Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan for the e-arc!
An epic debut fantasy with a sapphic romance and a queer normative world featuring bone magic and intrigue. Daughter of the Bone Forest is the first book in the Witch Hall series, and I already can tell this is going to be an absolutely unbelievable series. This book features a magic school where witches and familiars are sent to learn about their magic, and while there, Rosie finds herself trapped in political games and subterfuge.
This book brings so much to the table especially with the intrigue and the characters. Rosie is an absolutely amazing character, and I love her dynamic with Shaw. The magic system is incredibly interesting and I really love the use of familiars and bones in the story. This series kind of gives Grishaverse and The Bone Shard Daughter!

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

This was an entertaining story that held my interest! I thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook, which elevated the atmospheric writing!

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this audio book.

This was a fantastic read! Very well written with some wonderful world building, and in-depth characters. I'm looking forward to more! The narrator was really good as well.

Great world building and love fantasy with magic and witches! Fast paced and great world building, this is a great novel! This is very well done for a debut novel! I was in tears by the end!

I utterly loved reading this book! This world of witches and familiars, with the different types of magic, it was so interesting, and I'm so excited for more, I really can't wait! Plus Rosy and Shaw, they were such great characters to follow along with!

Rosy doesn't like the Witch King, or Shaw, after the way that her family was treated, that her grandfather was basically forced to retire, and then died under mysterious circumstances, and when her grandmother reacted, her punishment was pretty hard. And then comes along Shaw, who wants to be able to understand everybody, but can't understand Rosy. It was hilarious in a sad way!

One thing, above all, Rosy doesn't want to be, is a solider. But then there's Shaw, offering to be her partner, that Rosy could be the Queen of familiars. But Shaw has a prophecy of a future war, so the politics and the threats and the characters being in this growing tense situation...yeah, it was complicated, and I really felt for them!

The way that things ended, with the information that her grandfather was giving...I'm so anxious for the sequel! I know it's going to be hard for Shaw, given what her father ordered to the family of the girl she now loves-though those feelings might be complicated between the rejection and this. I need to read more now, please, I'm begging!

This was a fantastic read and I need the sequel now!

I went into this pretty much blind to what it was about and came out mildly obsessed.

Genuinely loved every minute of this. The characters are great, as is the intriguing promise of a war prophesied and the perfectly wonderful queer-normal world, but what really made this shine was the magic system. It has so many components to it, between witches and familiars, different change possibilities between glass and bone and ice and flower, but it was so easy to follow. It could have turned the story into a mess and instead elevated it to new heights.

Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to the sequel to see what happens to Rosy and Shaw!

Wow. What an amazing debut. I absolutely loved the worldbuilding in this and the magic system is soso good. I cannot wait for the next book in this series.

Thank you netgalley for the arc!

4.5 stars.

When I say I am dying for book two... I literally might not make it. This was such a wonderful story, and the writing was beautiful, but the magic system and the sapphic enemies to lovers are what kept me invested.

I thought this was a phenomenal book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy, or to even those who may be skeptical of fantasy as it provides a good justification for how powerful this genre can be. I really loved the way that queer characters were represented in this novel, and I thought that they way that gender is represented in this novel was especially phenomenal. The world-building was great, the pacing was well thought out, and the characters were easily differentiated and fun to read. I will definitely read the next one!

Rosy, whose family has fallen in society since their days as war weapons, has the opportunity to go to a prestigious school to learn how to use her bone magic and potentially restore some of her family's previous fortunes and save their farm. She ends up catching the eye of the notoriously aloof Princess Shaw, creating resentment from other students.

Fast-paced, great worldbuilding, and I can't wait for the sequel!

Great audio narration!

