books. diversity. really bad puns.
Title: A Wish in the Dark
Author: Christina Soontornvat
Publication Date: March 24th, 2020
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Source: eBook gifted by Skye <3
Age Range & Genre: middle grade, fantasy
Representation: all-Thai cast
Content warnings: death, fire, mentions of drowning
Thank you to Margaret K. McElderry Books for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All quotes are from an advance copy and are subject to change in final publication.
Title: These Violent Delights
Author: Chloe Gong
Publication Date: November 17th, 2020
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Source: Digital ARC via publisher
Age Range & Genre: YA, historical fantasy, romance
Content warnings: murder, gore, violence, death, loss of loved ones, disease/sickness, self-harm & suicide, transphobia, racism, colonialism, insects
Special thank you to Shealea and Caffeine Book Tours for organizing this blog tour and providing me an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review. All quotes are from an advance copy and are subject to change in final publication.
While this review is spoiler-free for Spell Starter, it may contain spoilers for Caster.
Title: Spell Starter
Author: Elsie Chapman
Publication Date: October 6th, 2020
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Source: Physical ARC via publisher
Age Range & Genre: YA, fantasy
Content warnings: violence, death, threats
Synopsis: Yes, Aza Wu now has magic back. But like all things in her life, it has come at a great cost. After the tournament, Aza is able to pay off her parents’ debt to Saint Willow. Unfortunately, the cost of the gathering spell she used to strip Finch of his magic has put her permanently in the employ of the gang leader. Aza has been doing little errands using real magic — collecting debts, putting the squeeze on new businesses in the district. But that had never been the plan. Saint Willow is nothing if not ambitious and having Aza as a fighter is much more lucrative than as a fixer. Especially if she can control the outcome. Aza is going to have to put it all on the line again to get out of this situation!
Much like its predecessor, Spell Starter took me by surprise and packed a punch – pun intended – but while Caster is very much a story about loss, Spell Starter is one of cost. Aza thought she paid the ultimate cost in getting revenge against her sister’s killer, Finch, by giving up her magic, but in this sequel, she finds that there are even more painful punishments to bear. Spell Starter takes a darker turn as Aza is suddenly forced to participate in a new tournament at Saint Willow’s bidding, and is even more relevant as it tackles environmentalism and greed.
Throughout Spell Starter, Aza struggles. She struggles with her new magic, she struggles with her grief for Shire, and she struggles with the person she’s starting to become under Saint Willow’s employment. No matter how much Aza tells herself that she is fighting in the tournament against her will and that she has no other choice, it does little to relieve any of the guilt she’s feeling. Aza is trying to be fine, both for herself and her parents, but whether she’s ready to acknowledge it or not, she’s now coping with the loss of multiple things. Aza has lost Shire, Kylin, and her magic, and she’s not sure how to start moving forward – if she even can.
From maybe 2013-2016, I was a huge Once Upon a Time fan, and a much repeated quote (some might even say it was repeated too many times) from the series is “magic always comes with a price,” and that’s essentially how I would summarize Spell Starter. Even though Aza has magic back, she quickly learns that it is nothing like her own magic and is left with painful reminders to drive that lesson home. She’s suffering from the consequences of casting physically, emotionally, and mentally, and yet she continues to fight because she has something to fight for. Everything Aza does, she does for her family, whether it’s in Shire’s memory or for the parents she’s slowly reconnecting with. Whatever the cost to herself, Aza is determined to protect the people she cares about.
Spell Starter includes all of the themes that made Caster such an impactful read for me, but while Aza is new and naive about the world she’s entering by fighting in the Guild’s tournament, she knows exactly what she’s getting into when Saint Willow forces her to compete again. The knowledge that Aza is working with in Spell Starter brings up the question of choice: under Saint Willow’s employ and the constant threats to her parents and their livelihood, does Aza have any other choice but to fight? But when fighting means losing control of magic that isn’t hers, toppling buildings, and tearing the earth apart, is there really a choice at all?
While Aza’s agency is at the heart of the story, so too is that of the earth’s. Once a world brimming with full-magic casters, the planet now reflects the damage that casters do to themselves when they use their magic. But despite the stigma against casters and the resentment they face due to their part in the earth’s destruction, other people are still willing to employ them and even bet on them for sport. The culture surrounding the tournaments is supposed to be a celebration of full magic and a recollection of days past, but Aza has already realized that it is actually one that endangers both the contestants and the earth’s for the entertainment of others.
