Initially, I was very excited to be approved for an ARC of L.R. Lam’s Dragonfall. I mean fantasy novel with prophecies and dragons. What’s not to like about that? Unfortunately, very early on, it was apparent that the book wasn’t for me. Arcady and Everen’s perspectives started the story, and, even though events were happening—and it should have been exciting with as quickly as it occurred and for how pivotal the moments were—I was never as interested in it as I should have been. I’m just not the right reader for the story.

This copy of the book was provided by the publisher (DAW) via NetGalley for this review, thank you!

Oh, man. I had a /journey/ with this book. And while in the end I loved it and am excited for the sequels (this is going to be a full trilogy? fantastic!), this is undoubtedly the kind of story with a niche rather than mass appeal. I imagine that a large part of whether you like this book will come down to what you're expecting going in, so I'm going to do my best to lay out who this could be for and what issues might put you off. Personally, it's going on my "books I really like and am happy to revisit but that have some aspects that make them hard to recommend to most people I know" mental shelf.

This is a character-focused high fantasy story with a romantic throughline at its emotional heart. It has dragons, magic, a boatload of fantasy and romance tropes, and a carefully crafted society with a refreshingly queernormative take on gender and sexuality. The POV alternates between a standard first person perspective (this being Arcady, the human lead) and a first person epistolary (told by Everen, the dragon lead, to Arcady) with a few scattered chapters from other characters that use the more traditional third person.

All individual aspects of this story speak to me. I simply can't help it -- I love me some traditional fantasy stories, and some dragons, and unusual POVs, and seeing how gender can be experimented with in fiction, and having a good, trust issues-riddled romance at the center of it all. The story tropes are the ones I like, and the main characters are endearing.

The make-or-break point is going to be the writing itself. It's not intricate, but it's also not easy and flowing: it's blunt, often purposely choppy in style, and written as if the characters and the world's history are already familiar to the reader. Some worldbuilding ideas are not tackled clearly or are explained paragraphs or entire chapters too late, and some character actions and thoughts are inferred rather than shown on-page, to the detriment of flow. It's one of only a handful of novels I have ever read where I think the story needed, quite consistently, /more/ exposition on a line-to-line level. It also has a large clustering of a lore and history dropped in the opening sections that desperately needed to be better arranged because it kept interrupting character actions at illogical times. I very nearly DNFed the story during my first read because, in addition to the unusual writing, the opening leg of the story involves individual characters wandering around and thinking to themselves, and pure introspection does not work well with the writing style. (The writing shines best and brightest when the main characters are interacting.)

As an example of how bad I found the issue at first, there's a scene in an early chapter where an assassin character has an exchange with a noble after killing somebody. This scene is so light on line-by-line information that I had absolutely no idea what the relationship was supposed to be between the noble and the assassin or what kind of emotion their conversation was trying to convey.

Why, then, did I end up liking this book quite a lot? Well. That's the fun part!

After my frustration with those opening chapters, I put the book down for a day and thought about what the story might be trying to do. Then, I restarted it from the beginning again, but with two new vantage points: knowledge of most basic concepts of the world (knowing what seals are, what a preterit form is, what drakines mean to our main characters, etc.), and assuming that the narration would only bother to tell the reader things that the characters themselves consider important, even if that focus strongly conflicts with what the reader needs to know. And with that approach, the book suddenly wasn't frustrating at all. I was able to get into the world and blow through the rest of the journey, enjoying everything along the way.

All of this is to say that Dragonfall is a book that might throw some people with its style -- but one that appeals to me and is going to be a delight to reread later. I'm attached to our leads now, I already have an itch to go back to a few of the big scenes, I feel like I have a handle on the world, and I'm ready for more dragons!

This review of "Dragonfall" was provided in exchange for an advance review copy through NetGalley. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this opportunity.

ARC provided in exchange for an honest review - thank you netgalley!

I found the very beginning of this book a little hard to really get into, but once I'd got the world building underway and the characters were growing on me I really could not put it down. It is well written, has aspects that are refreshing and unique, and the characters are likeable and easy to root for. I am really excited to see where this story goes - for me there is potential for the next book to be even more gripping!

