The Bone Shard Daughter is an unmissable 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. “One of the best debut fantasy novels of the year.” — BuzzFeed News “An amazing start to a new trilogy.” — Culturess “It grabs you by the heart and … trilogy.” — Culturess
“It grabs you by the heart and the throat from the first pages and doesn’t let go.” — Sarah J. Maas
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.
“One of the best debut fantasy novels of the year.” —BuzzFeed News
“An amazing start to a new trilogy.” —Culturess
“It grabs you by the heart and the throat from the first pages and doesn’t let go.” –Sarah J. Maas
“Epic fantasy at its most human and heartfelt . . . inventive, adventurous and wonderfully written.” –Alix E. Harrow
“Utterly absorbing. I adored it.” –Emily Duncan
“A thoroughly fantastic read.” –Kevin Hearne
“Stewart’s debut is sharp and compelling. It will hook readers in and make them fiercely anticipate the rest of the series.” —Booklist
“Groundbreaking epic fantasy for a new age.” –Tasha Suri
“Begins with a spark of intrigue that ignites into a thrilling adventure.” –Hafsah Faizal
“I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter. And I would show him that even broken daughters could wield power.”
“The Bone Shard Daughter”, “The Drowning Empire”, Book 1, is Andrea Stewart’s highly accomplished debut novel. As with any such applauded book, sometimes it’s a tricky thing for the reader, such as myself, coming in with some preconceived notions that the book should live up to the accolades and hype surrounding it. Thankfully, I did truly enjoy this book, and I believe it has earned the laurels readers and critics alike have bestowed upon it. It was an amazing read.
If one is going to write a book with multiple POVs (assuming the characters are not immediately connected in some way), the most harrowing task is how to tie together sometimes disparate narratives at some point in the story so that they blend with some degree of harmony. Stewart did this exceptionally well with “The Bone Shard Daughter”, while leaving some tantalizing threads dangling where she did not put the different POV characters quite in each other’s orbit but set things up nicely for intriguing meetings in future installments.
The main POV in the book is that of Lin, daughter of the Emperor of the Phoenix Empire, and the eponymous Bone Shard Daughter. Lin is haunted in her efforts to capture lost memories, and because she cannot remember properly, the Emperor qualifies her as “broken”, and not ready for escalating responsibilities until she can somehow recapture those memories.
The Emperor, Shiyen, has ruled for decades, virtually uncontested, but his rule has been brutally imposed through the use of an absolutely petrifying, eerie type of magic: using bone fragments from his subjects to propel macabre Frankenstein-like creatures, called “constructs”. These constructs are fabricated from bits and pieces of dead animals and humans, sewn together, and brought to life by the bone shards implanted in them.
The bone shards – which are forcibly taken from the Emperor’s citizens – are the equivalent of computer programs, as they are engraved commands that define the constructs’ behaviour: defining them as spies, guards, even military or economic advisors. The Emperor is the Frankenstein-like mad scientist, with the ruthless determination and skill to ensure he has sufficiently numerous and powerful constructs to keep the populous under heel.
Furthermore, removal of the bone shards from the citizens is a death sentence; either dying right away during the procedure as children, or slowly wasting away as adults when the constructs begin to fully animate and grow into their own. The Emperor rationalizes his brutal experiments and subjugation of his people in giving away their very lives, in that the presences of his constructs ensure a safe and orderly society. The old “for the greater good” argument.
Lin is supposed to be Shiyen’s heir, but Shiyen has adopted a foster ward, Bayan, and put Bayan in direct competition with Lin, seemingly to bring out the best in her abilities, and make her prove herself worthy to inherit the throne. The widowed, despotic Emperor is cold and emotionally distant from Lin, but as many children would, Lin still seeks affection and praise from her father, and sees her means to secure that affection and praise is to master control of her father’s constructs, demonstrating she is a worthy successor.
But Bayan is a capable adversary, and brilliant in his own right with learning mastery of the constructs. Lin feels compelled so seek out help from the common folk of the empire in her quest to inherit the throne and win her father’s approval, but this sets off a chain of events with disastrous consequences. Yet Lin is resolved to get the better of her father, and find out the real truth as to why her memories have been so challenging to recapture.