This book nearly became my favorite story of the year, that cliffhanger though 🪦

Thoughts:💡
I loved this story and up until the last 99% of the book I thought this would be my favorite story of the year. However, the author blew the ending in the most painful and frustrating way possible. I’m not sure if it’s because she doesn’t know where the story is going or if it’s because she thought she would sell more books. What I do know is that my trust in her as an author is gone.
The book was set up for a powerful ending, but fell flat.
I loved this story and up until the last 99% of the book I thought this would be my favorite story of the year. However, the ending was the most painful and frustrating cliffhanger I’ve seen in a while because it stole a solid ending from the story. A part of me wants to rant about it even though I waited to post my review until after I had some time to cool off.
With that said there are plenty of things the author did well. The plot was very detailed and the magic system was fascinating. I loved the way this book merged the idea of shifters and familiars and altered what the relationship between a witch and familiar entails. There were several dark secrets that revealed a broken society, and a few revelations that showed its progressive nature.
The relationship between Rosy and Shaw had a palpable sort of chemistry that stole my attention and my breath. They had completely different views of the world and were from different stations in life, but they also had some overlapping desires and strong self made moral codes. At the beginning Rosy and Shaw loathed one another but through their time together because of their fake dating scheme they learned to respect and fall for each other.
The narration was really good, if a little different because the author changed from first person present tense for one POV to third person past for tbe other. So between the different voices and verbage it was very easy to tell the two apart. Honestly, if you can overlook this book’s unfortunate ending then I would strongly recommend it, but if you can’t stand a cliffhanger where the author sets up a strong finish only to purposely withhold it, then wait on this one until book 2 is available and you can just read through it.

Fun Bits:
⚜️ A fake dating plot where only one of them was
faking
⚜️ Fated mates, pair bonds, and witch familiar
bonds mixed in a fascinating way
⚜️ Side characters that stole the show
⚜️ Excellent wold building with fascinating back
stories
⚜️ Heartbreaking losses and ☠️
⚜️ Elites behaving badly
⚜️ A powerful shifter from a poor family putting them in their place
⚜️ Extremely exciting action scenes
⚜️ Emotionally gripping struggles, monologues,
and heart to hearts
⚜️ A fascinating queernormative society

✨Note:✨ Ends on a horrible cliffhanger, book 2 isn’t projected to release until 2025.

Stats:📊
YA with no spice and very little steam
Characters: 💙💙💙💙💙
Audio: 🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧
Narrators: 🎙️🎙️🎙️🎙️🎙️ (Dual, chapter by chapter)
YA Epic Fantasy: Sapphic Queernormative, War College for Witches, Enemies to Lovers, Opposites Attract, Fake Dating, Hidden Secrets, Elite Nobility, Shifters 📘
Rosie’s POV, First Person, Present Tense
Shaw’s POV, Third Person, Past Tense
⚠️: War, Violence, Bullying, Death, Murder, Death of a Family Member, Fire and Fire related Injuries

Couldn't put it down! A great fantasy with really cool magical system. Lots of great relationships and totally excited to read the next one. Perfect book for YA fantasy lovers!

With its richly detailed landscapes and intricate magical systems, the world of "Daughter of the Bone Forest" comes alive on the page, drawing readers into a realm of mystery and enchantment; this novel offers a refreshing twist on traditional fantasy tropes.

Rosy is a bone familiar gifted with the power to shift into animals marked with exposed bone. Her journey from the safety of the Bone Forest to the treacherous halls of Witch Hall is filled with danger, intrigue, and self-discovery. Alongside her is Princess Shaw, a witch known as Death's Heir, whose enigmatic presence challenges Rosy's beliefs and desires.

"Daughter of the Bone Forest" is a spellbinding tale of fate, courage, and forbidden love that will leave readers breathless until the final page. With its compelling characters, lush world-building, and queernormative themes, this dark fantasy debut is a must-read for fans of the genre.

Rosie is a very powerful Familiar, and ends up at Witch Hall despite not wanting to for fear of being used as a weapon of war as her Gran and Pops were, which left Pops dead and Gran banished to the Bone Forest because she became unable to control her shifts into a wolf as a result of her grief. But Rosie has caught the eye of the princess, Shaw, after she saves her from her own feral grandmother. Rosie's also got to learn to play the cliquey and political games of her peers at school, which leaves her fearing to shift into her most powerful forms (again, doesn’t want to catch the attention of military recruiters). But war is coming whether Rosie likes it or not, and she may not have much of a choice in the end.
I enjoyed this series opener, and really liked nearly all of the characters. I could honestly have done without the romance-ish-ness of the courtship, but that's a personal issue and I totally see how it drives the plot. I appreciated all the ways that gender and relationships are portrayed, with characters on many parts of the gender spectrum and discussions of familiar/witch bonds replacing discussions of wanting marriage or not (to the point where the taking of last names is even discussed!). The magic was fun, and I liked that there are types of magic that correspond with different powers, but each type being powerful, unique and needed in its own right. Absolutely would recommend to teens who are aging out of Harry Potter or looking for an alternative for whatever reason.