I can see why this hit a top spot as an anticipated read for the year - I think I'm going to have to pick up a physical copy for my shelf!

I got a free copy through Netgalley, this in no way affected my review.

Dragonfall was a mix of stuff I really liked and stuffy I really don’t like in a book, so that’s why it only has 3 stars.

The world building and writing are amazing and it really helps you get right into the story, but I feel like I had some catching up to do with all the lore and events that happened in the past, which took me out of the story at times. It’s also a case of being tossed right into the book, as to where I prefer to gently go into a new world and book.

The plot and premise sounded amazing, but I feel like the main plot was treated more as a side plot and there was other stuff going on that the author put more on the foreground.

Arcady and Everen were both very enjoyable characters, but I didn’t really feel the spark between them other than the bond that they share, but I can see how that’s only an issue for me. Romance in fantasy hasn’t been hitting it for me lately, so I really feel like others will sed more chemistry between them.

Ok this book may not be for everyone because of how its written prose wise but I liked it overall! It just was a little hard to grasp at times!

It obviously is about a dragon - the last of his kind! The magic system is really cool and we do get a dragon POV!!!! And a prophecy! If those things appeal to you, I think you'd like this book as well despite the prose - or maybe even love it because of the prose. Give it a shot if you like dragons is all I can really say.

Thank You to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC to read in exchange for this review.

I want to start by saying that I was excited to see the approval of this ARC on my NetGalley shelf, but I hate to say that I had to DNF at about 25%. I realized within the first two chapters that this book was not going to be it for me. The dragon Everen’s POV is honestly what did me in, I understand the need to differentiate the POV’s voice but it was jarring and hard for me to read in a way that made sense. There were some words and phrases that sounded out of place, or like the author was trying a bit too hard to make the dragon sound far more intelligent than a human. There was also the issue of Everen’s POV being like a diary entry to Arcady, it just didn’t work well for me when Arcady’s perspective was not also written in that style.

I think that the magic system and world system were both interesting and well-done concepts, but I couldn’t get very far in to really see what all the author did with them. It felt like these two characters had no goal or anything that we as readers were seeing them work towards. And if there was it was taking a little too long to reveal it.

I think that this book could be an excellent read for someone else, it just wasn't one for me.

This book has such promise. I will list what I loved and what could use some work in my opinion.

What worked:

-I loved Everens POV. The side of the dragon versus the humans.
-I like the genderfluid aspect. It really shows that it isn't that hard. It did take a little to get used to but I didn't find it a deterent.
-Sorin's additional POV with magnus to add the 3rd part of the story. Really adds to the suspense of not everything is as it seems.
-thought it had a strong end. Tied together more or less and set up the next book well.

What I didn't love:
-not enough world building. More background info on Arcady. Enough to make their motivations make sense. There was more thrown in at the very end but I think it needed to happen earlier and with more detail. There was too much of a focus on their feelings but I found I didn't really care about them until the end. Which made it hard to pick up the book.
-I know Arcady wanting to go to school is the point of the heist, but it was mentioned so infrequently that it felt like an afterthought. I'm guessing it will be a bigger plot point in the sequel, but for this book it just felt thrown in along with finding out that her family member wasn't evil.
-too much focus on their feelings for each other and not enough in the world and what was going on. It was so close but I found it lacking just a little.

Overall I think it is a solid 3.5 stars. It stumbled a little in the beginning but I was drawn in enough to still be excited for the next book.

Dragonfall is in the middle for me when it comes to ratings. I read a lot of dragon fantasy and I do not feel this book really did anything new with dragons and it was a bit slow going. This does not mean that the book is bad, I am just a dragon snob! I did like the writing and the characters were good, I just wanted more.

In centuries past humans and dragons lived together.. until the dragons were betrayed and exiled to a dying realm. Now humans worship those long distant memories of dragons as gods and the dragons are struggling to manipulate prophecy to find a way back to their home world.
Dragonfall is told, mainly, through the pov of Arcady, a thief struggling to survive in Vatra. She wants only to steal enough to pay her way into the Citadel for an education and a chance to redeem her family's history.
The other main pov is the dragon Everen. Torn through a rip in the veil from his dying world to Arcady's, her may be able to fulfill a dragon prophecy that will bring his brethren home.
But the two are also linked, and in order for Arcady to pull off her greatest heist she'll need Everen's help and he needs her assistance to complete their bond.
But of course nothing is as simple as that....