“I could have waited, one part of my mind told me. I could have been obedient; I could have done my best to answer my father’s questions, to heal my memories. But the other part of my mind was cold and sharp. It cut through the guilt to find a hard truth. I could never be what he wanted if I did not take what I wanted…. He’d not left me with any choice other than to show him I was worthy in a different way.”
I found the other POVs to be just as transfixing as Lin’s, though it become obvious during the novel that Lin’s fate is central to the fate of the other characters given agency to tell their own tales.
The second POV is that of Jovis. Jovis is a smuggler by trade, but he has a compassionate streak, and has been devoting – dangerously – his missions to saving children from the “Tithing Festivals” where youngsters are forced to give up their bone shards to power the Emperor’s constructs. Thus Jovis is a highly wanted fugitive from the Empire’s justice. Jovis is also searching for his long-lost wife, and is determined to find out what happened to her.
Phalue and Ranami’s POVs are intertwined. They are lovers, and Phalue, an aristocrat, warrior, and another daughter who is heir to her father’s titles, is beginning to have doubts, thanks to Ranami, as to whether Phalue’s father’s rule is just. Ranami, meanwhile, joins the underground resistance against the Emperor’s rule, the “Shardless Ones”, forcing Phalue to chose between love, her values, and her father.
Finally, Sand has the most obscure POV. She resides, with people like her, on the remote edges of the Empire, labouring hard in picking coconuts, without the ability to understand why their tasks are so important, how they got to their current location in the first place, or any memory of their past prior to arriving. The picking of the coconuts seems to be the only purpose Sand and her compatriots exist for, but Sand is determined to break through the fog of amnesia and discover her true identity.
Phenomenal world-building, a plot that builds to a fascinating crescendo, deft prose, and entrancing themes, Stewart has crafted an epic, groundbreaking, emotionally engaging fantasy, with deeply engrossing characters. I loved the magic, intrigue, love stories, and unsettling, unsettling bone shard magic. Revolt and rebellion against authority has always been a fascination of mine: why people do it, how and if they succeed, whether or not they can put a better system in place in the aftermath than the previous one, or if it’s just more of the same, under a different guise. Also just as riveting for me were the themes explored by Stewart surrounding privilege, obligation, classism, and what makes a good ruler. Finally, the aspects of what defines memory, knowledge, identity, and how they equate to power and self-determination, was very absorbing as well.
Overall, “The Bone Shard Daughter” is an intricate, thoughtful, and very memorable novel that deserves to be considered as one of the top fantasy books written in the past while. Awe-inspiring, highly recommended, and please, bring on Book 2, “The Bone Shard Emperor!” Five plus very glowing out of five stars!
T;LDR: A multiple POV fantasy with a gruesome magical system, The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart is an interesting tale and a great start to this trilogy.
My rating: 1/2
My favorite characters were Jovis and Mephi. Like many other reviewers, I found their relationship to be amazing and funny. The way Mephi pushes Jovis to do the right thing with a few words here or there… I loved it.
I also really like Jovis. He is the epitome of a reluctant hero. He keeps doing things he doesn’t want to because he can’t *not* do them. He cares too much, for all his posturing that he doesn’t. He’s also someone you can connect to in his journey.
I like Lin’s plucky nature. I like that she finds ways around her father’s locked doorsu200a—u200awhich is a metaphor for the locked memories within heru200a—u200aand I liked that she too had a good heart. But… I did not connect as well to her as to Jovis. Her internal monologues were very plot focused, where Jovis’ were character driven.
I did like the twist in Lin’s story, however.
The magic in this story is grotesque and yet also very interesting. I liked how well it was grounded in the world, in the uprising, in the motivations for both sides of the storyu200a—u200aLin and Jovisu200a—u200aand how it is used later in the book.
One thing some people may not like, but I had no issues with were the POVs. Lin and Jarvis’ POV is in first person; Ranami, Phalue and Sand’s POV is in third person. It didn’t bother me.
To Sum Up (Too Late!)
This was a really good booku200a—u200afrom the world building, the mythology, the magic system, and the characters we’ve met so far (it’s a two book series). With the lack of connection to Lin, I didn’t give it my highest rating, but it is 4.5 stars.
