(4.5 stars)

First fantasy book I've read in a while and, oh god, was it a great choice to get back to the genre.

Loved the characters and their interactions, the queer rep, the whole worldbuilding and plot.
Also, I finally found a fantasy book that doesn't make me go "oh I feel like I've read this already" as sadly many of recent releases did.
Aside from the first chapters which took a while to capture me, the rest of the book had me glued to the pages.

OMG that ENDING. I will be waiting with bated breath for book 2! This book was so beautifully plotted, with all the fun of a classic fantasy and a compelling romance to boot. The world is well built and complex, and I wish our own world would adopt the signed gender signals used here—so simple and elegant. Great characters, great story, great heart.

A ferocious beast of a book loaded with magical adventure and fiery romance revolving around a human thief and a princely dragon who must work together in order to fulfill their own wants and instead, end up wanting each other...AHH!

I really enjoyed reading this book. It has a fresh take on fantasy. It creates a world that has a lot of echoes with our own without shouting about it. While a little slow here and there, it’s generally paced well and does the difficult job of building its world with very little exposition. I’m looking forward to the next in the series.

Thank you to Netgalley and DAW for sending me an early copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

OH MY where do I start with how perfect this book was?? It ended up being everything I wanted and so much more, and I need the rest of this series right this second! The writing style immediately sucked me into this beautiful world, and then the worldbuilding, the magic, and the characters kept me glued to the pages. The world itself was so unique, and it was such an amazing take on the familiar tale of dragons. I loved that it was unlike anything I've read with dragons before.

The plot twists are to die for, and I swear the last couple chapters of the book literally left me dead. The plot was so complex and you can tell from the ending that it's just now getting started and it's going to open up even more in the coming books. This book was full of worldbuilding but in a way that keeps you from realizing how much worldbuilding is truly going on, and then you can tell that the next book is going to whisk you away on this huge adventure.

The characters are a bit too relatable, and I ended up loving Arcady and Everen so so much. The slow burn of this book was killing me, but I can't wait to see where their relationship goes, especially after the very last page of this book. I am so intrigued by all of the characters and the way their stories are so intricately woven together.

If you're a scifi/fantasy lover, please do not miss out on this amazing new series!

Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free copy for an honest review!

Wow, wow, wow!! It has been a couple of years since I read Pantomime from Laura Lam and I remember loving her writing style. I can tell you that I was so happy to receive this arc since I was so excited by the blurb and everything.

The story building was amazing! The characters were likable and man did I not expect the ending like that. I was on the edge of my seat and still am, eager to know what happens next. The writing style was as amazing as last time I read her books and I can only recommend picking up her books.

Thank you for this amazing book and the amazing world building, it felt like I was there with the characters experiencing the things they were. Simply just amazing!

Highly recommend!

*Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review*

I really wished to like this book. I mean COME ON, dragons? I love dragons. Dragons who take human form? Even more. But something didn't click for me. I thought that in the scenes you wanted details were rushed and the scenes that you wanted to pass they were dragging on. Some words were really repetitive (preterit, rings a bell?) and in overall I should have dnf it. But I didn't. I wish I had.

So good! While it took me a minute to get absorbed in the story, as Arcady and Everen’s relationship built I was sucked in. Arcady is so scrappy and the supporting characters were so engaging. I especially love Kelwyn the fence and the relationship he has with Arcady. I’m already looking forward to the next book and this one hasn’t even come out yet. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this early!

I’m DNF’ing this book at 35% which is a lot longer than I wanted to read it for. I had such high hopes for the premise of this book, but the writing style was so jarring to me. The different POV’s sound the same so there’s no difference in your head when you’re reading it. Certain words and phrases sounded out of place and pretentious. See examples:

“With dawning horror, I realized I was still in my diminished preterit form.”

“Their tainted smoke could never be allowed to rise toward the firmament.”

“Locmyria cleaved right down the middle like a pig corpse in the abattoir.”

