I was immediately drawn into A Language of Dragons. S.F.Williamson's world building was spectacular directly off the bat and I really enjoyed the character development throughout the novel and the mix of history and language science was a unique mix in a fantasy book.

I was drawn to A Language of Dragons because the idea of Babel mixed with dragons in a WWII-esque setting sounded like one of my favourite concepts ever for a book. I'm fascinated by the linguistics and translation and more scientific elements of the story. And it was interesting to see this investigated through a fantasy lens. This is where some of the Babel comparison comes in. The plot is fast-paced and kept me engaged throughout, and I really was invested in Vivian's journey as she comes to understand herself and those around her. The romance was sweet but underdeveloped, and I think this is part of where the more YA feel comes from. It just overall felt a bit immature, especially because Vivian is a little big hard to root for. She is pretty consistently making selfish choices and putting her family first regardless of the consequences for the majority. Which the reader can deduce early on is not what her parents would have wanted. She quite cowardly for a large chunk of the story. I really liked the themes of rebellion and corruption, too, and I will probably still read on to see where the plot goes in the next installment.

If the concept of codebreaking crossed with dragons appeals to you, I would definitely recommend. 3.5 stars.

P.S. SPOILER

Did the ending remind anyone else of the ending of Catching Fire?

Dragons and translation, and the comparisons to Fourth Wing and Babel are what drew me into this book initially. Great plot and character development throughout the book, and I enjoyed the world and dark academia vibes a lot! However, I think the comparisons to some of my favorite books made it such that my expectations were high, and thus the book overall was a bit underwhelming. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for review!

There is a lot to like about A Language of Dragons. The premise of Bletchley Park but with Dragons is a fantastic base and the undertones of social justice wrapped in fantasy elements is always a winner for me. However, Vivian is unlikeable, which is understandable as she seems to dislike herself, and the structure is heavy handed and overly highlights how it hits on certain beats through repetitious descriptions of thought. I did read more images in a day than I have in quite a while though, so even with those criticisms it clearly strikes a chord.

Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is set in an alternate London in 1923 where Dragons and airplanes fight for airspace.
Ok, let’s pause…I had no clue it was set in an alternate London. I didn’t understand how there were references to real locations and historical events, but there were dragons and a war between dragons and humans and a massacre where Bulgaria was completely destroyed by Dragons.

I put the book down for weeks. The description on Goodreads does not explain that it’s an alternate world so I couldn’t get into the story.

Then a friend told me it was an alternate world and I read the blurb on Amazon which states:
“In an alternate London in 1923, one girl accidentally breaks the tenuous truce between dragons and humans in this sweeping debut and epic retelling of Bletchley Park steeped in language, class, and forbidden romance. Perfect for teen fans of Fourth Wing and Babel.”
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Once my brain was rewired, I finally finished A Language of Dragons last weekend.

There are some major holes in visualization and practicality (like they are just having a conversation while trees are on fire and literal dragons are falling out of the sky feet away from them).

I also felt like it was way too long and dragged often. There was too much focus on the actual language they were trying to decipher. And the love interest was not believable.
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It was interesting enough that I will probably read the next one when it releases.

I think I'd give this a solid 3.5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read and review A Language of Dragons!

A peace act between dragons and humans. Where they are to live in peace. The humans are placed into 3 classes, after they take the examination. Not everyone is in agreement of this peace act and they've formed a Human Dragon Coalition, the rebels.

Our main POV, Vivian, is linguistic. She has learned not only many human tongues, but dragon tongues as well. All she wants to do is better her learnings and work for her Prime Minister when her world is shattered and her family is hauled away to prison for working with the rebels. She comes up with a plan to burn all her parents work but is caught in the process and taken to work for the DDAD to understand a new form of dragon tongue, called echolocation.

As she dives deeper into her learnings, she learns more than she's ever expected... With a war on the horizon, Viv must choose what side she's on.


Posted to Goodreads, Fable, and Storygraph

A fascination with languages led Williamson to a degree in linguistics. A love of writing, which began at age six, has now culminated in her debut novel,

A Language of Dragons. Set in an alternate 1023 England, a world between wars, Earth's dinosaurs have become sentient dragons. The presence of these two sentient species has drastically altered history. Britain has a large immigrant population of refugees from a dragon occupation of Bulgaria. The protagonist, Vivian Featherswallow, is the daughter of a refugee mother and a British father, both academics and both Second Class citizens. Society is divided into First, Second, and Third Classes, a system much like the racism of our world.

Vivian's safe world shatters when the Guardians, enforcers in this world, raid her home, arresting her parents and cousin in a "shock and awe" operation that leaves Vivian distraught. An impulsive act results in the release of a dragon, and her subsequent exile to Bletchley Park, where she is assigned the role of codebreaker. Williamson's descriptions of the setting and the work done at Bletchley Park closely mirror the real events of our world, with one key difference: the characters are young adults thrust into a high-stakes academic environment where failure means death.

Every conflict has two sides. Vivian's journey is one of self-actualization, where choices are fraught with doubt and tension. Ending on a cliffhanger, Williamson is currently writing a sequel, slated for release in January 2026.

Full disclosure: I received this novel from NetGalley and HarperCollins in exchange for an unbiased review.

