The Bone Shard Daughter
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ISBN: 9780356514956
Description
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 she 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.
Reviewed on 22nd February 2025
The first book in The Drowning Empire trilogy introduces us to an empire across a range of migratory islands. We meet four point-of-view characters from different backgrounds, with different lives and objectives.
There’s good world-building, but which becomes a bit more gruesome than I’d have liked.
Weirdly, I found three of the characters much more compelling than the fourth. Somehow in just that one plot line I found my eyes failing to stick, and skipping over the paragraphs in a way that didn’t happen with the others.
It’s a book about relationships - ones with a lack of balance, new ones, and ones which are over but not forgotten. It’s quite sad in a lot of respects once you think about it.
I don’t think it’s done quite enough to grip me though, and I don’t think the sequels will make it onto my to-read pile.