I’m very much looking forward to seeing how Caster is adapted and how its environmentalist themes translate on screen, as well as watching people cast! We still don’t have much information about the movie, but check out the announcement on Tor!
Elsie Chapman grew up in Prince George, Canada, and has a degree in English literature from the University of British Columbia. She is the author of the YA novels Dualed, Divided, Along the Indigo, and Caster as well as the middle-grade novel All the Ways Home, and the coeditor of A Thousand Beginnings and Endings and Hungry Hearts. She currently lives in Tokyo, Japan, with her family.
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Special thank you to Shealea and Caffeine Book Tours for organizing this blog tour and providing me an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All quotes are from an advance copy and are subject to change in final publication.
While this review is spoiler-free for The Fallen Hero, it may contain spoilers for The Dragon Warrior.
Title: The Fallen Hero
Author: Katie Zhao
Publication Date: October 13th, 2020
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Source: Digital ARC via publisher
Age Range & Genre: middle grade, fantasy
Content warnings: mentions of death/afterlife torture
Synopsis: Faryn Liu thought she was the Heaven Breaker, a warrior destined to wield the all-powerful spear Fenghuang, command dragons, and defeat demons. But a conniving goddess was manipulating her all along…and her beloved younger brother, Alex, has betrayed her and taken over as the Heaven Breaker instead. Alex never forgave the people who treated him and Faryn like outcasts, and now he wants to wipe out both the demons and most of humanity.
Determined to prevent a war and bring Alex back to her side, Faryn and her half-dragon friend Ren join the New Order, a group of warriors based out of Manhattan’s Chinatown. She learns that one weapon can stand against Fenghuang–the Ruyi Jingu Bang. Only problem? It belongs to an infamous trickster, the Monkey King.
Faryn sets off on a daring quest to convince the Monkey King to join forces with her, one that will take her to new places–including Diyu, otherwise known as the Underworld–where she’ll run into new dangers and more than one familiar face. Can she complete her mission and save the brother she loves, no matter the cost?
If I could go back in time and gift my middle school self one series, it would have to be The Dragon Warrior series by Katie Zhao. Full of wit, humor, heart, The Fallen Hero is a love letter both to the Chinese diaspora and to the young adults who needed books like these growing up (including myself).
An outcast for the majority of her life, Faryn is a compelling protagonist whose strength comes from her love of her family and her own moral compass. Because of her multiracial background, she was never quite accepted by the Jade Society, where she grew up, nor does she fit in with the New Order – and to top it all off, Faryn has been betrayed by her younger brother and is no longer the Heaven Breaker. She struggles with feelings of abandonment and fitting in, but none of that stops her from wanting to honor the memories and legacies of her family and save her brother from making a mistake he can never take back. Faryn Liu is a courageous, Pocky-loving, dutiful granddaughter, and I have no doubt that she is going to save her world.
Despite the fact that my niece is years away from reading at all, much less reading chapter books, I’ve been keeping an ongoing mental note of books I want to gift to her when she’s ready, and The Dragon Warrior series is at the top of my list. Faryn is one of the most resilient protagonists I’ve ever had the pleasure of getting to know, and she has something to teach everyone, no matter their age. Faryn knows that blood doesn’t always make family and will never turn her back on the one she’s chosen, especially Alex, even as he continuously chooses the path that diverges from her own. And even in the face of the deepest kind of betrayal, Faryn still musters up the strength to be compassionate about what her brother is going through and the choices he makes, becoming all the more determined to save Alex from himself.
Six months after the events in The Dragon Warrior, Faryn is stronger, wiser, and still a kid who misses her family at heart. Katie Zhao manages to find the perfect balance in creating a character who fully understands the enormous weight that’s been put on her shoulders and is up to the task, and is still able to crack jokes and bicker like your typical twelve year old. Despite all that she’s lost and all of the responsibility that’s been foisted upon her, Faryn Liu is ultimately the same brave warrior that her Ye Ye raised her to be. In all honesty, reading The Fallen Hero made me feel like some kind of proud auntie – Faryn consistently finds herself faced with difficult decisions, but when her gut tells her that something is right, she commits herself to that feeling completely. She might not think that she is grounded in her identity, but Faryn has a quiet yet infallible sense of self that cannot be taught.
