Tag: Fantasy

Book: “Angel Mage” by Garth Nix

Publishing Info: Katherine Tegen Books, October 2019

Where Did I Get this Book: Edelweiss+

Book Description: More than a century has passed since Liliath crept into the empty sarcophagus of Saint Marguerite, fleeing the Fall of Ystara. But she emerges from her magical sleep still beautiful, looking no more than nineteen, and once again renews her single-minded quest to be united with her lover, Palleniel, the archangel of Ystara.

A seemingly impossible quest, but Liliath is one of the greatest practitioners of angelic magic to have ever lived, summoning angels and forcing them to do her bidding.

Liliath knew that most of the inhabitants of Ystara died from the Ash Blood plague or were transformed into beastlings, and she herself led the survivors who fled into neighboring Sarance. Now she learns that angels shun the Ystaran’s descendants. If they are touched by angelic magic, their blood will turn to ash. They are known as Refusers, and can only live the most lowly lives.

But Liliath cares nothing for the descendants of her people, save how they can serve her. It is four young Sarancians who hold her interest: Simeon, a studious doctor-in-training; Henri, a dedicated fortune hunter; Agnez, an adventurous musketeer cadet; and Dorotea, an icon-maker and scholar of angelic magic. They are the key to her quest.

The four feel a strange kinship from the moment they meet, but do not know why, or suspect their importance. All become pawns in Liliath’s grand scheme to fulfill her destiny and be united with the love of her life. No matter the cost to everyone else. . .

Review: I’m not caught up with all of the books in the “Sabriel” series (know that’s not really the name, but it might as well be), so it’s been quite a while since I’ve read a new book by Garth Nix. So when I saw this title pop up on Edelweiss+ it seemed like a perfect opportunity to revisit a past favorite.

Long ago, Ystara, the homeland of the patron archangel Pallenial, fell amidst horror and terror. It was suspected that a powerful angelic mage, Liliath had something to do with this fall, but no one knows the truth of it. After many years pass, however, Liliath miraculously returns, still young, still powerful, still driven to accomplish a plan only known to her. Caught up in her ambitions are not only the remnants of the Ystaraian people, now shunned by the countries they live in as refugees, but four specific young people. Not knowing why they are connected or what Liliath wants from them, a medical student, a scholar, a musketeer, and a scribe must work together to not only discover their own role, but help aid or thwart Liliath in her grand plans.

This is another great example of a lesser used source story (similar to “The Republic” and “The Lady and the Tiger” that we seen earlier). Here, Nix is clearly drawing from “The Three Musketeers,” and it’s pretty excellent. He perfectly finds the balancing point between making enough references to the original as to make it recognizable to most readers and layering so much new world-building and plot that the story remains feeling completely unique. In many ways, it seems that Nix had an original idea, world, and magic system teed up to go and then looked through some of his own fan favorites and discovered “The Three Musketeers.” This is in no way a criticism of the story. More so, it’s a testament to his skill that he can superimpose favored elements from another story in a way that makes it clear he is largely wanting to just play in that world while still ending up with a book that so completely stands on its own as unalike anything I’ve read before.

The “Mustketeer” elements are most evident in the style of writing, especially in the dialogue between the characters. It’s hard to put my finger on it for this review; it’s more a “know it when you read it” kind of thing. The culture is also heavily influenced by the France that we see in that book, with much of the style of dress, honor system, and conflicting political and religious powers ringing as familiar. These political/religious conflicts were particularly intriguing. Nix spends a good amount of time setting up the different power players in the story and their differing connections to the angelic magic that plays such a large role in society. And each of our four main characters has a unique connection to these divisions and their differing priorities.

All four of the characters were very well-drawn. There is excellent diversity between them all in most every way you can ask for. I enjoyed reading all of their sections equally pretty much, but I will say that I particularly enjoyed the portions that dealt with Agnez, our musketeer in the making. For those who read my Animorphs reviews, Agnez is a very “Rachel-like” character: she’s brave, a bit reckless, and has a clear view of right/wrong/and what should be done, regardless of others’ perceptions of it. She’s also the most clearly connected to the original Musketeers, with the same charming bravado.

