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A Language of Dragons

Pages
432
Published
2025
Language
English

Synopsis

In an alternate 1923 London where humans and dragons share an uneasy peace, Vivien Featherswallow accidentally triggers a civil war that shatters that fragile truce. With her family arrested and her sister missing, Viv is forced to put her linguistic gift to use as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park, where success means freedom and failure means death.

As she gets closer to cracking the hidden dragon language, Viv begins to realize the treaty she's spent her life trusting was corrupt from the start, and that breaking the code might do more damage than good, especially with a forbidden connection at Bletchley threatening to complicate everything.

About the author

S
S. F. Williamson

S. F. Williamson is a British author and literary translator who studied French and Italian at the University of Bath before completing an MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. Drawing on her translation work, her debut novel A Language of Dragons imagines an alternate 1920s London built around dragon-speaking codebreakers, and won the Older Readers category of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize.

Characters

Vivien FeatherswallowProtagonist
WyvernmireAntagonist

Britannia's first female Prime Minister, architect of the dragon Peace Agreement and the codebreaking facility Viv is coerced into.

Atlas KingSupporting

A priest-in-training and rebel sympathizer who becomes Viv's forbidden love interest at Bletchley Park.

Ursa FeatherswallowSupporting

Viv's younger sister, held as leverage over her throughout the story.

All characters in A Language of Dragons
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