About the Book:

Title: A Language of Dragons

Author: S.F. Williamson

Publisher: Harper Collins

Release Date: January 7, 2025

Pages: 432

Genre: YA Fantasy

Synopsis:

EVERY ACT OF TRANSLATION REQUIRES SACRIFICE

Welcome to Bletchley Park… with dragons.

London, 1923. Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivian Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get an internship studying dragon languages, and make sure her little sister never has to risk growing up Third Class. By midnight, Viv has started a civil war.

With her parents arrested and her sister missing, all the safety Viv has worked for is collapsing around her. So when a lifeline is offered in the form of a mysterious ‘job’, she grabs it. Arriving at Bletchley Park, Viv discovers that she has been recruited as a codebreaker helping the war effort – if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.

At first Viv believes that her challenge, of discovering the secrets of a hidden dragon language, is doable. But the more she learns, the more she realizes that the bubble she’s grown up in isn’t as safe as she thought, and eventually Viv must What war is she really fighting?

An epic, sweeping fantasy with an incredible Dark Academia setting, a clandestine, slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance, and an unputdownable story, filled with twists and turns, betrayals and secret identities, A Language of Dragons is the unmissable debut of 2025, from an extraordinary new voice.

Review:

* I received an e-arc via Netgalley for review. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity. All thoughts are my own*

I loved A Language of Dragons and thought it was a fantastic debut for S.F. Williamson! It was fast paced, takes place in 1920’s England, has slow burn romance, and last but certainly not least, dragons! I really thought the world building was done well, and I enjoyed the whole aspect of linguistics being included in a fantasy novel. I found it quite fascinating! 

I absolutely can’t wait for the sequel after that ending! 

About the Author:

S. F. Williamson is fascinated by the way languages are born and was surrounded by them long before she undertook a degree in French and Italian.

From her Grandma’s rolling Scottish R’s and her Nan’s ability to slip from English to Welsh, to the dialect spoken in the French village she grew up in, Steph has always known that languages are creatures that live and move and breathe.

As a child she learned that speaking them meant accessing ideas, traditions and people she would only otherwise know from a distance. Her debut novel, A Language of Dragons, is inspired by her work as a literary translator and the fact that no matter how intimately a linguist knows their languages, some meaning is almost always lost in translation. A graduate of Bath Spa University’s MA Writing for Young People programme, Steph now lives in France with her husband and two cats.