The story is also blessedly free of a romance between any of these four members. I love a good romance at the heart of my story, but I must confess that I’m pretty burned out on these YA fantasy ensemble stories (usually heists), particularly with the romances at the heart of them. They’ve gotten incredibly predictable and almost farcical in their similarities to each other. And at the heart of each are yawn-inducing, lazy romances that are built completely on the fact that they are what readers expect to find in these stories. No work is done to make any couple/pairing particularly relatable or believable; it just is because they know that’s what readers expect. So it was a breath of fresh air to open this book and have the more sibling-like relationships between these group members laid out fairly early in the story, immediately putting to rest any mental predictions on romantic pairs that the reader may already be forming.

I also enjoyed how much time we got to spend with Liliath. In many ways, she’s just as much a main character as the four others. We learn her motivations, her strengths, as well as the ambitions and single-mindedness that drive her. We see her plans play out while the four main characters must piece things together, all while we, the reader, are still not clear on Liliath’s endgame. This makes for a nice mixture of mystery and tension as the story plays out.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this book. It’s definitely different than anything I’ve read before, and anyone going into with expectations derived from what’s popular in YA fantasy right now may be disappointed. This a slower moving story with world-building at its heart. The connections to “The Three Musketeers” will also be appreciated depending on the reader’s familiarity with that story. Readers looking for a unique, fresh-feeling YA ensemble fantasy, this is a great place to start!

Rating 8: Enough hints of “The Three Musketeers” to add some extra fun, but stands on its own with an incredibly unique and fresh world.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Angel Mage” is a new book, so it isn’t on many relevant Goodreads lists. But it should be on “Angels & Demons.”

Find “Angel Mage” at your library using WorldCat!

 

Book: “Fireborne” by Rosaria Munda

Publication Info: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, October 2019

Where Did I Get this Book: BookishFirst

Book Description: Annie and Lee were just children when a brutal revolution changed their world, giving everyone—even the lowborn—a chance to test into the governing class of dragonriders.

Now they are both rising stars in the new regime, despite backgrounds that couldn’t be more different. Annie’s lowborn family was executed by dragonfire, while Lee’s aristocratic family was murdered by revolutionaries. Growing up in the same orphanage forged their friendship, and seven years of training have made them rivals for the top position in the dragonriding fleet.

But everything changes when survivors from the old regime surface, bent on reclaiming the city.

With war on the horizon and his relationship with Annie changing fast, Lee must choose to kill the only family he has left or to betray everything he’s come to believe in. And Annie must decide whether to protect the boy she loves . . . or step up to be the champion her city needs.

Review: I’m always interested in a good dragon book. And for as popular as the subject matter is, it’s rare that I find one that really hits the spot for me. Maybe it’s just that the more I like something, the higher standards I set for it. But combined with an intriguing book description and comparison to “Red Rising,” I was excited to see what new take “Fireborne” had to offer!

Revolutions are bloody and brutal, but what comes after can be just as hard. The decks have been shuffled leaving those who survived living very different lives than the ones they had before. For Annie and Lee, these changes hit very close to home, but in very different ways. Now, together, they are slowly climbing their way through the ranks as dragon riders, each hoping to build their own future in this new world. But the old regime has only gone underground, and when it becomes clear that the revolution is not over, Annie and Lee must now, once again, choose sides.

I can definitely see how the comparisons to “Red Rising” came about. For all that a dragon is on the cover, this story is mostly a deep dive into the moral grey zone of what a revolution really looks like. Similarly to that book, it explores complex issues spending extra time highlighting that no choice is perfect and consequences are to be had no matter how good one’s intentions are going in. In our current political and cultural environment, I really appreciated the attention that went into this portrayal and the challenging questions it poses to not only its characters but to readers as well. It’s always refreshing to find a story that goes past the simple (and often unbelievable) “good” and “bad” of it all.

Both Annie and Lee provide insights into the past events of the revolution, the current regime, and, of course, the challenges posed by the resurgence of the conflict. At various times it was easy to side with one or another only to skip to the next chapter, read the other character’s perspective, and feel conflicted once again. I will say that Annie, by the nature of her story, had the easier sell, leaving Lee more often in the role of the character who needed to experience more growth and perspective.

However, at times, the writing itself seemed to let down these greater themes. For one thing, as I’ve gone into before, it’s always challenging to write two perspectives. Yes, Annie and Lee tell different stories and have differing challenges and views on events. But the writing itself is doing very little to differentiate their voices. Take away the actual story beats, and these two characters sound the same and it would be challenging to identify which of the two is speaking. This flaw makes it hard to truly connect to either character as they feel less like people and more like vessels through which to communicate the overall conflicts of the story.

