Dragontongue

Everything worthwhile is dangerous.

In Victorian England where dragons power the empire's industry, only men are permitted to speak their language.

Henrietta 'Henry' Honeycomb has spent years surviving the slums of Notting Hill, disguising herself as a man to escape the crime ring that raised her. When a professor discovers her extraordinary ability to hear frequencies others cannot, she's offered the impossible: a place at Balliol College, Oxford, to train as a dragon speaker.

But Oxford has secrets darker than her own.

Within its ancient walls, Henry uncovers a conspiracy that stretches from the classroom to the corridors of military power-one that could change the fate of dragons and the empire that depends on them.

Her only ally is Evander Candlewick, the privileged heir whose entire future she accidentally dismantled.

They should be enemies. They should hate each other across the rigid lines of class and circumstance that define Victorian England.

Instead, Evander looks at her like she's the answer to a question he didn't know he was asking. And Henry-fierce, scarred, brilliant Henry-begins to wonder if falling might be worth the inevitable breaking.

But love between them is impossible. Dangerous. Forbidden in ways that go beyond society's rules.

Because Henry is hiding the truth of who she is.

And Evander's father will stop at nothing to reclaim what she took.

In a world where dragons are industrial tools and women are meant to be silent, two people find something worth every risk: the truth-and each other.

Dragontongue is book one in The Balliol Chronicles series. Join Henrietta as she navigates her way from the slums of Notting Hill to the ivory towers of Oxford University all the while discovering how to love without lies.