I hadn't read the earlier books in this series and not having researched at all, didn't even realise that there were prequels. Therefore I'm reviewing this as a stand alone book and I quite enjoyed it but then I'm a sucker for epic fantasy and that's what this was.

I thought it generally well written although the jumping around from character to character in the first half of the book got a tad annoying but as the book progressed the better it got as the storyline emerged.

If the next book in the series carries on in this vein then I'd like to see where it goes and hope that it doesn't regress to romantic fiction which would probably not be as interesting.

Cry of Metal and Bone is the third novel in L Penelope's Earthsinger Chronicles. The series was initially self published before being picked up by a publisher - and now before this book consists of two novels - Song of Blood and Stone and Whispers of Shadow and Flame - and two novellas which serve as prequels/sequels to the novels. The Series is essentially romantic fantasy, with the first one being close to a pure fantasy romance at times* and the second one still featuring romance as a major part of the plot. Perhaps more interesting, the novels feature countries with racial/nationalistic views that will feel very familiar to modern American readers and form important parts of the plots.

I had mixed feelings about the first two books. The first novel (Song of Blood and Stone) had a lovely romance and predictable but well executed fantasy plot, but I felt the socio-political themes seemed a bit too underdone, as was the world in general really, existing mainly as a skeleton for the rest of the plot. The second novel (Whispers of Shadow and Flame) fixed this completely - with the novel taking place at the same time as the first novel in a different setting - and made a far more real feeling, albeit just as familiar and depressing in many ways, world....but felt incomplete at the end with an unsatisfying cliffhanger. Still I really liked the main duo of the second novel and was really interested on seeing where the plot would go forward from its cliffhanger ending, so I quickly requested this third novel on NetGalley when it showed up.

And Cry of Metal and Bone is very good and surprised me greatly and is a much satisfying if still a little frustrating novel compared to its predecessors. The story has fully moved into Epic Fantasy here, with a cast of important characters far more expansive than we started with, and a number of competing subplots all over multiple continents and countries that we flip around between as the plot goes on, and it can't quit manage to cover all of these elements in its duration. And yet, the characters remain excellent, the new and old romances are terrific, and the story & setting continues to hit a number of very important themes - racism and nationalism, the plights of refugees, misogyny and sexism, the corruption of power, etc. - in ways that feel really well done and very real given today's world. I'm not sure how long this series is intended to be - it does not end here - but I'll be back for sure with book 4 after this one, and I'm glad I stuck around.

Note: Minor Spoilers for Books 1 and 2 are inevitable below:
-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------

The Mantle has fallen, and the nations of Lagrimar and Elsira are one once more. But many of the citizens of the wealthier nation of Elsira isn't very happy with the merger - and what they see as poor Lagrimari refugees now trying to live on their land, especially given the magical power of Earthsong some of the Lagrimari possess. But Queen Jasminda and King Jack are pushing strongly for full unification - and Elsira's almost-goddess, The Queen Who Sleeps but is now awoken and active, is demanding reunification as she travels the temples around the country.

But peace is not what some hidden members of Elsiran society wish, and a group of these nationalists detonate a bomb in a temple with the goddess and Queen inside. These nationalists are pushing subtly also as well, inflaming the populace and threaten to overturn all the good that has been done. And they may be being backed by forces outside of Elsira, forces with their own dark agendas.

To solve this, the Goddess and the Queen and King send a task force of disparate individuals to search for the culprits abroad. One of these individuals is Darvyn ol-Tahlyro, the powerful earthsinging Lagrimari man desperate to save his lost love, the nethersong wielding Kyara, and who distrusts the goddess' actions. Also among them is Lizvette Niall, the Elsiran noble who once plotted to take Jack's hand and a foreign smuggler named Tai Summerhawk, who can't help but try and needle at Lizvette's pride-bound demeanor....until the two begin to possibly feel something for each other.

But their potential romance will be up against grave dangers, as the group chase a foreign force intent on using Kyara's deadly power for their own evil means, and in the process possibly starting a dangerous war that threatens the entire world.....assuming Elsira doesn't destroy itself in civil war first.

