The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart
Good morning, afternoon, or whenever it is that you read this.
Earlier this year, my wife read M. L. Wang's Blood Over Bright Haven at my recommendation. While she was in the middle of reading it, she suggested the Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart.
The Bone Shard Daughter is the first book of the Drowning Empire series. There's quite a few mysteries that drive the plot, making it difficult to make a spoiler free review. But that honestly is it's greatest strength - the book presents a tangled mess of threads that keeps you pulling and tugging until you see it all laid out. And even then, it leaves some knots bound tightly for the rest of the series.
The story fits squarely in the genre of resistance fiction. The central, overarching challenge is the Empire, which is clearly depicted to be exploitative and extractive. The Emperor uses these extracted resources to create of constructs - golems created and programmed to fulfill the edicts of the emperor. An autocratic government where all bureaucratic functions have been fielded out to these automation? It's the fantasy version of a tech bro's wet dream. I also love magic systems reminiscent of a programming language (while I am educated in the humanities, I was in a computer program in high school, and seriously considered programming before I fell in love with writing).
A magic system alone can't carry a story, however, and fortunately for me, the characters are great to read, each bringing a differing perspective of conditions in the empire who all bring their own puzzle pieces to the mystery. They each bring their own serious flaws which act as genuine obstacles they must overcome. My personal favorite character is Lin, the daughter of the emperor. Her chapters read like a mystery thriller as she steadily uncovers more about the rot of her family. Plus, I just enjoy reading an intelligent, badass woman doing intelligent, badass things.
Our other main protagonist is Jovis, the folk hero smuggler accompanied by a cute and trusty animal companion. His story reads like an action packed swashbuckling outlaw tale. There are three other point of view characters, but the majority of the chapters are occupied by Jovis and Lin, and they have the most character development. These other point of views are Phalue, a governor's daughter; Ranami, Phalue's commoner girlfriend; and Sand, a woman who is a mystery to the reader and herself.
While I deeply enjoyed the book, I had trouble following where the narrative was at times. Geography wasn't very clear and I had no clear idea of where people were in relation to each until the story threads started to intertwine. It is a great read, but the unraveling mystery aspect does mean you need to focus up through the whole narrative. If you have a reading partner, I bet this would be a great book to pick. My wife read it before I did, but I enjoyed sharing my theories about the plot with her, and she seemed to enjoy listening to them. I bet it would have been even better if we were navigating the mystery side by side.
The unraveling mystery is seriously one of the narrative's greatest strengths, and it is worth the ride. The Bone Shard Daughter is a great mix of mystery, fantasy, and resistance fiction. As always, you should check out the content warnings as it can get dark.
Thank you for reading, if you made it this far.