The emperor’s reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire’s many islands.
Lin is the emperor’s daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic.
Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright – and save her people.
Sometimes everything you hear and see about a book makes you want to read it. Sometimes a book has a beautiful cover, a fascinating premise, and all the right people are making noise about it.
Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart was one of those books for me. How could it not be? Look at that cover. Look at that blurb. We’re talking a book with an emperor that rules his land with magic fuelled by shards of bone chipped from the skulls of his subjects. Magic that powers automated and sophisticated animal-shaped golems that function as sentient beings. That’s attention-grabbing, to say the least.
I’ll admit that I flew through this in very few sittings. Part of that is that it lends itself well to binge-reading — the prose is quite “clear” and accessible, though with the odd pretty turn of phrase. But beyond that, the characters, world, and plot all caught my interest and didn’t let go.
The blurb and title focus on Lin, daughter of the emperor, but really she’s only one of four main POV characters. Granted, she was my favourite, and she seems the most “central” to the plot of this story. Lin appears to suffer from a form of amnesia which means she is unable to recollect the memories of her childhood. But whenever she does remember something, her father allows her the tools to learn a little more about bone shard magic. Given how ambitious and daring Lin is, though, this process isn’t quick enough for her. She and her father become locked in a battle of theft, magic, and secrecy.
Then there is Jovis. He’s a smooth-talking, very charismatic smuggler of some renown, who sails the seas between the islands of the empire in search for a woman he once loved. Instead, he encounters tragedy and is pulled into a secret resistance he wants little to do with. Jovis’ story is more internally-focused than Lin’s, and I really appreciated this variety and contrast of conflict. I did think that certain parts of his background felt a little flimsy at times, and would have preferred a little more exploration on that front, but I still really enjoyed his character arc. A certain delightful talking animal companion certainly helped in that regard.
The other two main POV characters are Phalue and Ranami. These two women almost feel like “secondary” main characters given that they aren’t afforded quite as much page-time, but there was still a lot to like about them. I’m a sucker for some good class commentary, particularly as pertains to inequality, and given that Phalue and Ranami are involved in a romantic relationship from opposite sides of a class divide… Yeah, that’s my jam. My one complaint is that I felt that both characters would have shone much brighter had they more room to shine.
In terms of story, Bone Shard Daughter drip-feeds information to the reader and occasionally dangles it just out of reach. We’re talking a world with a wealth of secrets, and a lot of the tension in this book comes from this unknown history. This kind of storytelling necessitates a number of revelations, some which I found quite predictable, while others were delightfully surprising.
I found the pacing of the first half to be a little rough. There were one or two plot developments that seemed a little abrupt to me, and which I felt could have been more gradually implemented with some more foreshadowing. But having said that, I thought the pacing of the second half was impeccable. It’s as though the story takes a while to find its gear, then it races towards the finish line, taking the twists and turns of the track in its stride.
The most important thing for me, though, beyond all the mechanics of the storytelling, is that Bone Shard Daughter is fun as hell. Action, magic, romance, tragedy… this book has it all.
It has so many things I love: charismatic characters, talking animal companions, class commentary, and even magic that functions a little like a programming language. If all of that sounds intriguing to you, pick up Bone Shard Daughter as soon as you can.
We received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes. Thank you to Orbit Books for the review copy!
Bone Shard Daughter releases on 8th September in ebook, and 10th September in hardback.
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