Thoughts on : Bone Crier’s Moon by Kathryn Purdie

Posted by Kay on March 26, 2021 9:49 pm in 3 stars reads | 1 comment

Bone Crier’s Moon by Kathryn Purdie
Genre : Fantasy, YA
Series : Bone Grace, book 1

About the Book  :

Bone ​Criers have a sacred duty. They alone can keep the dead from preying on the living. But their power to ferry the spirits of the dead comes from sacrifice. The gods demand a promise of dedication, and that promise comes at the cost of the Bone Criers’ one true love.

Ailesse has been prepared since birth to become the matriarch of the Bone Criers, a mysterious famille of women who use strengths drawn from animal bones to ferry dead souls. But first she must complete her rite of passage and kill the boy she’s also destined to love.

Bastien’s father was slain by a Bone Crier and he’s been seeking revenge ever since. Yet when he finally captures one, his vengeance will have to wait. Ailesse’s ritual has begun and now their fates are entwined—in life and in death.

Sabine has never had the stomach for the Bone Criers’ work. But when her best friend Ailesse is taken captive, Sabine will do whatever it takes to save her, even if it means defying their traditions—and their matriarch—to break the bond between Ailesse and Bastien. Before they all die.

First, what a gorgeous cover! I absolutely love it.

I wanted to read Bone Crier’s Moon as soon as I read the book’s synopsis. It sounded intriguing and actually a little different from the last fantasy novels I’ve read, while also promising an exciting enemies-to-lover romance. I also always love books that take place in France or are inspired by it, so I was all in!

It wasn’t completely love, sadly, but I still really enjoyed some aspects of it. The world and its mythology were probably my favorite part. I wanted to  see more of it. I felt there was a richness there and would have loved to explore more of it. All the elements were there to create a lush and engrossing world. I loved the rituals and everything to do with the bones and their powers, I was fascinated.

Sadly, one of the most important aspect didn’t work for me, and that is the romance. I can’t pinpoint why, exactly, but I didn’t believe in Ailesse and Bastien’s change of mind and the feelings they had for each other. It happened a bit too suddenly for me, and their chemistry was almost absent.

I’m also not completely sure of how I felt about the three different points of view. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Sabine (she was my favorite in fact), but I felt she was used more as a storytelling device, as a way to tell us what was happening when Ailesse or Bastien weren’t there.

I wasn’t sure, as I neared the end, whether I would want to read book 2 of the duology; but then the book ended on quite a mystery that had me rethinking several aspects of the story! So even though this book wasn’t quite what I had been hoping for, I’ll probably borrow the sequel from the library when it’s out. I need to know whether some of my theories are true!

And it also had a beautiful cover.