This book was AMAZING! Both Arcady and Everen were interesting, complex characters, and well written. Both the human and dragon worlds were beautifully crafted with interesting histories.
There was just so much to love about this - magic, two potential foes warily working together, a heist in the making, a shady religious order (the third, lesser used pov comes from a member of this sect), Arcady's desire to clear her family name and get some revenge while she's at it... and all entwined together without dropping a beat.
And DRAGONS!

If you enjoy any of these things, so yourself a favor and pick this one up.

DNF @ 31%

I have found this to be a mix of boring and annoying. I don't particularly enjoy either main character, and I don't like the "make him love you then kill him" dilemma or enemies-to-lovers dynamic that's currently being set up.

Bottom line: An unremarkable read for me, but may be enjoyed by those who like reading all the popular tropes and writing formulas.

This ticks all the boxes for your standard YA or NA book being written these days: MC with a tragic past, trying to claw their way through the world to overcome some injustice, untrusting of others, a fighter, miserable and mean, in comes a hot guy who is supposed to hate and kill MC, they hold knives to each other’s throats, they bond over time, yada yada, secrets, betrayal, excessive anger … if you’ve read more than a couple of fantasy books by female authors in the past 20 years, you’ve already read this same story with different character names in different worlds. This one throws in a baffling change in POVs not just of too many characters, but also switching between first-, second-, and third-person. On top of that is piled a preachy focus on gender choice, adding more confusion about who is being spoken of with the prevalent use of “Their” and a reluctance to describe characters so that it’s difficult to imagine the scenes with detail, causing extra work for the reader. Yet there are plenty of superfluous descriptions of surroundings peppered throughout, which can be easily skimmed over to get back to the actual story. Even with careful reading, some parts of the story made no sense to me because the actions or happenings just weren't explained, either because the reader is assumed to think just like the character(s) involved and so may draw their own conclusions about the motivations, or because the writing just did not clearly state what was going on.

Overall, I found Dragonfall to be largely confusing and boring. The world is interesting, as is the concept of dragons being worshipped as gods while they seethe in their land of banishment, so it’s too bad that the story is so lacking in originality and clarity.

A slow burn queer fantasy with gender fluidity that unfurled and worked its way into my heart!

There is something to be said about fantasy books, at least for me, they’re a lot of work at the beginning because there is a world to flesh out as well as magic systems—I get lost and I need a map at times but, you know, we get there eventually and when we do? Fire!!

Enter Arcady who speaks a spell and winds up bringing their very own Dragon through the veil—one that they end up bonded to despite their absolute displeasure. Everen—the last male dragon—finds himself in the human world, a land that used to belong to the dragons before they were booted out and history was re-written. Now, they’re Gods that are worshipped by the very humans that stole their lands in the first place and they desperately want to take it back with Everen’s help. There is only one teensy-tiny problem: he needs Arcady to trust him and fall in love to complete their bond, and then he needs to kill them so the Dragons can return.

Arcady honestly was the thief of my heart, no surprise there because they are a thief and I’m here for those Kaz x Celeana vibes! I love banter and snark and enemies-to-lovers with the don’t-touch-me-but-touch-me-anyway-despite-the-fact-I-might-steal-your-magic kind of problems! Also… this book took hair dying and dancing to an all new level 👀

And, of course, our dragon Everen who I’m just going to go ahead and call it and say he fell first—both literally and figuratively. 😂 Honestly, that I should hate you but I want you mixed with an impossible choice had me hooked! I do love me some high stakes romance!

With dragons, heists, assassins, prophecies, and magic, and a longing that had me riveted—Dragonfall definitely delivered! 🤩

Thank you @netgalley and @dawbooks for the ARC! Review to come on Instagram.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for the ARC of this book!

What a great start to an epic fantasy series! I knew I had to read this book when read the first part of the synopsis: "Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the "gods" remember, and they do not forgive." I've been craving a fantasy series where dragons are more than beasts/creatures and have a more active role in the world building. The dragons did not disappoint. They have a dragon form, human form, and a (somewhat terrifying) in-between form.