There are more but those are the first three I found all by the second chapter in this book. I love fantasy books, so I entirely understand the information dump in the beginning of them. It’s usually necessary to set the groundwork for the book (or series) and can be daunting to get through. However, this book just lists names with zero context in such a rapid fire way it made it impossible to lay any groundwork. With no explanation for anything, it was incredibly difficult to follow along. For example, all within the first two chapters again are these titles/names with no explanation: Spirit Moon, Plaguebringer, Locmyria, Marricks, Lightfinger, Laen the Ignited, Jask, Vatra, Schism, Consul of three Chancellors, Barrow Eremia, Lumet, Blue Kalsh, Piater. As you can tell from this trend, after the second chapter is where I stopped trying to be so critical and really tried to get into the story. With that being said, it didn’t work.

I didn’t feel any connection to these characters and the writing style wasn’t that great. It was incredibly slow paced, didn’t explain things fully, and the first person POV was really dragging me down. I kept putting this book down and picking up my phone because of how boring it was.

I really wanted to like this book, but I have to be honest with myself. It wasn’t for me and the main issue was the execution.

Thank you to L.R. Lam, the publishers, and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. I also want to express that all opinions are my own.

Dragons will always be a sweet spot for me. Give me dragons, and I am all in.

The premise of this book is absolutely fascinating, and one that carries over into the makeup of the world. It's truly an incredible piece of fantasy. That said, I just did not love the writing style. This is a totally person preference, and I know it will work well for others! It just wasn't for me.

The world building on this is fantastic, although I feel as though over half this book is just that. I did enjoy the exploration of gender/queer vibes in this book. But, I didn’t get much character development, up until the very end. The romance is minimal, EXTREMELY slow burning. I didn’t feel much of a connection between Arcady and Everen. I wish there was more banter or something to give the characters more substance. I struggled to finish this. Maybe an index of what a word translates to or what a starveling is, for example.

This was a fun read, I really enjoyed the world build and the lore. Plus it has dragons. And dragons are such a good hook these days. Plus add in that the romantic interest is a dragon and human, and it’s enemies to lovers and I was in. I really enjoyed all the characters and their backstories, they made this book hard to put down. I wasn’t aware of the non-binary representation when I started this book, and I really enjoyed that aspect. I feel like that’s something you do not see too much fantasy books. And I thought that aspect was very well created and written for the societal aspect as well. Overall I can’t wait to see where this series goes.

tl;dr
Solid in-depth world building, a cast of morally gray characters, and so much queerness to be had. Can take a few chapters to get into.

Thoughts
Dragonfall is not shy about its world building - which is both its greatest strength, and a bit of a speed bump. The first few chapters had me floundering in terms I didn't fully understand, but the path smoothed out considerably once Everen entered, as he provides a great insert for other characters to explain the world to, and I found myself very impressed by the scope of it. There's a LOT of world to get through here: magic, government, history, classes, dragons, religions, and so much gender. Every added detail paints a vivid picture of multiple societies with real weight to them, and the world feels comfortably lived in. The cast is full of complex, morally gray characters, with church-ordained assassin Sorin taking the lead as my favorite, and I hope for only good things for her. The slow burn romance gets steamy in places, with just a hint of spice (so far). Plot moves at an even pace, taking its time with each of the POV characters. Most characters are written in third person while the two leads are in first person, with an interesting conceit for Everen that can feel stilted, but has a strong payoff at the end. And speaking of the end, lots of big reveals that open up possibilities for the next two books in the series. I genuinely have no idea what's going to happen next, but I'm glad to be along for the ride.

I am always on the look out for a good dragon book. This one did not disappoint. I loved the world building and the character development was amazing. Can't wait for the next one!

Firstly I would like to thank NetGalley and DAW for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review! This story was so unique and I really like the way that it played out. I had never read a fantasy quite like this. I absolutely love fantasy and especially dragons so I am so happy with how this book was. I can't wait to see what else is next!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an arc of this title, in exchange for this honest review.

A queernorm world with incredible worldbuilding and a great story to dive into. I loved the characters, their dynamics and how they evolved over the course of the book, including the growing romantic attraction between the two main characters, and of course, the dragons! Furthermore, the book has an incredibly interesting narration and uses a mix of first, second and third person.

I’m incredibly excited for the next installment of this story!

