Oct 31

Oct 31 The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)

Author: Andrea Stewart
Publisher: Orbit
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.

Note: Trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

In an empire controlled by bone shard magic, Lin, the former heir to the emperor will fight to reclaim her magic and her place on the throne.

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 recognize 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.

TL;DR Review

The Bone Shard Daughter is the start of what promises to be a fantastic adventure. The characters are lovable and the magic system is fascinating. I can’t wait for book 2!

For you if: You like fantasy books that have a big cast of characters and a sprawling world.

Full Review

The first two things I heard about The Bone Shard Daughter were these: it’s a debut epic fantasy written by a Chinese-American woman, and it has an established f/f couple. Then I read the synopsis and I knew I had to have it. I bought it later that week. Friends: I was not disappointed.

As an epic fantasy, this book features a wide cast of characters. The main two are Lin, daughter of the emperor who must secretly learn bone shard magic to save her people (and solve a mystery about her own background), and Jovis, a smuggler who befriends the most LOVABLE of fantasy pets (an otter-cat-dragon thing who is magic and can talk, named Mephi) and has made it his life mission to find the love of his life, who disappeared several years earlier. Are you in love with this story yet?

There’s also the daughter of the governor on one of the empire’s islands and her long-term girlfriend, who is involved with the rebellion, and a woman trapped on a remote island whose memories start to return.

The book isn’t perfect and the prose occasionally reveals that this is the author’s debut, and because there are so many characters and settings, it starts off a little slowly. But by the end of the book, everything spins together and promises absolute FIRE in the next two books to come.

One of the most impressive things, to me, is that this book manages to be exciting and impactful and fun while also reading sort of wholesomely? The only trigger warning I identified was blood (of the sword-fighting variety). Like, I LOVE all these characters fiercely and I am rooting for them so hard. It’s fun and warm and still big and impressive. And I’m here for it. I can’t wait for book two!