Title: Bone Weaver
Author: Aden Polydoros
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Length: 403 Pages
Category: YA/Teen, Fantasy/Folklore, Historical
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: Aden Polydoros has once again penned a Teen novel that reaches beyond its intended audience and bewitches readers who love fantasy, horror, monster fiction and folklore, and he effortlessly weaves these things into a real time in history, in a real world that indulges the fictitious. Bone Weaver is a stunning tour de force of storytelling.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: The Kosa empire roils in tension, on the verge of being torn apart by a proletarian revolution between magic-endowed elites and the superstitious lower class, but seventeen-year-old Toma lives blissfully disconnected from the conflict in the empire with her adoptive family of benevolent undead.
When she meets Vanya, a charming commoner branded as a witch by his own neighbors, and the dethroned Tsar Mikhail himself, the unlikely trio bonds over trying to restore Mikhail’s magic and protect the empire from the revolutionary leader, Koschei, whose forces have stolen the castle. Vanya has his magic, and Mikhail has his title, but if Toma can’t dig deep and find her power in time, all of their lives will be at Koschei’s mercy.
Review: Boundlessly intriguing, intensely menacing, and frequently breathtaking, Bone Weaver is a stunning tour de force of storytelling. The breadth of imagination and depths to which this novel delves into the folklore that drives the story is nothing short of impressive.
Narrating in the first person, Toma, a seventeen-year-old whose family is unconventional, to say the least, leads readers on a journey through monster-infested forests and rivers to attempt to rescue her sister, Galina, an upyr who has been kidnapped by the sinister villain who has usurped the young tsar, Mikhail, and stolen his powers. Along the way, Toma and Mikhail meet Vanya, and the three of them join forces to find Galina, and in the process, attempt to take down the man whose absolute power has corrupted absolutely. As a trio, they fight, they suffer, they meet unimaginable challenges and face them with determination, and, in the end, they not only learn some things about themselves and who they wish to be—this is truly Toma’s journey of self-discovery—but also develop a bond that strengthened through hardship, adversity, and heartbreak as well.
Aden Polydoros has once again penned a Teen novel that reaches beyond its intended audience and bewitches readers who love fantasy, horror, monster fiction and folklore, and he effortlessly weaves these things into a real time in history, in a real world that indulges the fictitious. This is a story that seeks to examine what makes a “monster,” and who and what is truly monstrous, and it succeeds in doing so through characters who are intriguing, fully realized, sympathetic, tenacious, courageous, and appropriately sinister when the story demands it of them. This is a book I savored for its rich suspense and fascinating conspiracies, but those things would have been nothing without Toma’s adept narration.
You can buy Bone Weaver here:
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