The book included multiple POVs to give a better understanding of what is going on in the world and make the world building easier to understand. Everen is sucked into the human world by something Arcady did and they quickly find out that there is some sort of bond between them. Of course they both immediately want to kill each other, so we get a healthy dose of enemies to lovers romance to go with the overall plot. There's not much I can say without giving things away about this book, but I recommend this to anyone who is interested in a queer enemies to lovers dragon fantasy book with magic. Did I mention dragons? The ending left on a bit of a cliffhanger and I cannot wait until we get the next installment.

The writing in this book is so beautiful and rich! I absolutely loved the writing. I think how the multi-POV was done was truly brilliant as well.

However, I was sadly unable to connect with the characters. There was never enough personality for me to truly bond with. The world building, the magic system, the plot, everything was done so well. It isn't that they lacked depth (their backstories are actually very interesting) its more that there was no spark in them that really made me want to root for them.

Thank you so much to DAW books for approving me this ARC!

Thanks DAW and NetGalley for this eARC, these opinions are my own. I found this book to be intriguing. I love dragon fantasy so I was really excited to read it! Everen is determined to bring dragons back to the human world which they were unfairly removed from after being betrayed by humans. Once through a rift Everen is bonded to the human Arcady, who is trying to figure out who set the Plaguebringer up to take the fall for the plagues. Will they bond or no up betraying one another? There’s some really great world building here but I would say you have to really pay attention because it can be wordy! I liked the relationship between Everen and Arcady and can’t wait to see what’s next!

I really wanted to love this book as the plot summary sounded great and I haven't read anything with dragons in a while. But unfortunately I am finding it difficult to read this book. The vocabulary used by the author in this book is pretty vast; there's a lot of words I had to look up. I'm talking at least once a page.

The two main characters are flat and not interesting at all. Although I do love their named.

I may continue reading this until the next book I want to read arrives, but otherwise this may be going on the DNF pile.

Plot: 3/5
Overall it was good, but things happend slow.
Characters: 3/5
I really tried to like them but I just could not. They were fine, but nothing interesting.
Worldbuilding: 3/5
the worldbuilding and the magic system were interesting, that was what got me through the book.
Writing: 2/5
I think one of my biggest issues with this book was the choice to write as if one perspective was recounting memories directly to the reader. "You were, you did, you looked like, you said," etc. It just really did not work for me.
Romance: 2/5
It felt awkward and there was no chemistry between them.

This book is amazing!!

It has the perfect ingredients to create a remarkable story: dragons, enemies to lovers, queer, great world building and character development, and to top it all, a shocking ending that had me screaming for the second book!

Go read it this May, you’ll not regret it!

Of dragons, prophecies, betrayal and a bond spanning worlds

The story starts out as high fantasy at its best, showing us the plot through the eyes of a dragon. Not any ol' dragon of course.
With this comes a lot of exposition dump, but I didn't mind this at all. On the contrary, I enjoyed the rich worldbuilding and felt like having something unique in my hands.
As the plot moves on, the story changes, at times becoming a mini heist, at times a story of betrayal, then again a training montage for thievery. So the middle part of this book took me out of the story many times, in my opinion not really knowing for a big part what kind of story it wants to tell.
For me the book is at its best when it stays with Everen and Arcady, as they explore (and often times loathe) their bond. I would have been completely happy to see the world solely through their eyes. However, there are two more POVs in this book, and even though the chapters drive the plot forward, I couldn't seem to care about them, sadly.
The book is very enjoyable and I love the two main protagonists as well as the cliffhanger / game changer at the end. Overall it left me slightly disappointed.

3,5/5 stars

2.5 stars

Some of my dislike for this book may just be due to personal preference reasons, so if it sounds interesting to you it may still be worth a try! I just felt like there wasn’t anything new or original here—been there, read that. “Dragonfall” reads like someone smashed together “Seraphina” and “The Name of the Wind” but without really building on any of those existing ideas that have already been done so many times in fantasy. The writing is also less enjoyable and the characters less developed than I was hoping for. Overall, somewhat disappointing.
The positives: gender fluid main character, rich worldbuilding full of music, magic, geography, and religion.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.