Wyrd and Wonder is a month-long event celebrating fantasy books. Check out Imyril’s intro post for all the details. The event is hosted by Imyril of One More, Lisa of Dear Geek Place and Jorie Loves a Story, and you can follow Wyrd and Wonder on Twitter. Pegasus images by Svetlana Alyuk on 123RF.com

This is my first time participating in a readalong through blogging, so excuse me if I get it wrong. There’s also a Goodreads Discussion for it.

Spoiler-free review first, with the spoiler discussion at the end, hidden. 

• Genre: Fantasy
• Age group: Adult
• Pub. date: September 8th 2020
• Format: Ebook
• Pages: 438
• Goodreads link

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.

This book is so much fun! It was a super fast read for me, I liked all of the main characters, the world is interesting and fresh, with a lot of mysteries (and I’m really looking forward to finding the answers to some of them in the sequels!).

The world

We know from the title that there’s going to be somehting about bones, and that’s always cool you know, necromancy is a fun magic. But there’s so much more to it than that. The story is set in an Empire that spawns a vast arhipelago. There’s an old threat that we never learn that much about and I’m still so curious. All sorts of fun applications of magic. Consequences, we’ve got heaps of consequences.

The characters

There are a few PoV characters, each doing their own thing, highlighting new and exciting ways in which this empire is completely fucked up. I loved getting all those prespective and especially how the characters themselves start paying attention and questioning all sorts of stuff. We’ve got Lin who’s the emperor’s daughter, trying to make daddy proud and giving us most of our necromancy and general creepy shit knowledge. She’s got the most central part of the story, but she’s only ever in one place and very removed from the rest of the empire. So we’ve got Jovis, a fun smuggler, always getting into trouble as he’s trying to follow his one specific goal. He’s great, really fun to read about. And he meets Mephi, a creature that’s very cute. And Phalue and her lover who sort of give us the most context for how life really is in the empire. They’re also the 3rd lesbian pair where one half is anti-imperialist that I’ve read this year, and if this is a trend I’m here for it!

I really liked where things went in the book, in the sense that it all made perfect sense to me and fit together well, I’m a big fan of thingc clicking into place. Maybe the foreshadowing was a bit too much, personally it didn’t bother me because hints are wasted on me, so it was “oh yeah I totally should’ve seen that!”, but a more attentive reader might, see that, I mean.

It’s got a great and strange mix of fun and gruesome, on the one hand there’s Mephy that’s adorable and Jovis that’s all fun, Lin being all kick-as trying to do things so she can show off to da. And then there’s so much awfulness, the way the magic works, the monsters, the empire runs. So when something really nasty happened I was always a little taken aback because I’d been lulled into this false sense of security with all the cute and fun stuff.

Overall I enjoyed this a lot and recomend it to anyone looking for a fun and dark book that mixes cute animals and sinister secrets.

Wyrd and Wonder Readalong Week 4

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 1. Lin’s a construct, Bayan’s a construct, the people on Maila Isle are constructs … Let’s talk about constructs! We now know far more, but still not enough. What are your thoughts and feelings on the nature of constructs?

I’m not entirely sure the people on Maila Isle are fully constructs, my guess is people that have been constructifyed somewhat? If that makes sense. I think there has to be more to them since they were kept alive on the island, so I think they’re the source materials for Lin and Bayan, though I’m not sure why they’d have to be alive then since it doesn’t seem that way with animals.

2. Hot on the heels of the revelation that she was not born but made, Lin has learned why she was made *shudder*. Reaction shots, please.

EWWWWWW noooooo. So naaah and whyyyy, I mean why make her as a daughter and not as a wife if that’s what he was going for? No like.

3. The Emperor is dead. (Hurray!) Phalue has successfully usurped her father as governor. (Yay?) Change is on the wind and those Alanga paintings have opened their eyes… Care to make any predictions for what’s coming? Do you think the Alanga are really a threat?

I am so glad the emperor is dead, I said he needed a good stabbing and he got one hurrah! I AM SO CURIOUS ABOUT THE ALANGA! We know so little about them and what they did! Are they the baddies or the goodies? Was the Emperor wrong or right to be so paranoid about their return!? I NEED TO KNOW!

4. We’ve also discovered the identity of Sand. Possibly. She has memories that suggest she is Nisong, but she is a construct just like Lin. What does it all mean?? (Not a rhetorical question – please tell me what it all means!)

We know Nisong died and I’m willing to accept that as true since that’s the event that seems to have sent the emperor into his trust no one build everyone spiral, so I think Sand might be a previous Lin? Some experiment with the memory machine?

5. Jovis and Mephi have arrived on Imperial Island and come face to face with Lin and Thrana. This is an Interesting Development. What are your theories on Mephi and Thrana? Also on the Emperor’s laboratory and what he was using Thrana for?

I think there’s def. more to Mephi and Thrana’s magic than we know, I think she was used as a sort of power source for experiments? I’m so glad that the book ended with both of them safe and able to heal, I’m hoping Thrana will be able to shine some light on stuff.

I was really glad that both Lin and Phalue got to see and aknowledge the fucked parts of their father’s actions, I thought that was so satisfyingly done!

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