The Bone Season

****

4 Stars/5

In an alternative England, 2059, being a Voyant is illegal in Scion controlled London. That’s why 19 year old Paige is in the underground criminal cell called Seven Seals, where her boss likes to collect rare Voyants like Paige who is a dreamwalker. When Paige is captured and arrested, she finds out that there are things more sinister than the Scion, when she is taken to the prison city of Sheol 1. It is ruled by creatures called Rephaim and they keep Voyants as their army, entertainment and food source. Paige is assigned a Rephaim keeper called Warden who will look after her needs and will train her. To get her freedom and protect her friends, Paige might have to learn to trust someone who is meant to be her enemy.

The Bone Season is a really good and original dystopia/fantasy novel with action, mystery, tension and a hint of romance. I knew there was a lot of hype about this book when I started it and I recommend that you take it with a pinch of salt as, while I really liked this book, comparing it to JK Rowling does not help it, as it is completely different. This book is really descriptive and fairly dark and is a quick read considering how long it is however, the beginning of the book was slow as there is a lot of information given. However, by the second half of the book the story is really addictive and I did not want to put it down.

Paige is a mature, loyal and tough girl who is surer of herself than most YA heroines and does not go weak at the knees around a good looking man. However, she is not perfect as she does pick fights, for no good reason that I can tell, which she cannot win and puts others in danger. Even after finishing the book Warden is a big mystery and is a really intriguing character.

I like how this book did not really have a love triangle as I am really getting sick of them, but like another review has said, the romance is a lot like the one in the Black Magician Trilogy, but not as good. While I like that the romance was slow building instead of insta-love it felt a bit forced to me as there was no romantic chemistry between them two. I hope in the next book we get to see more of Jaxon and the rest of the seven seals as the bits and pieces we saw of them were very interesting.

If reading the physical book form, like me, you will need to flick to the glossary at the back of the book as there are a lot of new weird words which was confusing if you did not know what they mean. I also got confused by the time line in this book as this book felt like it took only a few weeks whereas it is actually months.

This novel is a Marmite book as people seem to either love or hate it, but I feel this series has a lot of potential and with a lot of unanswered questions and I am looking forward to reading the next book. I would recommend The Bone Season to people who like unique books with both dystopia and fantasy elements in it.