The writing was also a bit slow. It did pick up towards the end and became quite engaging at that point. But it still took a bit to reach that point. This may, again, have to do with the challenge of feeling truly emotionally invested in either character. There were a lot of characters and connections between them that never felt fully explained leaving me more often than not still trying to pin down who was who about half way into into the book. A whiff of a love triangle was also a bit of a detractor even if it never became fully fledged.

I still really enjoyed the dragons, of course. And the overall story has a lot of potential growth. It’s tackling some big concepts and putting in the work to approach the realities of such decisions, actions, or inactions. Perhaps the second in the series will help cement to the two protagonists more fully into their own. I’m still game to check it out! And, if you’re interested in getting your hands on a free copy, don’t forget to enter our giveaway for “Fireborne!”

Rating 7: The story and themes outshine its own main characters at times, but there’s still a lot of potential in this first in a new trilogy!

Reader’s Advisory: 

“Fireborne” is a newer title so it isn’t on many relevant Goodreads lists, but, funnily, it is on this “We Fire the Darkness And Flame At Night.”

Find “Fireborne” at your library using WorldCat!

Book: “Deathcaster” by Cinda Williams Chima

Publication Info: HarperTeen, March 2019

Where Did I Get this Book: audiobook from the library!

Book Description: SPLINTERED ALLEGIANCE.

Warrior Alyssa ana’Raisa would do anything to protect her home, the Fells, and her legacy, the Gray Wolf Line. But as a prisoner of Empress Celestine, Lyss is forced to turn her fearsome talents as an army commander against her beloved homeland. Refusal would swiftly lead to her death, and her death would end the Gray Wolf Line.

ANCIENT DANGER.

In Lyss’s absence, Fellsmarch Castle swarms with intrigue, deception, and a primordial threat. Destin Karn, a Southern spymaster with a hidden agenda of his own, might be the queendom’s only hope of defeating the forces aligned against the Seven Realms… as well as the enemies within the castle.

THE DEADLY COST OF PEACE.

Review: While so far this series hasn’t lived up to the super high expectations I had from the previous series set in this world, I’ve still be quite enjoying it and looking forward to the conclusion. At the end of the last book, our main characters were all spread out across this world and each faced what seemed like insurmountable odds. There was a lot of ground to cover in this last book, and for the most part, I was pleased with how things were wrapped up!

As Celestine’s forces continue to grow, headed up by the unwilling Lyss, both the northern and the southern realms struggle to set aside their long-lasting war to meet this new threat. Her brother and a gang of fellows set out to rescue her, headed by the pirate lord, Evan, whom no one is sure is even trustworthy. And Jenna and Cas circle in closer, hoping to get their own chance at the Empress who has hunted them for so long. It is left to Hal and the spy master Destin to head off the brewing war on the home front. As their paths twist and cross, it becomes clear that no one really understands Celestine’s long-game and without knowing that, can they defeat her?

Overall, this was a very satisfying conclusion to the story. There were a lot of moving pieces on the board, and while I had predicted some of the resolutions that came to play, there were still quite a few surprises in store, including elements I hadn’t expected at all. The biggest surprise was Celestine herself and the driving force behind her history and quest. Given that this has been the big mystery at the heart of this series, I was gratified that in this area, at least, I hadn’t been able to predict the ending.

I do wish, however, that more time had been given to this reveal once it came about (this will be a recurring complaint). It’s only at the very end of the book that we discover the secret histories of many of our main characters. And then once we do, it all kind of just ends. With a huge mystery like this that has been laid out across four different books now and explains hitherto unknown histories of multiple main characters, I just feel like a bit more time is needed to really settle into what that revelation would even mean. As it stands, we are only in the head of one of the three when the truth comes out. We never really get to see how the other two react to or process this new information. And then the actual action of the climax itself felt very rushed. Again, for the big bad of the entire series, I wanted more than what we got in a few brief pages with a sudden end.

With this action taking up so little page time, much more time was spent on the internal war between the two realms. This isn’t necessarily a complaint, but it wasn’t what I expected. The story had seemed to be going more the dragon/zombie soldier route with Celestine at its heart. Instead, we had much more time spent on the maneuvers of various, vast armies and the internal politics of two different courts. These were all fun enough, but not what I had been expecting. The court politics, especially, went in a direction that I hadn’t anticipated at all. But in this same vein, the story introduced a new force of evil (or at least a new face for it) and that added yet another thing to be dealt with in a limited span of pages, leaving another storyline feeling oddly truncated.