The Fallen Hero incorporates all of the elements that made me fall in love with The Dragon Warrior, but with higher stakes and new allies as Faryn fights to save humanity from the Jade Emperor. Faryn and her companions must fulfill several dangerous quests before they can convince the Monkey King to aid them in their battle, one of which leads them to Diyu, the Underworld in Chinese mythology. While the glossary at the end of the book is definitely helpful, Zhao does a great job in easing in new figures from Chinese mythology in a way that is humorous and memorable.
While it might seem counterintuitive to say that The Fallen Hero is a story about family, since Faryn and Alex are estranged throughout the course of the book, that is exactly what it is. Faryn’s journey to Diyu helps her realize that she’s not as alone as she thinks, that she is cared for and watched over, and that she does belong somewhere after all – everyone needs a reminder of this every once and awhile, but I think it is an especially powerful message for diaspora children struggling to reconcile different aspects of their identities.
Katie Zhao is a 2017 graduate of the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English and Political Science, and a 2018 Masters of Accounting at the same university. She is the author of Chinese #ownvoices middle grade fantasy THE DRAGON WARRIOR (Bloomsbury Kids, October 2019 & 2020), as well as a young adult author. She is a mentor for Author Mentor Match. She is currently open to freelance editorial services for young adult and middle grade manuscripts.
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Follow along with the rest of the tour via Caffeine Book’s launch post!
Special thank you to Shealea and Caffeine Book Tours for organizing this blog tour and providing me an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All quotes are from an advance copy and are subject to change in final publication.
Title: Blazewrath Games
Author: Amparo Ortiz
Publication Date: October 6th, 2020
Publisher: Page Street Kids
Source: Physical ARC via publisher
Age Range & Genre: YA, fantasy, contemporary, LGBTQ+
Content warnings: violence, death, manipulation, mentioned queerphobia
Synopsis: Lana Torres has always preferred dragons to people. In a few weeks, sixteen countries will compete in the Blazewrath World Cup, a tournament where dragons and their riders fight for glory in a dangerous relay. Lana longs to represent her native Puerto Rico in their first ever World Cup appearance, and when Puerto Rico’s Runner—the only player without a dragon steed—is kicked off the team, she’s given the chance.
But when she discovers that a former Blazewrath superstar has teamed up with the Sire—a legendary dragon who’s cursed into human form—the safety of the Cup is jeopardized. The pair are burning down dragon sanctuaries around the world and refuse to stop unless the Cup gets cancelled. All Lana wanted was to represent her country. Now, to do that, she’ll have to navigate an international conspiracy that’s deadlier than her beloved sport.
Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am the last person to possibly get invested in a sport, but Blazewrath Games had me captivated from the get-go. Reading Amparo Ortiz’s debut was exactly what I imagine some people experience when they’re at a football stadium – I was cheering, and screaming, and crying and gasping, and just rooting for Lana and her teammates so hard their victories started to feel like my own. Blazewrath Games is a book for the ages.
Blazewrath Games follows Lana as she gets the chance of a lifetime: a lifelong fan of Blazewrath, Lana is finally able to participate in the game her father taught her to love and represent the island that she loves just as much, if not more. But her experience is not what she imagined it to be. One of her teammates gives Lana a less than warm welcome and questions her right to be there as someone who hasn’t been back to Puerto Rico since she was five years old, but that’s not the worst of it. Lana quickly discovers that there are far more extreme, potentially deadlier stakes than the Blazewrath Cup, and inexplicably finds herself caught in the middle of it all.
Amparo Ortiz writes about the diaspora experience with a skilled nuance and deft hand that makes her contemporary fantasy world come to life. Even though there is video evidence that Lana has what it takes to be Puerto Rico’s Runner in the games, she finds herself questioning if she’s Puerto Rican enough to represent her island. I think what impressed me the most was how Ortiz contends with the very valid feelings of diasporic teens who struggle to figure out where they truly belong and stay connected with their heritage even as they blend in to their surroundings, while still acknowledging how, in many circumstances, American-raised children can be disconnected with what’s happening in the countries their families are from.