I was very taken with the many different moving islands of this fantasy world and the unusual magic—the emperor requires all subjects to provide a tiny bone shard, taken when they are children, which he uses to power magical monsters that fight and spy and think for him. People whose bone shards get used in this way have their life force sucked out and die in pain—that’s empires for you—so it seems like an obviously terrible practice, except that we meet some of the emperor’s “constructs” and they’re also individuals with the will to live, so this book has a really thorny moral dilemma at its heart. More importantly, it has a charming magical animal companion who completely stole my heart and it’s very important to me that he never come to any harm, so I guess I have to read the sequel now. Plus: one of the intertwining story threads has passionate, star-crossed lesbians (one is a rebel, one is the governor’s daughter).
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart starts The Drowning Empire trilogy. It takes place in a country that consists of several islands which float around a sea in a set pattern, coming closer and retreating, as well as moving slowly around, which affects the weather. For several years there’s been a dry season. The book starts as the rainy season is about to begin.
The empire is ruled by the Emperor who has secluded himself in a palace on the Imperial island, not seeing envoys from other islands or visiting himself. His sole attention is on constructs, creations he builds from different animal parts and then animates with bone shard magic to use as spies, guards, and civil servants. Some are more intelligent, some are less so, depending on how many shards they have. According to him, the constructs are the only defence against an ancient enemy that hasn’t been seen in centuries.
Each citizen is required to donate a bone shard from their scull as children. When their shard is in use, the construct uses the donors’ life energy, depleting and eventually killing them. People hate it and a rebellion is rising against the Emperor and the practice.
There were several point of view characters. Two of them, Lin and Jovis, were told in first person, with bigger roles in the story, and the others in third.
Lin is the Emperor’s daughter. She suffers from amnesia caused by an illness she also has no memory of, but she’s eager to learn her father’s magic to become the next emperor. But he hoards the secret, making impossible demands of her for the knowledge, so she sets out to learn it by herself, stealing her father’s keys to a secret library. And then she uncovers a secret about her father and herself that upends her entire world and puts her on the path to overthrow the Emperor. Lin wasn’t entirely likeable character, but I ended up rooting for her anyway.
Jovis is a smuggler searching for his wife who was stolen from their home years ago. He’s sailing from island to island, looking for clues. But every time he thinks he’s on her trail, something happens to derail him. People keep asking him to smuggle their children away from the shard ceremony, and little by little, he finds himself entangled in the rebellion against the Emperor.
He has a companion, Mephi, a creature he saved from the sea. He can speak, and he possesses magic that gives Jovis incredible strength, fighting skills, and other special abilities as long as they’re near each other. Together, they end up helping the rebels to overthrow an island governor in exchange for information about Jovis’s wife. But when the time comes to go find her, he chooses to go after the Emperor instead. Jovis and Mephi were my favourite characters. Jovis was a bit grumpy but with Mephi he slowly thaws.
Then there were the governor’s daughter Phalue and her girlfriend Ranami. The latter is involved in the shard rebellion, and she coaxes and emotionally blackmails Phalue into going against her father. They weren’t really my favourites, but Phalue had a decent and believable growth arc.
Finally Sand, a woman who lives in a desert island, repeating her daily routines with no recollection of who she is or how she’s ended up there. But then an accident jolts her out of her haze, and she starts gaining her memories, only to learn the same shocking truth as Lin did, with the same conclusion: she must rise against the Emperor.
This was an excellent book. The world was interesting and the magic truly unique. The characters had believable storylines, and the chapters were short, keeping the pace fast. I didn’t see the twist coming, even though in hindsight it’s self-evident, so that was well done. The larger uprising against the emperor, and a possible return of the ancient enemy is yet to come, but the second book will concentrate on those. That will be next on my reading list.
Why is the release of the second book so far away!!?? Loved this and can’t wait to continue living in the book
Reading now and can already highly recommend. The world and magic system are unique and intricately drawn. It’s wonderful and painful and so well plotted. I can’t wait to see if my guesses about where things are going come true. I don’t know whether I’ll be proud or disappointed if I’ve guessed correctly, but either way the journey will be well worth it!
A captivating richly woven tale of intrigue, character, duty and finding oneself even at the cost of everything you thought you knew. The story follows several different characters that all have their parts to play as the empire they live in is coming apart. It’s magical and satisfying and I cannot wait for more of this spellbinding new world!
This is well-written book with great characters and believable and original world building. What makes it more impressive is it’s a debut novel. I’m certainly looking forward to the next book in the series.
