Thank you very much for the opportunity to read this book early! I really enjoyed it. I thought the writing was very well done, and the story kept me interested. I am so excited for the next book! I believe my students/patrons would also love this book and will be acquiring it for the library!

Huh, I could have sworn I had left feedback on this novel as soon as I had finished it before publication, but . . . no review :0

I enjoyed Dragonfall immensely and was very impressed with the world building and the different viewpoints of the humans living and worshipping the memory of dragons and the Dragons, hating humanity and scheming on ways to 'take back' their lost world from the human plague.

One HECK of a twist at the end of the story! Neatly setting up plotlines for the next book.

I really wanted to love Dragonfall, because dragons--duh, but really struggled with how slow the pacing of the story was. The storyline was a bit too drawn out, and I just could not stay focused on this book.

The only thing I dislike is the cliffhanger at the end that means I'll have to wait to dive into the world again.

The fantasy world was interesting, and gave me enough information at a time to understand and be intrigued without leaving information dangling or being dumped. The commentary on gender expression is well handled and fascinating to explore.

The romance is the perfect blend of "I'd kill for you," "I'd die for you", and "I kind of want to kill you" which is all you need to know about Everen and Arcady and both of their personalities.

An epic fantasy that has dragons, queer rep, and great world building. How can this go wrong? With the magic system. I found it to be a bit difficult to understand and not well explained. I was immediately intrigued and was interested in where the story was going. Unfortunately, Dragonfall could not keep my interest and for that reason I had to DNF this one as much as that pains me to say. I wanted to LOVE this. I think the mistake I made was reading this after Fourth Wing. I wanted more dragons, angst, and combat and though this had most of what I was looking for it just fell short for me. However, I will end by saying I might revisit this when I am in a different mood.

I will be honest. I did not finish this book. The concept was extremely interesting. However, I could not get into the writing style, and I tried three separate times. I really wanted to like this book, I even bought it (don't regret it, book is a beautiful addition to my shelf :) ). I found it hard to read and confusing. I did not like how certain things were barely explained, while others were over explained. I didn't get very far, but I did not really relate to the characters very much. I feel like this book could be and might be very good. But for me, it is a DNF.

I was really looking forward to this novel because I heard such good things, and the premise sounded like something I would enjoy. While the writing style was excellent, the world building was confusing at times. There were a lot of info dumps, and the way the book flipped between first, second, and third person was very disorienting. The book was interesting, but it was a bit much for me.

L.R Lam truly created a fantastical and intriguing world.

The romance in this felt so real and I was cheering them on every step of the way, even when they weren’t on the same terms at the beginning.

I loved the three different points of view especially when the pace started picking up in the second half of the book.

In the beginning the pace was a bit slow and there was a small bit of info dump but that’s something that didn’t affect my enjoyment reading this book!

Thank you Net Galley for giving me this ARC in exchange for this honest review

3.5

Overall I did enjoy the book, I like the writing, the magic system, and most of the characters. What I'm really annoyed with is cliffhanger endings to books. It literally makes me NOT want to continue reading.

This fell short in ways that I was not expecting it to.

While the world-building is detailed and well-crafted, the same cannot be said for the characters who feel underdeveloped and lack the depth that is necessary to make them relatable or interesting to me. The author's attempts to create a unique and intricate world were well done, but the characters fell short. They felt one-dimensional, with little growth or development throughout the story. As a result, it is difficult to connect with them on any meaningful level.

The plot of Dragonfall was interesting, but it was also predictable and I struggled to pay close attention. The story moves at quite a slow pace, and the lack of narrative tension makes it hard to stay engaged. The constantly swapping perspectives at times made my head spin. I found that, while the author has a talent for description, they failed to bring the world to life in a way that felt engaging or compelling to me.

While the dense world building and elaborate descriptions gave the atmosphere of a high fantasy with queer rep, I felt that it hindered the momentum of the plot. By the end, I thought this was a pretty decent read—a heist with a scrappy group of thieves, a religious zealot and his ward-turned-assassin (wanted more from her POV!), and some good dragon-based world structure, but the beginning really dragged for me. There was a huge amount of background given to this world that just didn’t get elaborated on and didn’t seem to have any connection to the story. As a result, it was hard to get invested in the small cast of characters and it impacted my reading pace (also making it hard to follow). the bulk of this book felt very monologue-y, with characters just explaining what was happening instead of allowing the reader to feel or see what was going on and how the characters felt about it. Acknowledging that this is outside of my own experience, so others may feel differently, the queer politics and representation in this book felt inauthentic. For example, in this society, the noble class uses capitalized gender-neutral pronouns, but we never learn why it’s important. Perhaps contradictorily, the gods they worship are dragons, who have a clear matriarchal structure. (Everen, our MC is the only male dragon currently living.)

The story is (primarily) split between narration by Arcady, a thief with a chip on his shoulder, and Everen, a dragon burdened by a prophecy. When orphan Arcady steals an artifact, the two become psychically linked. Though neither wants the connection, they see how it can benefit them in the short term as they complete a heist that will set up Arcady’s future and allow Everen to build enough trust to get what he needs.