This book had such promise and fell so flat.
First of all, if you're going to write an alternative 1923, I still need enough details (besides the absence of modern technology) to know it's 1923. Otherwise why write an alternative anything? Just don't pick a time period. All I got was a beaded gown or two at a Christmas Ball.
A Christmas ball which for some reason felt like a rip off of Harry Potter when it came hot on the heels of healing broken arm over a couple days in the sick ward with a magical bottle of dragon stuff...
Aside from that, the first part of the book was great but suddenly when the plot needed to move forward, it went in leaps and bounds that required suspension of logical steps in characters' motivations.
My biggest problem of all was the author's continuing misuse of the concept of "synonyms" in trying to crack the dragon language code. The author just kept saying that the dragons were making calls that sounded the same but clearly meant something different and her big breakthrough was that they must be synonyms! This is blatantly not the definition of synonym. Synonyms are different words with the same meaning. Homonyms are words that sound the same but mean something different. I couldn't get over the fact that no one on editing made this call.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of A Language of Dragons by S. F. Williamson in exchange for an honest review. I really loved how in depth Williamson got on all the different languages and dialects the dragons had and the studying of their echolocation. Of course there was a whole story happening around that with war, politics and love, but I found myself focused mostly on the dragons. I liked this book and would recommend it.

London? historical? dark academia? mystery? DRAGONS?!!?!? This was a wild ride.
This had so much rich to it that it felt like a magical realism fantasy with a historical fiction setting. It didn't like a debut! I can tell the author put a lot of time and effort into this book like the quirkiness of the 1920's. This reminded me more of peaky blinders with dragons and a little bit of legend! I don't think comparing this to Babel or Fourth Wing did this author justice! Thank you so much S.F. Williamson, publisher, and Netgalley!
Side note: the arc I received didn't have a map or cover I don't if that was meant to happen but the actual cover looks great!

Dragons in an alternate WWII reality with an emphasis on the scholarly side? This book sounded immensely cool and I was certain I would love it. It started off really strong but once I got to the scholarly aspects, the story really started to drag and didn’t pick up until the last 20% or so.

I was intrigued by the politics and the rebellion, but there’s only telling and no showing of this up until the end, which left me feeling like I was an outsider looking in instead of being in the midst of the revolution.

There was a heavy focus on the main character learning to read and understand echolocation patterns of dragons. Unfortunately this was very dull and uninteresting to me personally. The dragons didn’t have the presence in the story that I expected and just felt like this minor background detail.

My biggest concern though is the main character herself. As a reader who loooves a well written flawed character, Viv is well past being flawed and just straight unlikable for the majority of the book. Her selfishness and unwillingness to see other people’s pov made it hard for me to follow her. And I understand that this is part of her journey, and is necessary for us to see her inner struggles, I do. It was just hard for me as a reader to go through that journey alongside her and watch her make all the wrong mistakes before righting them.

All in all, this was a pretty good book and well written, I think a lot of people will end up really loving it. I liked the way the story ended and will be interested to see where things go in the next book.

I absolutely LOVED this story! I cannot praise it highly enough. I actually loved this one more than "that other dragon book" that everyone is also reading right now and that says a lot. The book starts with a dystopian society with rigid classes and virtually no mobility. We immediately begin to see the cracks in the society that is around them and the discontent brewing in society. Our main protagonist works to translate and understand dragons and communication which would open a new world for them and drastically alter their society forever.

Just ordered myself a pretty copy and cannot wait for the next installment. Thank you for providing this copy for me to read and review.

I loved that it jumped right into the action of the story within the first chapter. Even with this early action the world building and care the for the characters as a reader was well done. The political view point drug on a little long towards the end where I felt myself not caring as much about the story as I had anticipated the outcome. But overall I enjoyed the different perspective adding a heavy political view that can be very similar to what we are dealing with in US political views today.

It was difficult at first to accept an alternate universe where dragons exist alongside humans and were present during WWI, but eventually I stopped asking questions. Vivien Featherswallow straddled the line of being a morally gray character and being completely unlikable. She’s selfish and I think that’s definitely more realistic. Her romance with Atlas was probably the weakest part of the book though. Also, would have liked more of her actually SPEAKING to dragons since she is a polyglot translator.

I am slowly getting into fantasy reads and this seemed like a good book to start with. It is geared towards young/new adults but that does not work against the book in any way. It kept me engaged and intrigued.

This could’ve been a 5 star with such a unique premise — who wouldn’t want to study dragon languages?! And there were a lot of really astute observations about the nature of words conveying multiple meanings, which makes sense, given the author herself is a literary translator. Not to mention, observations on classism and privilege. That said, it’s hard to root for such a consistently cowardly FMC and the repetitively self-serving nature of Viv’s inner monologue brought my enjoyment level down. (Yes, I know, *character development.*) I will continue the series because I did get pretty invested in those dragons. 😁

#ALanguageofDragons #NetGalley

Maybe because the main character’s name, Vivien Featherswallow eerily sounded similar to THAT book’s main character, Violet Sorrengail.

Maybe because after the action packed heart pounding initial chapter the subsequent chapters were tepid in comparison

Maybe because the talents that were to honed other than Vivian’s were not as interesting.

Together all these maybes added up to a ‘ did not care for this read’.

This ARC was provided by the publisher, HarperCollins Children’s Books , via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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My first fantasy read and I absolutely loved it. I was engulfed in the world of the dragons and the world building was easy to catch on to and learn. thank you neutrally and publisher for letting me read an advanced copy

If fourth wing and babel had a baby you would have this book. This was such a unique story that felt so refreshing. I really enjoyed the plot and watching the mysteries of this world unfold. The hint of romance was the perfect amount.

I was eager to dive into A Language of Dragons and it didn’t disappoint!
The blend of fantasy, intrigue, and linguistics was fascinating!
and the world-building was top notch!
While the pacing slowed at times, the beautifully woven narrative kept me hooked.
A fantastic read and I can’t wait to see what Williamson writes next!