Review: The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

The Bone Shard Daughter

Andrea Stewart

(The Drowning Empire #1)

Publication Date: September 8, 2020

Hardcover, 435 pages, Orbit

Genres: Adult, Fantasy

Goodreads

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.

My Review

The Bone Shard Daughter is a page-turning multi-POV fantasy read perfect for YA, adult, and sci-fi readers. It has gods, necromancy/android elements, and cute companion creatures.

This book has been on my TBR for a while, and I regret that. It has the same addictive qualities as some big-name SFF books, like The Daevabad and The Poppy War series. But going in, I was a little skeptical. The first few chapters were a bit dry, since they're trying to establish the world and characters. But by the end of chapter three, I was hooked. I guess world-shattering fictional disasters will do that for me. Weird.

The Bone Shard Daughter has five POVs, but really two main characters. Lin is the emperor's daughter who's jealous of her father's ward and how her father is teaching him the art of creating constructs (basically using people's life sources to animate dead animals, so very sci-fi but in a fantasy way). Jovis, the second major character, is a smuggler. His POV was my favorite. He's kind of like Aladdin with Abu, but on a mission. Both main characters' narration is in first-person, whereas the other three characters are in third-person. Phalue, a warrior and governor's daughter, reminds me of Brienne of Tarth; and her partner Ranami, another POV character, is trying to persuade Phalue to step up and stop the injustices her father allows. As for the final character, well, that's a secret. But honestly, I don't think I had a least-favorite POV. The characters were very well-written and their secrets were interesting to discover.

As for the plot of the book, all of the characters have their own stories going and it's hard to see how they may connect, but the author gets there eventually. Obviously there's rebellion ensuing, and that always brings a team of unlikely "heroes" together at some point. I did figure out Lin's secrets and storyline a little bit earlier than some of the others' though. However, her chapters were a little wilder than I expected. There were some twists I didn't see coming. And for one particular creature, well, I'd give him the world. He deserves it, and the author put him through too much. Because of all the twists and turns for the two major characters, I read most of this book in less than two days. The ending went by rather fast, and while it wasn't super rushed, I feel like it could've taken a little time to recuperate with a couple of the characters. I think the last few chapters could've been doubled to make the pacing more realistic. It's not a major thing, since I still definitely plan on picking up book two very soon, it was just something I noticed as the book was winding down.

All in all, I think this story is perfect for adult SFF fans of the two series mentioned earlier as well as YA fans of Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes and Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. It's a great crossover book with the potential to be a really great series.

*Note: I received a copy of this book from a friend. This in no way affected my opinion/review.