Lana is a character that you can’t help but root for. She wants to play for Puerto Rico more than anything, and yet she also acknowledges how her joining the team means that someone who currently lives on the island can’t. Rather than being discouraged by this realization, Lana lets this become her fuel, her motivation for winning the cup. Lana is so determined and she recognizes that as an American, she doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the team, but she wants to and commits herself to earning her place twice over — and, spoiler alert, she succeeds.
Blazewrath Games truly has something for everyone. Magical jock competitions somehow seem to be my kryptonite this year, despite my aversion to sports of any kind, but the cast of characters really made the book shine. Lana herself is indomitable and full of fire, and her teammates are no less impressive. In a world where magic is real and dragon history is a part of mainstream textbooks, Ortiz still manages to root Blazewrath Games in a contemporary world with contemporary characters. These teenage athletes train with their dragons, then scroll through Twitter and binge watch Law & Order in their free time. They all commit themselves to Blazewrath in order to represent their homes and make them proud, these very real countries who show up and cheer them on, and produce heroes, whether the characters themselves realize it or not.
Amparo Ortiz may have succeeded where many people have failed – Blazewrath Games may make a sports fan out of me yet. But only if dragons are involved. And only if an international conspiracy is not. So, basically, a sports fan I still am not, but I am definitely a fan of Blazewrath Games.
Amparo Ortiz was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and currently lives on the island’s northeastern coast. Her short story comic, “What Remains in The Dark,” appears in the Eisner Award-winning anthology Puerto Rico Strong (Lion Forge, 2018), and SAVING CHUPIE, her middle grade graphic novel, comes out with HarperCollins in Winter 2022. She holds an M.A. in English and a B.A. in Psychology from the UPR’s Río Piedras campus. When she’s not teaching ESL to her college students, she’s teaching herself Korean, devouring as much young adult fiction as she can, and writing about Latinx characters in worlds both contemporary and fantastical.
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Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
Title: Legendborn
Author: Tracy Deonn
Publication Date: September 15th, 2020
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Source: Digital ARC via Netgalley
Age Range & Genre: YA, fantasy, contemporary, retelling, LGBTQ+
Content warnings: death, racism, manipulation, memory erasure, violence, anxiety attacks
Special thank you to Shealea and Caffeine Book Tours for organizing this blog tour and providing me an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All quotes are from an advance copy and are subject to change in final publication.
While this review is spoiler-free for Iron Heart, it may contain spoilers for Crier’s War.
(So if you haven’t read Crier’s War yet….what are you waiting for?
Title: Iron Heart
Author: Nina Varela
Publication Date: September 8th, 2020
Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: eARC via publisher
Age Range & Genre: YA, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, LGBTQ+
Content warnings: violence, panic attack, torture, body horror (for more details, visit Nina Varela’s website)
Synopsis: An unstoppable love between two girls—one human, one Made—both set on destroying the Iron Heart.
For too long the cruel, beautiful Automae have lorded over the kingdom of Rabu, oppressing the humans who live there. But the human revolution is on the rise, and at its heart is Ayla. Once handmaiden, now fugitive, Ayla escaped the palace of Lady Crier, the girl Ayla had planned to kill . . . but instead fell in love with. Now Ayla has pledged her allegiance to Queen Junn, whom she believes can accomplish the ultimate goal of the human rebellion: destroy the Iron Heart. Without it, the Automae will be weakened to the point of extinction.
But playing at Ayla’s memory are the powerful feelings she developed for Crier. And unbeknownst to her, Crier has also fled the palace, taking up among travelling rebels, determined to find and protect Ayla.
As their paths collide, neither are prepared for the dark secret underlying the Iron Heart.
I have been reduced to a pile of goo. I am so soft. These disaster, idiot gays have made me so soft because they are so stinking soft.
Nina Varela’s never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna turn around and desert you. Nina Varela has done it once again and left me utterly and completely wrecked by her writing. Iron Heart is the perfect conclusion to the Crier’s War duology, gripping and satisfying and so, so tender.
I apologize in advance if my thoughts are still incoherent because, as I mentioned, I have been reduced to a puddle of goo. Crier’s War absolutely blew me away when I read it last year, and Iron Heart was easily one of my most anticipated releases of 2020. And I have to say – it did not disappoint.