I really enjoyed this book. Full of adventure and hot and cold romance.

Rosy is a familiar that lives on her family farm. Only her grandmother knows what her first shift was. Because if anyone else found out she would been doomed. But one day the princess came to visit her quiet village and Rosy saved her from a bone bull moose. Princess Shaw paid for Rosy to go to the magic school. Within a week Shaw started to court Rosy. To get Rosy to agree Shaw asked her to make it look real so that people in her entourage would court as well. But deep down Shaw was falling in love with Rosy. And Rosy did not want to be in the princesses war that was soon to come. Come to find out it was Shaw father starting the war just for the sake of wanting more power.

4.5 ☆

i CANNOT believe this is a debut ??? i'm relatively new to fantasy but this book was so good!! i ate it up. the reason why i didn't give it 5 stars was because the first half was a bit too slow for my taste. that aside, the premise and plot were so interesting, i felt like i couldn't look away. i was quite literally captivated. the romance, the action, and the fantasy aspects blended so perfectly. i cried real tears towards the end of the book (not sure i forgive the author for that). i also think the ending gave me enough closure while prepping for the second book, and i seriously cannot wait to read the next one!!

thank you netgalley and jasmine skye for the arc!! <3

In a world where familiars and witches work together to face the oncoming war, a familiar named Rosey just wants to help her family. But after being given an opportunity to attend a prestigious magic school, she can’t pass up the chance. There, Princess Shaw takes an interest in Rosey and she has to decide whether to join the war or return to her family.

🪴 The Good 🪴

✅The magic is interesting

✅I love the non-cisheteronormative world

✅Horses (don’t @ me horses are amazing)

🪴 The Bad 🪴

❎The romance is boring and makes no sense

❎It reads seriously like middle-grade fiction at some points. It’s not “dark fantasy” and it’s not political, it’s just another magic school fantasy.

❎This is a world with queer couples and trans people all over the place, but they have a problem with familiars marrying familiars or witches marrying witches?? It felt like the author was trying to have a theme about queerness that just really missed the mark or was not fully developed

❎Saying it again, the romance is boring and makes no sense. Rosey and Shaw have zero chemistry and they’re not even friends it’s frustrating to read.

I had a hard time with this book. Like, I can see what the author is trying to do, but it’s just not there yet. It will be interesting to see how the author develops in the future with other books. This one just missed the mark. It read too juvenile to take seriously at points, the romance makes no sense, and the lack of serious, layered world-building ruined it for me.

That being said, I’m not the target audience for this book. I absolutely love that there are queer books out there like this one for teens today. Go check out this book and see if it’s for you.

Thank you, Macmillan Audio, for the ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Daughter of the Bone Forest is a unique, dark fantasy novel that follows the story of Rosy, a girl who possesses abilities to shapeshift into any animal. Rosy can be found in the magical Bone Forest, where she takes care of her grandmother and avoids being conscripted into the Witch King's army. However, her peaceful life is disrupted when Princess Shaw visits the forest. Rosy ends up saving the Princess's life. In return, the Princess rewards her with a ticket to attend the prestigious school called Witch Hall.

I found the world-building of Daughter of the Bone Forest intricate and fascinating, with a magical, fairytale-like feeling with a touch of darkness.

Rosy was a delightful character to follow around because of her resilience, kindness, and strength. I loved everything about her.

The representation in this book was phenomenal, making the series inclusive.

Towards the end, the pacing felt slower than the rest of the book. However, I still enjoyed reading it.

This book offers a fresh take on fantasy where many readers will be left satisfied and craving more. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Cool. I think it definitely was out of my age range but if I was younger I would’ve loved it. Necromancers, specters, bone magic, magical forest, shapeshifters, and witches. I loved the vibes. Just wanted it to be less angst.