
Published by HarperCollins on January 7, 2025
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Animals / Mythical Creatures, Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / Historical, Young Adult Fiction / Social Themes / Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance
Pages: 432
Find the Author: Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Instagram
Goodreads
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.
Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivien Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get a summer internship studying dragon languages, be smart, be sweet, and make sure her little sister never, ever has to risk growing up Third Class. She just has to free one dragon.
By midnight, Viv has started a civil war.
With her parents and cousin arrested and her sister missing, Viv is brought to Bletchley Park as a codebreaker—if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.
As Viv begins to discover the secrets of a hidden dragon language, she realizes that the fragile peace treaty that holds human and dragon societies together is corrupt, and the dangerous work Viv is doing could be the thread that unravels it.
Review:
A Language of Dragons is a debut young adult romantasy novel that blew me out of the water. We have a world in a tentative peace agreement with dragons cause some dragons can quickly eat or burn you alive. The world is set in an alternate 1920s London. Viv is our main character who has a passion for languages. She is a polyglot who can speak both human and dragon languages. Once she makes a terrible choice, she is recruited to figure out a dragon language and hand it over to her superiors to win a war, but at so much cost. This first book has a lot to love, including learning the various characters and twists and turns of what Liv has been told about the peace agreement, dragons, and even languages. What she knows about this new language is so sacred and essential to the survival of dragons that she puts a lot on the line to keep it from those who would twist it for evil. It’s a great first book.
This one is new to me, but I know of students I have that would love this! Thanks for bringing it to my attention.