I devoured this book in a matter of days - this is one of my most anticipated titles being released in 2023, and it did not disappoint. I immediately fell in love with the world, characters, and magic system - and I was so sad to reach the final page knowing that I have an incredibly long wait for the next installment ahead of me. Dragonfall is special - it feels like a classic fantasy novel, while also being wonderfully inclusive. I am so excited for more!

I didn’t know how much I’d been looking for a book like this until I started Dragonfall, which drew me straight into that wonderful sort of readers bliss within the first few pages in the book. Not only does it include dragons as a central theme, but even gives us perspectives from actual dragons within its pages (and quite generously at that) so we can feel even closer to these glorious ‘Gods’ that L. R. Lam paints so beautifully with words.
While feeling overall like a modern take on a fantasy novel, I did find quite a few elements drawing from more of the old school fantasy types of tales so I found myself with this odd sense nostalgia and the familiarity of that created a sense that I like to call “coming home” when reading… which is where I feel deeply comfortable within the world created by the novel.

Dragonfall begins with us following Everen’s POV, the last male dragon of his kind with the huge burden of carrying a heavy amount of prophecies that he can make very little to no sense of. Enter our main human character, Arcady, a petty thief who opens us up to their complex yet not particularly difficult to grasp world. Through Arcady, we’re gently introduced to the worlds politics and general geography (which I’m guessing will be expanded upon in future novels) and the extremely intriguing magic system that exists among it all. I haven’t really come across anything quite like the magic system before and must commend the author’s ability to build it using relatively easy terms and examples in its story devices.

Something that stood out to me after reading through other reviews was that a handful of people struggled with the way the different POV’s were written. I warily came into the book because multiple POV’s are something I often also have trouble reading, but much to my relief - the POV shifts felt natural and unforced to me personally. The romance and general relationship between Everen and Arcady never really felt too forced either and feels like it was given room to breathe and develop naturally despite the now common use of the ‘bond’ trope.

An absolutely fantastic journey for dragon and fantasy lovers alike.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and DAW for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review from yours truly.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

When people were talking about interstitial fantasy some years back, I used to joke that I liked both interstitial and stitial fantasy--both the stuff that blurs the boundaries and the stuff that's dead center of its genre. This is in the latter category. It would be hard to come up with more of a fantasy novel fantasy novel than this one.

It has: a human thief whose community blames them for their family's past, who wants to learn more (MORE MORE) magic and triumph over their expectations. It has: a dragon fallen from the world of dragons--or pushed--to save his people and bring them back into the world of humans. Mostly wearing a humanoid form. It has con jobs and plotting and corrupt people in power; it has moments of transformation both literal and metaphorical.

In short, if you've been saying to yourself, "but I would really like a classic fantasy novel but maybe with a little more openness to contemporary ideas of gender," here you go, this is the thing, it is for you. I raced through it, having fun the whole way.

A genderfluid thief and a dragon? Yes, please!

Dragonfall is the first book in a new fantasy trilogy set in a world where dragons have been cast out and humans have stolen their magic. Having such a clear dividing line and then reading the POVs from both sides was very interesting. I loved our human Arcady’s POV immediately - their voice was so feisty and badass. Everen the dragon took a bit more getting used to, especially with the “you”-narrative, but it wasn’t long until he’d convinced me as well.

The plot was a great mix of character-driven and plot-driven. There were rage moments and tender moments, scheming, training, and even a heist. The forced proximity of the main characters made it easy for the reader to get to know them. Both through their own thoughts and through the other one’s mind.

I will say that I struggled a bit with the world-building. Some of the everyday terms were used but not necessarily explained (is a “drakine” a non-gendered “lord/lady” title? I think so, but I’m not completely sure). I did, however, love how the book dealt with the question of gender. Every character was introduced with “they/them” pronouns until they’d specifically stated otherwise.

If you like dragons, fantasy adventures, forced proximity, complex characters, and a splash of romance, add this book to your TBR.

Also, I am a simple human, so tiny pet dragons will always win me over!

Thanks Netgalley and DAW for letting me read an eARC of this book. Dragonfall comes out on May 2nd, 2023.