Book Review: The Bone Shard Daughter
I really did not expect 2020 to be the year of fantasy books with necromancers, but here we are. The Unspoken Name, Harrow the Ninth, and now, The Bone Shard Daughter. Can’t really say I’m displeased.
Lin is the Emperor’s daughter, but that’s far from a perfect existence. Her father wants her to remember things she can’t, not since she was sick years ago, and he withholds the secrets of bone shard magic from her, the magic she needs to keep her people safe. Forced to break the rules, Lin begins to explore past the palace’s locked doors and uncovers some secrets her father might prefer were kept buried. Meanwhile, a smuggler finds himself rescuing children and discovering a strange new magic; a governor’s daughter gets embroiled in a people’s uprising; and a woman with no memories of who she is starts to figure out how she and her companions came to be stranded on an island.
I personally found The Bone Shard Daughter to be quite engaging. The chapters tend to be fairly short and tight, which keeps the pace moving, and Stewart has a good knack for ending chapters on cliffhangers to keep you coming back. Each story line has a pretty well-defined arc with good rise and fall, even the woman with no memories (her name is Sand).
The real stars of the show, if we’re being honest, are Lin and the smuggler Jovis. They get far and away the most airtime, and they’re easily the most fleshed out of the main POVs. They’re also the two POVs written in first person, so it naturally feels easier to sympathize with them (as opposed to Phalue, the governor’s daughter, and Sand, who are written in third person).
Lin’s arc starts out as a daughter seeking her father’s approval and quickly begins to morph into something rebellious as Lin realizes how her father’s bone shard magic impacts his subjects and how little he cares about his people. He’s a terrible ruler for any number of reasons, and over the course of the book, Lin just keeps uncovering more — including some pretty dark secrets about herself.
Jovis, meanwhile, is a take on a classic archetype: the rogue with a heart of gold. He’s a smuggler who stumbles into a bond with a pretty strange and obviously magical pet (it can talk, y’all, that’s a dead giveaway). Said pet begins to encourage his good-hearted tendencies, and soon Jovis is rescuing children from a pretty nasty trepanning-adjacent festival (see below) and getting roped into helping rebels. Jovis has a lot of the same feel as Han Solo: a little snarky, trying to be selfish and failing miserably, actually showing up when the going gets rough, etc. But lest you think he’s too overdone, there are nice, deeper touches, like his mixed heritage that keeps him an outsider or the cool-as-heck magic he’s learning with the help of his pet.
Phalue, the governor’s daughter, is probably the most frustrating of the POVs, since she spends a good chunk of time adamantly maintaining that the rebels should just wait for her to become governor and not listening to what her girlfriend is trying to tell her. She comes around eventually and becomes a lot more engaging for it, as she finally starts to listen to the people she would rule. (See a theme here? The Bone Shard Daughter is very preoccupied with what makes a good ruler.)
Sand gets only a few chapters, but she’s such a mystery that it’s hard not to be intrigued. No memories, stranded, with dozens of other companions who also don’t remember, trying desperately to figure out who she is and how she got here. No spoilers, but…yikes.
One of the best parts of The Bone Shard Daughter is how well Stewart layers mysteries into the plot. There is plenty of story for this book, but there are plenty of questions left unanswered, or new questions raised from the climax (especially Lin and Sand’s POVs). What’s up with the talking sea critter Jovis is bonded to? What on earth was Lin’s father doing in his hidden labs, beyond what we already know? And are this strange and mystery enemy from the past actually going to make a reappearance? If they do, are they even actually hostile, or did the imperial line just take control of the narrative? HMMMM. The seeds are all there. (This is why I’m terribly excited for the sequel).
And it wouldn’t be one of my reviews without discussing the world, so let’s pause for a quick worldbuilding squee. What an excellent setup Stewart has put together. Floating, migratory islands in a vast ocean? Ancient enemy (?) possibly returning, complete with creepy omens? A strange mineral substance that seems to have some ominous properties?
And that’s not even touching on the titular bone shard magic itself, which I love as a concept. Basically, everyone in the empire tithes a piece of their skull bone (a bone shard), and the emperor carves tiny commands in a magic language (!!!) onto said shards and implants the command shard(s) into a construct he’s created. Voila! And it has the perfectly appropriate built-in price: the construct slowly drains the life force from the shard donor until they die. This system has massive ramifications for the world (the emperor is using constructs for almost everything) and absolutely reeks of imperial paranoia.
Overall, I took a little off my rating here and there, because it’s not quite a 5 for me, but The Bone Shard Daughter is definitely one of 2020’s better fantasy offerings. I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new series to pick up — I can’t wait to see where this one goes.
Grade: 4.5/5 stars
Memorable Quote:
“This was becoming a habit. And people always talked about habits like they were a thing that would kill you one day. “Jovis has a habit of gambling” or “Jovis has a habit of drinking too much melon wine” or “Jovis has a habit of steering his ship into storms”. It seemed, apparently, that what Jovis had actually developed a habit of was rescuing children from the Tithing Festival, and thus getting his face painted onto more stupid posters. It was probably the most foolhardy way to get a lot of portraits done for free.”