Iron Heart takes place approximately two weeks after the conclusion of Crier’s War, with Ayla on the run after her failed assassination attempt and Crier’s wedding to Scyre Kinok approaching. Faster paced than its predecessor, Iron Heart follows Ayla and Crier as they separately journey to the kingdom of Varn in the hopes that the Mad Queen Junn can help bring Kinok down before he succeeds in destroying the Heart. In the thrilling conclusion of their story, the stakes are infinitely higher and the feelings that Crier and Ayla both tried to repress in the first book are made even stronger with distance.
Along with Crier and Ayla exuding gay panic and yearning on every other page, Iron Heart is a story that is ultimately about humanity and what some are willing to sacrifice for the sake of “progress.” Crier’s father is a Traditionalist who considers humans as animals that can be observed, whose history the superior Automae can learn from, and Crier’s former fiancé Kinok sees them as little more than scum. But Crier has always been a little different from the rest of her Kind, especially as she discovers that she wants to know Ayla, as humans know each other, and wants to be known in return. Free from restrictions for the first time in her life, Crier finally has the chance to implement the changes she’s dreamed about – and she’s determined to make it count.
Folks, we stan normalized queerness in books. Aside from a sapphic main couple, Nina Varela effortlessly integrates queerness into her writing in a way that I’ve rarely seen – there are numerous characters with established queer identities, yes, but what really captivated me were the stories and fairy tales we get a glimpse of, mostly through our lovable romantic Crier as she takes up the mantle of storyteller. In the short fairy tales that Varela shares in Iron Heart, gender roles are subverted and queer relationships are standard. They also provide another glimpse into Nina Varela’s lyrical and whimsical writing style, imbued with rich lessons and so much heart. Much like Crier, I couldn’t help loving these old stories.
As Ayla and Crier embark on separate journeys (don’t worry, they’re not separated for long) they strengthen bonds with old friends and meet new allies. I loved the new characters Varela introduces in Iron Heart and I was so thrilled that we got to learn more about Queen Junn on a deeper level. Most of all, I loved the fact that both Ayla and Crier are able to form bonds with other humans, something they miss out on in Crier’s War due to different circumstances. Iron Heart is about the side of revolution that remains in the shadows rather than the immediate spotlight, full of sleuthing, alliances, politics and philosophy, but it is no less action-packed for it. Crier and Ayla are very well aware that they cannot take down Kinok by themselves, and luckily, they don’t have to. Their revolution is very much a team effort, made up of people from different kingdoms and backgrounds, with their own beliefs and perspectives – and seeing them come together for a common goal to build a better world gave me some much needed hope.
Iron Heart is incredibly romantic and powerful, but it’s humorous, too. When I wasn’t sending snippets to my friends to show them how unbelievably soft Ayla and Crier are with each other, I was snorting at Crier’s deadpan sense of humor and gay panic, and Ayla’s inability to process positive emotions because, well, same. Even though our two narrators are a literal robot and a would-be assassin, they are just so relatable and real that I couldn’t help seeing myself represented in each of them at different moments throughout the book.
The conclusion to Crier’s War is the perfect mix of tenderness, yearning, and action, and was everything I could have wanted (and didn’t know I needed) to wrap up Crier and Ayla’s story. A million kudos and thanks to Nina, always.
Nina Varela is a nationally awarded writer of screenplays, short fiction, poetry, and novels. In May 2017, she graduated magna cum laude from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts with a BFA in Writing for Screen & Television. Crier’s War was her debut, and this is the sequel. She is originally from Durham, North Carolina, where she grew up on a hippie commune in the middle of the woods. She now lives in Los Angeles.
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Links for Iron Heart
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Add it on Goodreads!
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Special thank you to Kate @ Your Tita Kate and the publisher for organizing this blog tour and providing me a physical ARC of the book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All quotes are from an advance copy and are subject to change in final publication.
Title: The Bone Shard Daughter
Author: Andrea Stewart
Publication Date: September 8th, 2020
Publisher: Orbit
Source: Physical ARC via publisher
Age Range & Genre: Adult, fantasy, LGBTQ+
Content warnings: violence, death, blood, human/animal experimentation
Synopsis: 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.
Yeah, so, this series may or may not be my new obsession because good Lord am I invested. I’d heard from friends that The Bone Shard Daughter wouldn’t be quite how it seemed, but even then, I still had no idea what I was getting myself into – and it was all even more intriguing than I could have ever expected.
