‘The ones who have hoards don’t need to work, but the ones who don’t, well …’
Hoards. Like piles of gold or money. Why do dragons need money? They don’t shop for groceries or pay bills. It hits me that, in all my years learning dragon tongues, I’ve never questioned how dragons fit into our human society. [p. 180]
London, 1923, where there's a Peace Agreement between the British government and the Dragon Queen; where some dragons fought in the Great War alongside humans, but others massacred the entire human population of Bulgaria; where Vivien Featherswallow, seventeen years old and the daughter of respectable Second Class parents, will stop at nothing to ensure that she can continue her studies in dragon linguistics, and prevent her little sister from ever being demoted to Third Class.
The novel opens with Viv trying to impress the Chancellor of the Academy for Draconic Linguistics -- but it turns out her parents aren't so respectable after all, and by midnight they're in prison, Viv's in custody, and a coup d'etat is in progress.
Then the Prime Minister offers Viv a job at Bletchley Park, at the Department for the Defence Against Dragons (which seems to employ only teenagers with shadowy pasts). Viv's job is in the Codebreaking team, but it's actually more dragon linguistics. One of her colleagues is a former friend who Viv betrayed: another is a would-be priest. Romance! Melodrama! A teenager with a history of bad decisions in a position to affect the lives of thousands! What could possibly go wrong?
I'd have enjoyed this more if Viv had been a more relatable character, though I do applaud the author's portrayal of a flawed, impulsive young woman who's only gradually acquiring the ability to reflect on her actions and take responsibility for their consequences. The intricacies of draconic linguistics and biology were fascinating, and I loved Viv's sheer enthusiasm for learning and discovery. The secondary characters could have done with more characterisation: I found it hard to differentiate or care about most of Viv's colleagues. And the romance was not wholly convincing (and, be warned, does not have a happy outcome).
I believe it's first in a series -- the end of the novel opens up a whole new set of possibilities -- and I'd like to see where the story goes.
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