I’ll be honest, I think this is one of those times that a book blurb actually undersells a book. I went into The Bone Shard Daughter expecting the story to only revolve around Lin and this bone shard magic. Don’t get me wrong, I found that storyline intriguing BUT this story is so much more than that!
The narration alternates between the POVs of five different characters:
Lin, the daughter of the Emperor. Lin lost the majority of her memories five years prior due to a sickness, which her father is constantly disappointed by. To make matters worse, Lin must compete with her foster brother Bayan to prove to her father that she is capable of wielding bone shard magic and one day becoming emperor.
Jovis, a half-Empirean, half-Poyer smuggler and expert sailor who is on a mission to find his wife who has been missing for the last seven years. His mission keeps getting sidetracked as parents keep begging him to rescue their children from the horrific tithing festivals. He also has an adorable pet companion named Mephi, who is the absolute best.
Phalue, the daughter of one of the island’s governors and is a professionally trained badass that I would never want to go head to head with.
Ranami, Phalue’s girlfriend and a member of the rebellion that is trying to overthrow Phalue’s father.
Sand, a woman who is missing her memories on an island of full of people who are also missing their memories
This may sound like a lot, but each of the characters are fully developed and have a unique voice that moving between each of their chapters was seamless. Lin and Jovis have the most page time of the five characters, but each of their stories was compelling and added a layer of complexity that enhanced the overall story.
I won’t be able to address everything that I loved in this book so here are some of the highlights:
The established sapphic relationship! Phalue and Ranami have been together for years. Phalue has tried to propose to Ranami a number of times, but Ranami constantly refuses because she doesn’t want to be a governor’s wife. What I loved most about their relationship was that is was completely normalized within society. The governor being a female and taking a wife was not something that needed to be addressed.
The bone shard magic and the constructs. All citizens must give a shard from their skull as children to the Emperor. In turn, the Emperor uses the shards to power constructs (from parts of dead animals) to maintain order and protect the people from the threat of an ancient civilization (the Alanga). Everything surrounding the constructs and bone shard magic is dark, insidious, and downright creepy.
The world building. The world building in this one is both lush and vivid, which made for an immersive reading experience.
The plot does slow down a bit in the middle as we get into the nitty gritty of the politics at play. I still found this part interesting, but I think that some readers may struggle with that section. However, the last 100 pages of this book is NONSTOP plot twists and revelations. I flew threw that section.
Overall, this is a solid start to The Drowning Empire trilogy, and based off of that ending, I am DYING to see what happens next in book two.
Thank you to Orbit Books for providing a review copy. This did not influence my review. All opinions are my own.
In a world comprised of islands ruled by a reclusive Emperor with a daughter no one has seen since she was young, where the Emperor’s constructs run everything on each island, there are those who are restless, who would bring change to the Empire. At the age of eight, every child goes through the Tithing Festival and has a chip of bone taken from their skull to be stored in the palace until it’s needed to power a construct. Lin, the Emperor’s daughter, is determined to be named heir, doing everything in her power to learn how to code the constructs. Not everyone is happy about it, though, and will do everything in their power to bring down the Empire.
Growing up with a moderately traditional Chinese father meant our home was decorated with large decorative fans, wall hangings with Chinese characters, strange statues of supposedly heroic figures in Chinese history, and beautiful pillowcases embroidered with scenes featuring mountains, countless stairs, delicate pagodas, scraggly trees, and wisps of fog. They were haunting. Eerie. Forbidding. Magical. I felt the exact same way while reading The Bone Shard Daughter. It was haunting and eerie, especially with the strange Alanga relics that had small, but powerful roles. It was magical, but made me want to jump out of my skin sometimes, especially while reading on my Kindle in the dark. It didn’t necessarily feel lyrical, but it did transport me into this fantastical world, and I sometimes feared I wouldn’t be able to get out.
The Plot: Slow, but Carefully Crafted
The Bone Shard Daughter can best be summed up as everyone against the Emperor because he literally uses his people’s life forces to power his constructs and protect everyone from the Alanga, who haven’t been seen in generations.
