/discovered this year” list, and I can’t wait to read the next one.

Dragonfall is by far one of the best book I've read in 2023 so far. I couldn’t have been more thrilled when NetGalley allowed me the honors to read the ARC. This story captivates you in with the phenomenal writing style along with it’s fast-paced plot. It's queer enemies to lovers, featuring a human and a dragon (who doesn’t love dragons). Let’s not forget the epic world building! I was especially intrigued by the dragon realm especially its mythologies. I won’t lie though, I wasn’t sure how I would like the POV of a non-human character but let me tell you, it doesn’t disappoint. This is one book that will go on my list of “If I could read for the first time again and again”! *Chef’s Kiss*

Thank you to L.R. Lam, Daw Books and NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

"Knowledge was power. Knowledge was escape."

Like many readers, Dragonfall was a conflicting read. I admit that I skipped several paragraphs, at the risk of DNFing the story. The first few chapters bombard us with information and were really hard to follow. On the one hand it's understandable, because it sets up the plot for a trilogy to come. On the other hand, I think it could have been done better. In this mass of information, I had a hard time following the descriptions of the characters and as a result, for nearly the entire book, I couldn't clearly picture the characters.
Magnes clearly creeped me out with the way he treated Sorin.

So, to sum it up a bit.
What I liked:
- Arcady
- The dragons
- The gay pining
- the last 20% of the book, the action accelerates, the chapters are short, a pleasure to read

What I didn't like:
- the world building and the information bombing
- Everen's pov and the use of "you" that took me out of the story several times. Again, I understand its use since Everest's chapters are the result of the story he writes to Arcady but it hindered my reading more than anything else
- the prophecy aspect was not as well done as I expected, I got lost a few times

I think that while the book wasn't for me, it may appeal to fans of fantasy with dragons, who like their stories sprinkled with gay pining. Maybe I'll give the sequel a go.

THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC from DAW books and NetGalley

This book was amazing from start to finish. The twist and the times and oh my god the DRAGON POV. Was so unexpected, but so brilliant! I was so enamoured with this book that I could not put my tablet down. I spent hours reading this wonderful book! I even read it a second time 😂

✅ Queer enemies to lovers. The romance fit so well within the story. It just felt so natural.
✅”I don’t want to hurt you at all”
✅Gorgeous World building(IT CAME WITH A MAP) and I’m a sucker for fantasy books with maps 😍
✅DRAGON POV

My full review will be published on my Instagram closer to release day

I CANNOT WAIT FOR ACTUAL RELEASE DAY

A tale for lovers of dragons, worldbuilding, and queer characters. LR Lam enchants in this story of magic and the cost of dreams.