My Rating ~ Five Stars

RELEASE DATE: 26 May 2020

Format: E-ARC

Pages: 384

Publisher: Page Street Kids

Blurb

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.

Review

Thank you so much to Page Street Kids for providing me with a copy of The Bone Thief, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review!

Please note this review is for book 2 in the series, and will include spoilers for the first book, The Bone Charmer! If you haven’t started this duology yet, stop here and add The Bone Charmer to your TBR!

The Bone Charmer was one of my most unexpected favourite books last year and I have been waiting patiently (impatiently) for the sequel!

With Saskia’s two life paths becoming one at the end of The Bone Charmer, she has now returned to Ivory Hall to commence training in Bone Magic (hiding the fact that she’s already been trained illegally by her mother and has the tattoo that could expose her secret). Upon learning they will need to participate in ‘The Bone Games’ this year, she teams up with some of the friends she had on her previous path. But in this lifeline, it’s the first time she’s meeting some of them, and Bram has no idea they were matched in Saskia’s other path. With tasks that seem designed to particularly torment Saskia, she’ll need the help of her team to not only get through the games, but to catch Latham and retrieve her mother’s bones.

I think this series has been so clever and intriguing. Keeping track of who knew what on each path was actually a lot of fun and Saskia’s anguish over the choices she has had to make was devastating. I’ve really loved the bone magic system throughout the duology. It was so unique and developed so well! I felt like the world building was even better in The Bone Thief than the first book. We got to see some new places, such as the city of Leiden, a place made entirely of glass, and the author’s magical descriptions had me right there, walking those streets. I honestly don’t know what I loved more in this conclusion, the harrowing tasks in the game or the anguish of Saskia’s left over romantic feelings for Bram, from the expired pathway.

This series has been so underrated in my opinion, and I’d love to see more people experience the magic!