There’s his daughter, Lin, who was struck with an illness when her father adopted a son, Bayan, who she now competes against in a race to regain memories and gain keys to all the locked doors in the palace. Secrets are around every turn and danger lurks in the shadows. There’s no love lost between Lin and Bayan as their father turns them against each other, but Lin is desperate for approval, to be named heir as the Emperor’s sole blood child. She’ll do anything to learn the secrets, to prove herself worthy.
Jovis travels the islands as a smuggler while hunting down information about a ship with blue sails. His wife vanished on it 7 years ago and he’s desperate to get her back. When an island mysteriously and abruptly sinks, he saves a little boy and a kitten-like creature, Mephi, which earns him both a new, unwanted job of rescuing children from the Tithing Festival for a fee and a new friend who bestows incredible powers, powers the Shardless Few want to use for their own ends.
Phalue is a governor’s daughter and thinks she knows her common born girlfriend’s problems with the governor and how the island is governed. But, Ranami doesn’t believe she does. When Ranami gets both of them up in above their heads with the Shardless Few, more than a few revelations are made, and more than a few changes are in order.
Finally, Sand just wants to collect as many mangoes as she can, as is required of her, until she falls, injures herself, and starts to see shards of a past she can barely grasp. Now she just wants to get rid of the fog she and countless others are stuck in and get off the island.
There’s so much to this book, so many story lines. At first, it was a little difficult to figure out what they had in common, how they could possibly converge. For almost half the book I felt a bit out to sea, and it was slow going. I liked their individual journeys, but it was a bit boring and tedious. Finally, when everything started to come together, it really came together. Realizations exploded in my head and I couldn’t read the second half fast enough. It was creepy and eerie and made my skin crawl, but every word of it was delicious. It’s a carefully balanced story of those who would keep things as they are and those who seek revolution while also subtly pointing to danger just around the corner.
The Characters: Very Human
The characters were really the stars of the book. They propelled the story forward, made things happen with their choices. They were human, so they didn’t always make the right choices, didn’t always think things through. Each had their own motivations even when their threads became twisted with another’s. I liked that Lin was desperate to get what she wanted, so desperate that she made mistakes that just made the story leap forward. I loved the conflict in Jovis’s heart, and the idea that his loyalties are torn, or maybe he has none. The ambiguity about him at the end was absolutely perfect. Ranami made my heart ache as she was so desperate for one thing that she became blinded to several facts that would make her innocence apparent.
Most of all, I adored the relationships. The ones in the palace were fascinatingly dysfunctional, which turned out to be even more dysfunctional by the end. It was bizarre, but, bizarrely, it all worked. The one that stole my heart, though, was between Jovis and Mephi. I loved Mephi so much I wanted to reach into the book and pull him out so he could be my friend. I’m dying to know exactly what he is, but I have my suspicions. The one disappointment I had was that between Phalue and Ranami. I liked it, appreciated it, but it also felt thrown in and not as developed as the other relationships. Or maybe the story was just so massive, so long, that there wasn’t enough space to fully develop it. Even the one between Lin and the blacksmith she forced into making keys for her had depth and feeling in it. The one between Phalue and Ranami felt shallow compared to every other relationship, almost as though there wasn’t any real feeling behind it even though they tried hard.
The Setting: Out to Sea
The world is comprised of islands that float around. Each island has its place in the dance. Since I have an e-ARC, I don’t have the world map, which was disappointing because, in my mind, it’s fabulous. I loved the tropical nature, the division between the dry and wet years. Each island was much like the others, but had some subtle differences. Since it’s an empire of islands, though, it really showcased both what unified them into an empire, and divided them from the empire.
Then there’s the palace. It was kind of creepy as the family consists of only three people. The rest of the palace has a whole bunch of weird constructs and some servants who skedaddle as soon as someone appears. It felt so empty and quiet, almost as though no one actually lived there. The weirdest part was the locked doors. It was fun to explore what was behind them with Lin, but also made me feel like my heart was going to jump into my throat because there was no telling what she would find.
Overall: Beautifully, Eerily Fascinating
First of all, Mephi made the book for me. I was so taken by him that, even if the story had been terrible, I would have kept reading only for him. Fortunately, the story was beautifully, weirdly fascinating. The world was well-thought out, the characters were likable even when they weren’t, and the converging story lines really made things interesting. Overall, a haunting story with a great deal of potential to be something massive, yet compelling.
Thank you to Angela Man at Orbit for a free e-ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.