I was provided an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much Netgalley for the ARC!

I think I would have enjoyed the book if I could remember all the extra infos and unknown words. The beginning - while it wasn't the best, I loved that there were prophecies (reminded me of Percy Jackson), Arcady's troublesome past and humans betraying dragons. The premise seemed great and I thought the rest of the journey would be very exciting. Spoiler : it wasn't. I couldn't care less for the characters and their weird speaking styles. At one point, I couldn't even understand where it was going. The pace was so slowww and I actually love slow burn. Anyhoo, not my kinda read.

I am late to the game with this, but looking so forward to the other books in this trilogy! I'm on a bit of a dragon kick right now, so this was right up my alley.

First of all, DRAGONS. Second of all, enemies to bloody lovers. Third of all, queer rep. Yes please and thank you to all of that in every book I ever read in the fantasy genre
I wasn't a fan of the writing, I had a number of issues with the worldbuilding, but the mystery of the Veil, the character twist, and dragonrider thing going on make me willing to continue with the series.

Unfortunately, I had a hard time with this one. And it's simply because it wasn't for me. I tried to get into a few different times, but could never make it farther than a few pages at a time before getting distracted. If I really like a book, I'll disappear into for hours and finish it quickly.

I struggled to get interest in either of the main characters: Arcady or Everen's. They were very similar and would take me a while to get back into who was who if I stepped away from the book for a bit. Everen also didn't feel like a dragon to me - he was almost too human. If that makes sense.

The world building fell a little short for me as well. I had a hard time putting myself in it.

The premise of this book sounded amazing and wonderful and I'm sure it's just me that was having a hard time with it as it just didn't fit well with me.

Dragonfall was not quite what I was expecting, but in the best way. I loved the dragon magic system and the mythology of the relationship between dragons and humans. The tension between Arcady and Everen was fantastic. I can’t wait to read the sequel!

I needed quite a few attempts to read this book... and I only did so as I hate not ending books - this is my pet peeve for a VERY long time. So when I saw this cover (dragons) and read the blurb of Ms. Lam's book I knew I wanted to read it!
And here I am - so disappointed as my expectations were at a normal level and there were beaten to the ground with the first part of the story where I did not know what was going on. Like a student that came for his lesson after a whole year of not attending this lecture. And not someone in front of something new that is ready to be followed and discovered, but here I got a completely different idea of introducing the book - with lots of descriptions, almost zero conversations, and information that would not make sense in future events (or their interpretation would change).
Characters overall fell flat and I was not interested in any of them, main or second ones, they were well... all the same to me as I got bombarded at the beginning with a bunch of names that did not make sense or matter to me in the end.
In the beginning, I wanted to at least like it, but as much as I wanted to it was not something to my tastes. With expectations I had it did not live to what I wanted to receive from it.

Detailed descriptions are not always world building- I never thought I would say that. The writing was very beautiful at times, but there are moments where that level of description made the book feel like it was dragging, and I quickly found myself wanting to DNF. The writing also made the characters seem boring, or maybe they would've been boring either way, but I did not have a good time.

I really struggled to get into the dragon's "voice" but I love that it was used. It's extremely creative, but I do think it could've been edited a bit more.

Dragonfall is a queernormative high fantasy full of adventure, heists and most importantly, dragons. This was one of my most anticipated 2023 releases, and while I loved the concept and the style the author was going for, I did feel as though the execution lacked a little something - particularly in the world building. I struggled a lot to get into and follow this world, which ended up being rather disappointing. I still intend to continue with the series, but I didn't love this one as much as I had hoped.

Read for:

- Dragons
- Political Intrigue
- Heists
- Secret Identities
- Enemies to lovers
- Reluctant allies

----3/5 stars!


Thank you to netgalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review,

I was quite intrigued by the premise of this book and it has dragons, so it's an instant must-read! This is the first book in an epic fantasy that takes dragons to the next level. We have a dual POV of a human, Arcady, and a dragon, Everen. Everen is disguised as a human, the beings that betrayed the dragons years ago and who stole their magic.
Everen is connected to Arcady by a spell and we experience their interaction from both human and dragon POV. I loved reading Everen's POV, I felt it makes the story more unique as you don't find many books with the POV of a dragon. At times the tension was palpable and I was keen to know what happened to the dragons and why the humans betrayed them. Any history about dragons is always interesting.

I felt the pace was a bit slow, but since this is the first book in the series, the pace was needed to set the scene and introduce the characters. There are heists that gave me Six of Crows vibes and the bond between Arcady and Everen developed in such a brilliant way. I absolutely loved Sorin!
I enjoyed this book and can't wait to continue with the series! I need more of this world and these characters.

Read this if you like:
- enemies to lovers
- dragons
- genderfluid thief
- heists
- prophecies
- Queer rep

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a digital gifted copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.