However this book has been marketed to you, a lot of information was probably missing.

The Bone Shard Daughter is the story of the emperor’s daughter, Lin, and bone shard magic, yes. It’s also the story of a smuggler named Jovis, his tortured past, and his very wonderful animal companion, Mephi. It’s the story of a sapphic couple, Phalue and Ranami, and of rebellion and social change on their island (Phalue and Ranami are not super central to the plot, but they do have the only real romantic subplot in the book, and I liked them very much). And it’s the story of a woman named Sand who lives on an island with a group of people who have no memories of their lives before the island.

Lin and Jovis are basically dual protagonists with point of view chapters written in first person, while the other three are important supporting characters with point of view chapters written in third person. This was super cool in the audiobook because there were three different narrators.

The pacing was really slow at times, and the plot took till about the halfway point to really get going, but that actually made me more excited to read the rest of the series. Book two in a fantasy series is often the least plot-heavy and the most burdened by filler, and I feel like that isn’t going to happen as much here.

The primary magic system in this book is super spooky and kind of terrifying to the point where I would definitely recommend it to horror fans looking to get into fantasy. I’m also excited to see the additional magical concepts explored more in the sequels.

Mephi was definitely a highlight and should be a main selling point for the book. Who doesn’t like a talking magical animal companion? Seriously!

Hard to talk more about this book without major spoilers, but I definitely recommend it despite the sometimes weird pacing and incomplete marketing, and I can’t wait to read the sequels!