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The first book in this series was split between two perspectives - Jack and Jasminda, which made sense, because their romance was basically a central element. The second book was split between four characters - Darvyn, Kyara, Zeli and Ulani, but still mainly focused upon a duo (Darvyn and Kyara), on whom focused the main plot and romance. By contrast, while this book does have a few duos (Darvyn and Kyara again, Tai and Lizvette in addition) it is a lot larger in scope, with book having no less than six point of view characters it alternates between on my first count, and it's entirely possible I've missed one or two (a mysterious antagonist also gets one every now and then I realize). By the time the first fifth of the book is complete, the story has sprawled out in multiple directions with characters all over the place taking different actions to deal with different and not obviously all related problems. In short, while romance is still a very important things for these novels, I'd say it's quite clear at this point that this book can now firmly be defined as Epic Fantasy in a way its predecessors (especially book 1) could not.

And this is not a complaint because this book is really great at being an epic fantasy, especially in terms of its character development and building of the setting. The setting is really well done here, which cements in the story's themes quite nicely, especially those dealing with racism and its relation to nationalism. For example, in a nice early touch, the King notes that nationalist propaganda was used to turn people against the building of railroads, which was of course really meant to disadvantage and keep out those of other races and lower wealth statuses. That's uh, pretty damn exactly what we see in the Modern United States today. Our sinister bad guy conspiracy is made up of a group which has fanned the flames with propaganda in multiple newspapers for years to ensure their anti-Lagrimari sentiment is mainstream (think white supremacists) except for one newer member who wishes instead to use more direct and open attacks (gee, sound familiar?) and is no longer willing to hide it. The so-called nationalist racists meanwhile have suspicious ties to nationalist and racist groups in other countries as well, even as they supposedly reject outside technology and aid.

I could go on and on here, but the point is this is such a well built "fantasy" world that features foundations that people should immediately recognize and allows for Penelope to play with these themes through her plotting and characters. And while it's not subtle, it's not overly blatant either, with faults lying also with so called figures of authority and goodness in this book as well in how they try to fight against these dark forces.

It's helped that the character set here is tremendous. Our two central new characters, Lizvette and Tai, were both introduced in prior works - Lizvette was a minor character and antagonist in book 1 while Tai was in a novella I haven't read. But they both get POVs here that make them very easy to empathize with - Lizvette as the noble lady who has always been talked down to by her father and discredited as anything more than someone's pawn, as she learns that not all she's been taught is true and that she has her own power and will & Tai as the young smuggler/pirate who has already gone against his mother to do what is right - most particularly in that everyone, lady or gentleman, has autonomy to do what they wish to do themselves. Their romance is really well done, even if Tai reads quite a bit like a stalkerish asshole at first. Our returning romantic pair, Darvyn and Kyara are also excellently done, and this book continues their storyline in a way that is much much more satisfying than it was in the last book. And the odd wheel out, foreigner Ella has a sideplot back at home in Elsira dealing with a corrupt religion, adoption of refugees, and the conspiracy to bomb the temples which often feels a bit random, but Ella is so easy to like that it still works.

Honestly, the biggest issue with this book is that it's trying to do so much that some characters get lost in the focus. Our secondary main characters from the last book - Ulani (and her sister) and Zeli - show up as minor characters without POV chapters and might as well be random unnamed strangers for all they're given to doing here. Jasminda and Jack also get relegated to the background, which is a bit of a surprise given that Ella's plotline dealing with the growing resentment of refugees is clearly a long term simmering arc that the two are profoundly in the middle of. This, as well as the large number of plot threads, leads to an ending that is far better than the last book - it does resolve enough plot arcs this time to be satisfying - but also leads to a lot of threads clearly left untouched......and that's even before dealing with the epilogue cliffhangers! But some of that is to be expected for Epic Fantasy, which this series now clearly is, so it's hard to mind it too much.

