Lin, once heir to the Phoenix Empire, is having trouble remembering her early days. Her father, the reigning emperor, has sat upon the throne of the Phoenix Empire for decades thanks in part to the bone shard magic he has mastered. He pushes his daughter Lin to remember her past, but refuses to acknowledge her as his heir until she can prove her memory has returned and she is adept at the bone magic Adding more frustration to Lin’s situation is Bayan, a boy who the Emperor has adopted and named as his own son and is a potential heir, supplanting Lin’s claim to the throne.
Jacket Art by Vinogradova
The Bone Shard Daughter is an unmissable fantasy debut from a major new voice in epic fantasy — a stunning tale of magic, mystery, and revolution in which the former heir to the emperor will fight to reclaim her power 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 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.
Lin is just one of the primary characters and points of view. Stewart ambitiously provides four distinct first-person narrators in Bone Shard’s Daughter. Those characters include Phalue, the daughter of a governor who finds herself in a relationship with a romance with a woman (Ranami) who is part of a group rebels hoping to take down the Empire. Another character is the smuggler, Jovis. He isn’t just another smuggler, but the most infamous and successful in a century, but he’s searching the seas for his wife who disappeared years prior to the events in the novel. In his quest to find his wife, he learns about the sinister nature of the bone shards magic. Another amnesiac character, named Sand, rounds out the narrators of The Bone Shard Daughter.
The world of the Drowning Empire (which also lends the series its name) in which these characters live, navigate, and struggle as created by Andrea Stewart is rich with life, magic, and history. The bone shard magic allows for creation of creatures comprised of different parts, and allows for control over other beings. From the architecture, some of the names, government, and the manner in which the setting and culture are referenced, this is very much an Asian-inspired world. The creatures constructed by the bone shard magic are quite fascinating, with some serving as pets or protectors. Like Brandon Sanderson’s magic systems, there’s a very detailed method in the background which makes the bone shard magic work that is quite similar to computer coding.
Stewart tackles a lot of themes with a great touch, too. Identity. Oppressive government. Cool magic. Internal conflict. Struggling with relationships that may not be comfortable. Moreover, Stewart is able to intertwine those themes together, so they aren’t just frayed ends, but rather form a powerful, thematic quilt.
Here comes the but…and I realize I’m an outlier with my opinion. When a book isn’t working for me, I’ll check in with some of the opinions on goodreads and other online spots. I had a really tough time getting through this book, despite many of the great things Stewart put into the story. The rotating first-person narrators really worked against my enjoyment of the book. I found it jarring with the continued shifts and could never really settle into each character very well. It took a couple of pages with each chapter/character, sometimes going back to the beginning of the chapter and re-reading the chapter, to really acclimate myself to each character. I also found some of the story elements to very predictable, which lessened my enjoyment of some of the characters’ journeys.
My bottom line for The Bone Shard Daughter: an impressive fantasy debut on many levels. It is a novel that will connect with a lot of readers, but it is a novel that didn’t completely work for me. I can’t fully recommend it, but by no means would I consider this a book to avoid.
© 2020 Rob H. Bedford
Published by Orbit Books | September 2020
Hardcover | 435 Pages
http://www.andreagstewart.com/
Excerpt: http://www.orbitbooks.net/the-bone-shard-daughter/excerpt.php
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
