I didn’t want to write a book about dragons. In fact, the first draft of my YA debut, A Language of Dragons, was a Word Document titled ‘Dragon Book I Don’t Want to Write’. Believe it or not, two years ago there weren’t many dragon books on the market and I wasn’t sure it would sell. I wasn’t confident in my ability to write for young adults and I didn’t even have a great love for dragons. But after my first two Middle Grade books died on submission, I was ready to try something different.
The result is the kind of fantasy I love, which is “grounded” or “low” fantasy– our world as we know it, but with an extraordinary element. In this case, it’s Bletchley Park with dragons.
A Language of Dragons has my fascination for languages (I’m a literary translator), the political intrigue of the 2010s dystopia I devoured as a teenager (The Hunger Games, Divergent, Noughts and Crosses…) and themes of self-forgiveness and redemption. It’s a love letter to translation and a book about prejudice and morality, all examined through a fantastical lens.
We all know Bletchley Park for its Enigma code-breakers of WW2, but it did exist earlier than that, back in the 1920s, which is when my novel is set.
“A Language of Dragons is a love letter to translation.”
Back then, just like today, you couldn’t travel through Britain without hearing a variety of languages, dialects and regional accents. Add to this a plethora of dragon tongues, including one that is so secret that the only thing the government can liken it to is code, and you’ve got a world ripe for a young translator: enter Vivien Featherswallow.
Like me, she’s captivated by how languages don’t always have equivalents for certain words, so that some meaning is unavoidably lost in translation; by how the way a person speaks effects how they are perceived; and by how languages are born out of others. We both end up exploring these truths, Viv through a job she is forced to take and me through a book I didn’t want to write.
But I’m so glad I did.
About the book
Hardback: 97800087566119 | £16.99 | 02 Jan 2025
The most exciting debut of 2025 – an incredible fantasy Dark Academia, perfect for fans of Babel and Fourth Wing
EVERY FIRE STARTS WITH A SINGLE SPARK.
Welcome to Bletchley Park… with dragons.
London, 1923. 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 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 realises that the bubble she’s grown up in isn’t as safe as she thought, and eventually Viv must decide: 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.
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