As for our main characters, they were all given much to do and I was satisfied with all of their arcs. People’s views on this will vary depending on which characters interest them the most. I think it’s fairly well balanced, but my favorite few characters did end up with a bit more time and attention than some others. There were a lot of reunions to get through, including three romantic pairings who had been split up for several books now. Again, this is a lot of emotional ground to cover. Each was good enough on its own, but I also wanted more for all of them. In many ways, each of them were still left with pretty big question marks in the end. We get a couple of reunions about halfway through the book, but then never really check back in with them as a couple after events have played out. I’m still not clear on what was going on with another group. And the last, while given a bit more, I think, also had the biggest events hinging on their future, together or separately, and thus, again, needed significantly more time for it to feel resolved.

As you can tell, my biggest complaint about this book was the fact that there was simply too much to get done in a single book. I’m all for succinct writing and not adding bloat to a series, but there also comes a time and place where it’s best to admit that the story is better served by more page time, even if that means an additional book. It’s easy to see how this series would fall into that category. The sheer number of main characters, the scope of the conflicts playing out, and the nature of the villains at the heart of things leaves a lot of ground to cover. It would have been almost impossible to wrap it all up in a satisfying and thorough manner in one book. As it stand, I was still satisfied with the ending; there was just so much potential for it all to be just a bit more.

This is a bit of an aside, but I also found myself increasingly distracted by the fact that this was a YA series. On one hand, it’s great that there are so many fantasy novels being published in YA currently. But I also feel like there are YA fantasty stories that would have been vastly improved for having been, simply, adult fantasy. It almost feels like we’ve entered some strange reality where fantasy is almost always YA, except for a few notable exceptions. But this series? In so many ways, this is very similar to “Game of Thrones” in scope and nature. And given some detail and page length, two things that often come up with adult novels, this story would have been so much better.

Beyond that, it became very distracting trying to reconcile the nature of our characters as presented with the age they are supposed to be. Lyss and Hal are both supposed to be incredibly talented and respected military leaders. And yet they’re both teenagers. There’s no way you cut it that the timing of their age and the years it takes to gain both the skill and notoriety they are said to have can match up. Evan is a notorious pirate lord. Devan is a master spy. And those are just the first examples. It applies to every single one of our characters: given their age, they would not be where they are. Many YA books run into this problem, but it’s easier to ignore if it’s just a main character that is this strange exception (though this was one of my problems with “Throne of Glass,” too, so who knows). But when you have this huge cast of characters and they all play important roles in their various corners of the world, the credibility of it all begins to go down the drain fast. Obviously, this isn’t anything new for this book but for some reason it stood out more for me in this book.

Fans of this series will likely be happy with this book. Depending on who your favorite characters are, you may be a bit more or less happy than others, but I think they are all satisfying in their own ways. I do think the book would have been much better served had it been split into two books; there was just too much plot and too many characters for it all to be covered sufficiently in just the one story. As for the age thing, that was a personal distraction, but will likely not bother others. Overall, I preferred the first series in this world better, but I did end up quite enjoying this one as well and am looking forward to what Williams Chima does next!

Rating 8: Could have been better served with more page time or, better yet, more books, but a fun, satisfying series, in the end!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Deathcaster” isn’t on any relevant Goodreads lists, but the series as a whole should be on “What to read after George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones (Song of Ice and Fire)?”

Find “Deathcaster” at your library using WorldCat!

Book: “Steel Crow Saga” by Paul Kreuger

Publishing Info: Del Rey Books, September 2019

Where Did I Get this Book: Edelweiss+

Book Description: A soldier with a curse
Tala lost her family to the empress’s army and has spent her life avenging them in battle. But the empress’s crimes don’t haunt her half as much as the crimes Tala has committed against the laws of magic… and her own flesh and blood.

A prince with a debt
Jimuro has inherited the ashes of an empire. Now that the revolution has brought down his kingdom, he must depend on Tala to bring him home safe. But it was his army who murdered her family. Now Tala will be his redemption—or his downfall.

A detective with a grudge
Xiulan is an eccentric, pipe-smoking detective who can solve any mystery—but the biggest mystery of all is her true identity. She’s a princess in disguise, and she plans to secure her throne by presenting her father with the ultimate prize: the world’s most wanted prince.