And I would show him that even broken daughters could wield power.
Andrea Stewart, The Bone Shard Daughter
While The Bone Shard Daughter is indeed Lin’s story, it is also the story of Jovis, Phalue, Ranami, and Sand. All five of these characters provide their own perspectives throughout the book, with Lin and Jovis’s chapters being told in first person, and Phalue, Ranami, and Sand’s being told in third. The shift between first person narration and third can initially be jarring, but Andrea Stewart executes the transition in a way that seems seamless. Although it took me a good 10+ chapters or so to acclimate and familiarize myself with their names and voices, the differing perspectives were masterfully handled in order to craft a phenomenal mystery full of layered twists and turns.
Lin is possibly one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever read about. She is simultaneously dealing with severe memory loss and competing with her father’s foster son to see who can unlock all of the keys to secret rooms in the palace and master bone shard magic first. Due to her memory loss and the fact that her father has clear expectations of who she should be, rather than who she is, Lin struggles to develop a sense of self. As she slowly discovers more about the palace and the secrets it holds, she learns more about herself, her father, and their fraught history.
If Lin is the character I found to be the most fascinating, I think Jovis would have to be my favorite. There’s something about the exhausted, reluctant hero who refuses to think of himself as a hero that I automatically love. Jovis’s chapters also had the perk of including Mephisolou (Mephi for short), an adorable talking creature that Jovis sort of accidentally rescues and subsequently bonds with. Their bond is so organic and strong, and I can’t wait to learn more about Mephi and his mysterious origins in the sequel.
Phalue and Ranami are interesting both individually and within their relationship to each other, and their dynamic has intricacies that make Stewart’s overall commentary on imperialism and classism hit even harder. I loved seeing an established sapphic relationship that is also blatantly flawed in a fantasy, where the people in the relationship obviously love each other deeply but have conflicting ideals and beliefs wrought by ignorance and privilege. All of the characters are easy to root for, but I might have been rooting for Phalue the hardest, hoping that she could unlearn her internalized biases and the lies that she wanted to believe about government.
Even though she had the fewest chapters in her perspective, Sand is absolutely crucial to the story. Stuck on an island without her memories of who she is or how she got there, Stewart lays the groundwork to help you guess at Sand’s true identity, and the reveal still knocked me off my feet.
A made thing could grow and change beyond its original purposes.
Andrea Stewart, The Bone Shard Daughter
Speaking of how Stewart lays the groundwork for guessing at plot twists – The Bone Shard Daughter is chock-full of twists that left my head spinning. Every time I thought I’d finally figured out what Stewart was hinting at, another layer was peeled back and I was completely taken by surprise all over again. The best twists are the ones that are satisfying, where you can clearly see several paths to reasonable conclusions and yet, no one but the author truly knows where the story is leading.
Stewart pulls absolutely no punches when it comes to imperialism and privilege. Two of our leading narratives are characters in positions of great power and privilege, who have to expand their perspectives beyond their own sheltered lives and recognize the hardships that nearly everyone else is facing. As a governor’s daughter, Phalue is infuriating even as you root for her to grow because yes, she is extremely ignorant, but her rhetoric is so utterly familiar. We’ve all heard people justify exploitation, injustice, inequality, by insisting that people choose that life, that they don’t have to remain stuck in their circumstances and can rise above them, that the world is fair and people have equal opportunities if only they just take advantage of them. It’s an exhausting mindset to encounter and try to undo, and I love that Stewart shows that process through Phalue and Ranami’s relationship.
I adored The Bone Shard Daughter much more than I expected, which can probably be credited to the book’s fairly slow start, but that’s also to be expected of adult fantasies. With a beautifully layered plot and the development of the main characters, I think Stewart set herself up for a truly stunning sequel that further explores the effects of imperialism and how nations are rebuilt in the aftermath – if they’re rebuilt at all. Considering what Stewart managed to do in the first book alone, I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Andrea Stewart is the daughter of immigrants, and was raised in a number of places across the United States. Her parents always emphasized science and education, so she spent her childhood immersed in Star Trek and odd-smelling library books.
When her (admittedly ambitious) dreams of becoming a dragon slayer didn’t pan out, she instead turned to writing books. She now lives in sunny California, and in addition to writing, can be found herding cats, looking at birds, and falling down research rabbit holes.
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