Dragonfall by L.R. Lam

Hodderscape, HB, £9.19

Reviewed by Mikaela Silk

Everen is destined to save his fellow dragons from their exile, but when he tries to scry for the way forward, the future eludes him. Feeling a failure at his own fate, he takes the first reckless opportunity to jump through a rift between worlds. There, he meets Arcady, a human desperate to carve out a new life after their old one went up in flames. Twice. They will need to trust each other and work together to achieve both their goals, but first, they must break down the many secrets and barriers between them.

The history of this world is complex and conflicting. The humans believe one thing, the dragons another. Though there is much more evidence to back up the dragon version of history, I can’t help but think there is much that they are missing as well. Much of Everen’s own destiny has been kept from him, so it is easy to imagine that other truths have also been kept from him. Similarly, there is much that Arcady does not know about their own family and their plans. After all, it is their grandfather’s spell that brings Everen to them, a spell which was only supposed to give them a new identity to hide behind.

Throughout the book, Everen and Arcady build a close bond despite the secrets and differences between them. It is clear from the early pages that this bond will be important, although I like that it ends up being used differently than how I expected. There is much about the bond that remains a mystery, and it will be interesting to see how this evolves and is used in book two.

The magic in this book has an interesting premise, with the idea of humans being bound to seals and using stolen power. What I find particularly intriguing is that they all use the same conduit for power yet clearly have different amounts of it available. This adds to the mystery of the magic and makes me question if there is more to this than meets the eye.

All of this is a convoluted way of saying book one has absolutely hooked me, and I can’t wait to find out what happens in book two!