A thief with a broken heart
Lee is a small-time criminal who lives by only one law: Leave them before they leave you. But when Princess Xiulan asks her to be her partner in crime—and offers her a magical animal companion as a reward—she can’t say no, and soon finds she doesn’t want to leave the princess behind.

This band of rogues and royals should all be enemies, but they unite for a common purpose: to defeat an unstoppable killer who defies the laws of magic. In this battle, they will forge unexpected bonds of friendship and love that will change their lives—and begin to change the world.

Review: I feel like I was a bit tricked with this one, and really, I can only applaud the marketing team for managing it. The cover, the use of the word “crow,” and the general description of a story featuring a cast of characters who all must work together, though each comes from a very different background, all brings to mind “Six of Crows,” which I loved. Like I said, I’m not criticizing! The marketing is just about getting the reader to pick up the book, and they do what they must to appeal to as many readers as they can. It’s the author’s job to stick the landing and keep the reader invested. And here, sadly, these surface-level similarities didn’t hold true throughout.

With political and cultural clash, comes constantly reforming chaos. And at its heart comes four individuals, each representing their own stake on the future, as they see it. Tala and Jimuro are natural enemies; she a soldier whose family died at the hands of the family from which Jimuro comes. Thrown together, they must now form a tenuous alliance as they journey towards Jimuro’s home. And Xiulan and Lee each have very different priorities. Lee lives by a code of thievery that puts her own needs and freedom above all, while Xiulan, a princess in disguise, plays her own games. Again, two who should be at odds must find a way to come together to complete Xiulan’s mission of regaining her throne.

There are some good bones to this book. The story is marketed as Pokemon meets “The Last Airbender,” and even without being hugely familiar with either, I can see the comparisons. The shades and their connections with the people definitely rings familiar and some of the action sequences with them were quite fun to read. I also liked the overall world-building which is clearly Asian-inspired and attempts to delve into the challenges of changing borders, colonization, and the fall-out when temporary alliances need to be tested in peace time. There’s also some good diversity and representation in the main characters, all handled adeptly and without ado.

But sadly, those bones weren’t enough for me to fall in love with the book. As I said, I did appreciate the basic outline of the world-building, but for a book so long, I still don’t feel like I had a complete grasp on the varying countries and their points of conflict. The two that Tala and Jimuro represent are easy enough (a general conflict over how shades are perceived), but the other two…I’m having a hard time even remembering if we were ever given real motivations to their conflict? If I was, it wasn’t enough to make it stick for me. And without that conflict fully defined, I had a hard time caring.

And you have to care, because this book is long! I appreciate that the author put a lot of thought and care into describing the setting and events taking place in this book, but there does come a point where I feel like it begins to detract from the overall story. This book is nearly 600 pages, I believe. I think it easily could have been around 300 and read much more easily. I had a poetry teacher who always said to take your finished poem and then dip it in an acid bath; whatever remained as necessary made up your truly finished poem. That could be said here as well. Yes, descriptions are important. But they have to be the right ones. And the fact that I’m not clear on some of the central politics at play, but can describe a market scene perfectly means that that balance hasn’t been struck properly.

This carried over to my appreciation of the characters. Again, Tala and Jimuro’s cultural and historical conflict was much more clear from the beginning and their own personal conflict was also better laid out. For the most part, I enjoyed these two’s story as it played out. But at the same time, while the relationship between the other two was compelling, I feel like there wasn’t enough time given to their story to make me care as much about the two of them. I almost think they all would have been bettered served had each pair had their own book instead of cramming them all into one, super long story. All four also seemed very predictable, not offering much new on top of their basic character foundation: prince, soldier, disguised princess, thief.

I struggled with this book. There was both too much and too little at the wrong times for each. I could see a good idea at the heart of it, but I had a hard time working myself up to caring. There are some fun action sequences and the idea of shades and the connections they formed with people was definitely interesting. But the book was too long and the characters too predictable for me to fully immerse myself.

Rating 6: A few flashes of fun but too weighed down by its own length and unremarkable characters to really be a hit.

Reader’s Advisory: 

“Steel Crow Saga” is a newer title so it isn’t on many Goodreads lists, but it is on “Crows and Ravens.”

Find “Steel Crow Saga” at your library using WorldCat!

Book: “The Bones Houses” by Emily Lloyd-Jones

Publishing Info: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, September 2019

Where Did I Get this Book: Edelweiss+

Book Description: Seventeen-year-old Aderyn (“Ryn”) only cares about two things: her family, and her family’s graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don’t always stay dead.

