Hello everyone! I hope you’re having a lovely Friday! Today, I am so incredibly excited to share my review of The Bone Thief by Breeana Shields. This book is the stunning conclusion to The Bone Charmer, which I read and reviewed for a blog tour last year! You can check out that review here. At the end of this post, there will also be a giveaway to win a copy of this book! I’ll also have a pretty photo of the book up on my Instagram if you want to check that out!
A huge thanks goes out to Page Street Publishing and The Fantastic Flying Book Club for including me on this tour and for sending me a copy of the book (especially during these strange difficult times!)
About the Book
Book Title: The Bone Thief
Author: Breeana Shields
Publisher: Page Street Kids
POV: 1st Person
Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: 5/26/20
Page Count: 384 pages
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | iTunes | B&N | Bookdepository | Kobo | Google Books
A deft exploration of the weight of grief and cost of revenge, Breeana Shields’s Bone Charmer duology reaches its spine-tingling conclusion in this high-octane fantasy-thriller.
Saskia returns to Ivory Hall to train in bone magic, determined to stop Latham from gaining the power of all three Sights—past, present, and future. But danger lurks within the fortress’s marrow. Trials are underway for the apprentices, and the tasks feel specifically engineered to torment Saskia, which is exactly what Latham wants.
As she grows increasingly more suspicious, her thirst for revenge becomes all-consuming. Together with the friends she can trust and the boy she loved in another lifetime, Saskia traces clues from Latham’s past to determine what he’ll do next. Their search leads them across Kastelia and brings them to a workshop housing a vast collection of horrors, including the bones Latham stole from Gran, and the knowledge that the future isn’t all that’s in jeopardy—but the past as well.
About the Author
Breeana Shields is an author of fantasy novels for teens including The Bone Charmer, The Bone Thief, Poison’s Kiss, and Poison’s Cage.
When she’s not writing, Breeana loves reading, traveling, and playing board games with her extremely competitive family. She lives near Washington D.C. with her husband, her three children, and two adorable, but spoiled dogs.
AUTHOR LINKS:
Goodreads | Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
Review
*Warning! My review may contain spoilers for book #1: The Bone Charmer!*
Pros
- The stunning cover! (It’s no secret that I sometimes judge books by their covers! I really love the cover to this book, and it warrants it’s own “book cover review” at some point soon!
- Shield’s writing is absolutely beautiful! (See the quotes below!
- I enjoyed getting to explore more the Ivory tower! (The first book was split between two locations in two different storylines)
- Now that there’s only one timeline to follow, I feel like the pacing issues I had with the first book were resolved. I also enjoyed being in the head of just one Saskia!
- The stakes are a lot higher now, and the conflict is a lot more focused than in the first book.
- I really enjoyed the explorations of grief in this book. (Book one ends with a lot of death and betrayal so that’s natural!)
Cons
- We unfortunately lose the split timelines that made The Bone Charmer so interesting! (This is also a pro though too!)
- I still wanted a bit more worldbuilding!
- I wasn’t entirely sure of Bram and Saskia’s relationship, because they’re essentially meeting each other for the first time again, even though the reader already knows how things work between the two of them.
I was so excited to pick this book up! Last year I devoured The Bone Charmer in one night, and this book was exactly the same. After rereading the first book (Which I totally needed to do, as I forgot so much!) I immediately plunged into this book and read it in a day fueled by caffeine and snacks.
This book is a bit different than the first book, because we lose the dual timeline POVS that made the first book so interesting (and a bit confusing at times!) Never fear though, because this book focuses on the Saskia that survived going through the bone games of Ivory tower, which she must complete for her studies to become a bone charmer. There are a lot of crime-esque trials, which I absolutely loved! I also actually really liked that while we only have one Saskia in this book, she still retains some knowledge of the other timeline we read about in the last book, so it’s not entirely a waste of time.
As with the first book, I absolutely loved the magic system in this book. The ability to read bones and blood was fascinating, and I really enjoyed the scenes were readings were done. The general concept of the strength of bones and especially the bones of several generations was quite interesting and provided a lot of the conflict and danger in this book!
As with the first book, I love how everything is revealed in a timely and well paced manner. We discover things as the characters do, and there were very few-to-no info dumps, which always makes me happy!
I won’t spoil the ending, but I think that the ending was perfect for this book! It was a beautiful bittersweet ending that didn’t overshadow the lingering feelings of grief that Saskia still experiences from the first book.
All in all, I really enjoyed this conclusion to The Bone Charmer duology and would definitely recommend it to anyone who loves unique magic systems, dark fantasy, and books that deal with real emotions. I’d give this 4/5 stars, because I feel like the book lagged a bit in the middle, but definitely picked back up again for the ending!
Favorite Quotes
- “This time, when I close my eyes and touch the bones, I hear it. The distant, plaintive howl of a single wold separated from his pack.”
- “Leadership is full of difficult choices.”
- “Anger focuses my mind. Fashions it into something blade sharp and ready for action.”
- I think of watching myself sail away from Midwood on my other path. How I gazed up at the sky dotted with stars and thought they looked like bones scattered on velvet. I felt as if I could divine the whole world’s fate if I only knew how to read them. But tonight the clouds are so thick, I can’t see a single star. The fate of Kastelia is a mystery.”
Giveaway
Prize: Win a copy of THE BONE THIEF by Breeana Shields (US/CAN Only)
Starts: May 20th 2020
Ends: June 3rd 2020
Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d9681b86501/?
Thank you so much for reading! Please check out the rest of the tour schedule here and don’t forget to check out the bookstagram tour too for a bunch of pretty photos and an instagram exclusive giveaway!
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