A Language of Dragons coming January 7th, 2025 from HarperCollins Children’s Books; 480 pages
Content Warning: War, violence, blood, death, abuse, discussion of genocide, implied sexual violence
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” (Bio from author’s Goodreads profile).
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In A Language of Dragons, dragons and humans must coexist, and after a massacre in Bulgaria by the native dragons, the Peace Agreement is written for the British Isles which limits the freedom of both dragons and humans in an effort to coexist amicably. Vivian Featherswallow is a member of London’s Second Class, and the only thing standing in between her and the maltreated Third Class in a society that only values usefulness is her academic work. The perfect ending to her family’s upcoming dinner party will be her acceptance into an internship studying dragon languages. However, her parents and uncle are arrested for rebel support, her cousin is detained, and her little sister is put in danger. After failing to free them and kickstarting a civil war, Vivian is assigned to break the secret code of dragons by the British Prime Minister, or her entire family will be killed.
I do not often dive into dark academia, but dragons in an alternate version of London was something I couldn’t pass up. I loved the focus on language, on translating and linguistics. I especially liked that there were several spoken tongues that the dragons had developed, just like how humans have many distinct languages. A lot of the book also focused on the implemented class system, which consists of three human classes that are drastically separated—even down to the areas that they are allowed to live in. I found it interesting that citizens wore passes that dictated their class and that promotions and demotions between Class Two and Three commonly occurred due to an academic examination, but that this was hardly the same for Class One, the elite. Dragons are essentially a fourth class and are heavily restricted by humans, which I found ironic considering that they are also known to be ferocious beasts. I found the theme that if not all have peace, then no one has peace, to be an intriguing aspect that added depth to the story. Vivian was the perfect narrator; she has a competitive personality that stems from the fervent need for her to be top in her field of study. She begins as a very naive character, and her development is slow, which I think portrays a realistic progression for someone who has steadfastly believed something to be true all their life. I now can’t wait for the sequel of this duology.
A Language of Dragons releases on January 7th, 2024.
Pine Reads Review would like to thank SparkPoint Studio and HarperCollins for sending us an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change before final publication.
Hannah Goerndt, Pine Reads Review Writer