The risen corpses are known as “bone houses,” and legend says that they’re the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it about Ellis that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good?

Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them deep into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the long-hidden truths about themselves.

Review: Given that it’s almost October and Halloween is coming up quickly, I thought it was time to keep my eyes out for a fantasy novel that I could point to when asked if I read anything spooky. I’m not up to Kate’s level of horror, but I thought that this mixture of what sounds like a zombie story and a fairytale would do the trick! And boy oh boy was I right! It’s really the best thing when you go into a book with zero expectations and end up with a huge hit on your hands!

Ever since her father disappeared, presumed dead, Ryn has taken up his mantle as the village grave digger, scraping by a meager existence for herself and brother and sister. She cares for them with the respect and peace they deserve, laying them to rest in the warm earth. And she, more than anyone else, is struck by the wrongness when the dead don’t stay that way and begin to roam free. Soon enough the risen dead become more than an occasional nuisance, and Ryn and a young map-maker, Ellis, embark on a dangerous trek through the dead-infested woods to track down the origins of an old curse hoping to give the bone houses the rest they finally deserve.

First things first, whomever wrote this book description did a very poor job. If you haven’t read it already, DON’T! Not only does it get several things wrong, it also spoils a decent-sized reveal that comes up in the book! Luckily for me, I hadn’t read it (or maybe did months ago when I requested an ARC of this book), so I was still surprised, but what were they thinking? Things like this really highlight how often the people writing these descriptions either didn’t read the entire book or skimmed through it so quickly that they didn’t even catch the fact that hey, some of these things are best left discovered by the readers and not blabbed about in your dang blurb! Anyways.

That out of the way, man I loved this book! In many ways it’s a re-imagining of “The Black Cauldron,” down to the precocious animal friend, though this time it’s a goat instead of a pig. The fairytale and quest of the story loosely tie to that tale, but are also unique enough in their own version to remain well and truly separate. It’s kind of like how closely/loosely “Uprooted” was to “Beauty and the Beast.” The barest hints are there, but it is mostly just its own fairytale.

I also loved the messages about family, grief, and wanted-ness at the heart of this story. Ryn’s occupation as a gravedigger isn’t just a passing trait to make her badass or something; it’s a real point of entrance into a larger discussion about how people process, or don’t process, grief. Through out the story, we see many different approaches to managing loss and the story does a lovely job of delving into the challenges of loving someone who will one day leave you. At its heart, we see that love can be both the greatest blessing but also the most painful of curses.

Ryn and Ellis were amazing lead characters as well. Ryn’s bravery and stubbornness were endearing and realistic in a way that is often lost in other YA leading ladies who are also, of course, brave and stubborn (since somehow those have become default traits for heroines in YA). These traits felt based in the story of her life up to the point at which the reader meets her, and we aren’t just told she is these things: we see it again and again, for better or worse. Ellis was also excellent. He deals with chronic pain and I appreciated the way this was handled and discussed. There are some excellent points made about the way he approaches his own life and the challenges of dealing with others and how they perceive him due to it. But this also doesn’t define his character, and his journey is one of self-discovery and sheer determination.

There is a romance in this story as well, though it, too, feels earned and is definitely a slow burn story. I particularly appreciated how when the characters first meet and then part ways, neither thinks anything more of it, each still rightly focused on their own lives and missions. No instalove to be found here.

Obviously, given the bone houses themselves, the story would definitely fall under the category of a darker fantasy story. I really liked how the “zombies,” essentially, were never just big bad monsters. There was always a tinge of sadness and “wrongness” that could be found there that made them feel like more than simple, disposable monsters. This darkness was also balanced out by some unexpectedly funny moments of dialogue that helped lift the story out of what could have been a rather gloomy place.

At its heart, this is a pretty simple, standalone fairytale fantasy story. But it does everything it needed to do and had a lot to say about the ties of love and the challenges of death. The characters were lovely, the adventure was fun, and the romance was sweet and understated. I definitely recommend this book for fans of “Uprooted” and “Sorcery of Thorns.”

Rating 9: A superb fairytale, deftly drawing upon “The Black Cauldron” to bring us an entirely fresh-feeling story of love and grief.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Bone Houses” is a new title, so it isn’t on many relevant Goodreads lists, but it should be one “Best Standalone Fantasy Books.”

Find “The Bones Houses” at your library using WorldCat!