In short, I kind of wish that the first two books were rewritten and merged into a single epic fantasy volume, so this could be book 2 of the series - a series which I doubt will end with book 4 given how the author has laid things out - and I could describe this series wholly as epic romantic fantasy. Instead it has taken us two books to get to this point, which is a point I like a lot, but may not be something new readers are willing to wait for. I hope they will, because few series are as interesting and more clearly connected to real world issues in the epic fantasy genre, and I am fascinating to see where Penelope takes this.

Six weeks after the fall of the Mantle, centuries-old enemies Elsira and Lagrimar struggle to unite. The will of the goddess is that the two nations become one, but while the war may be over, peace is still elusive. As desperate Lagrimari flee their barren land for a chance at a better life in Elsira, a dangerous faction opposed to the unification rises.

When a shadowy group with ties to the Elsiran government takes responsibility for the attack and promises more, an unlikely crew is assembled to investigate. Among them are Lizvette Nirall, a disgraced socialite seeking redemption for past mistakes, and Tai Summerhawk, a foreign smuggler determined to keep a promise he made to a dead man. Powerful Earthsinger Darvyn ol-Tahlyro is sent with a secret assignment, one that Queen Jasminda can’t know about. And in a prison far away, Kyara ul-Lagrimar searches for a way to escape her captors and save a family long thought dead.

It’s a race against time in this world of deadly magic, secret agendas and court intrigue to discover those responsible for the bombing before the next attack. And in another land a new enemy awakens—one that will strike terror into the hearts of gods and men.- Goodreads

For me, this wasn't the strongest book out of the series. I thought that this was the last book, so I was looking forward to completing the series. However, I saw that there is another book coming. I am not overly complaining about this, I was just expecting something different.

Everything within the first two novels comes together within this one. There are new characters introduced but they play a huge part in the overall story line. How easily they fit within the story-line was fantastic. As shown within the first novels, the writing style was engaging and detailed. Jasminda still took some time for me to like. She isn't the strongest character although she has gotten smarted and more confident, it still took sometime into the third book for me to feel she deserved to be Queen.

The reason why this book was a bit on the eh side for me is because it dragged on quite a bit and it came off predictable. I loved the characters (outside of Jasminda) and loved the fact that the story is told in a different point of view but the story felt less like a fantasy and more of a contemporary that happen to have magic in it and that was my biggest issue.

The ending of the novel leaves off in a pretty good spot but I am curious to know if the author had any initial intention to have a fourth book. Do I plan on reading it? Of course, I love and will stan this series. But for me this book wasn't as strong as the other novels.

Overall,

3 Pickles

Cry of Metal and Bone is an engrossing fantasy novel. It has strong female and male characters — some of whom have magic like Earthsong, Nethersong, blood magic, Physic amalgam — and is set in a richly developed world. Airships and mechanical trinkets feel like a little nod to steampunk but are used organically in the story. Missing people are revealed, lovers are united, plots and politics unfold and unfurl, and overall this is a fresh but not too bizarre fantasy. By the age of the all the main characters and the tasteful but physical romance, I’d call the audience young adult and new adult and it’s definitely a romance as well as fantasy. Really lovely story and well-written. I haven’t read the previous novels in the series, but I’m intrigued by these people and need to find out how the king and queen met, how the stone was found, and how the war played out and ended, so I’ll be tracking them down. I’m grateful to Netgalley for a chance to read this and to introduce me to L. Penelope.

After reading the first two novels in the series, I expect nothing but excellence from L. Penelope, and she definitely delivers that in CRY OF METAL & BONE. It seems unfair to only give this book five stars when it is definitely a ten star read.

The allegory in this the third novel in the Earthsinger Chronicles is more overt than it was in books one and two, yet it remains excellent escapist fantasy. There is a believable marriage of magic and technology that could put this book into the category of steampunk. Along with this, the often flawed characters complement each other's abilities to form the more perfect whole. This yin and yang sometimes allows the reader to begin to figure out where the action is going, but even the best surmise may turn into a surprise.

There are no cliffhangers. Each book could stand alone but to fully appreciate the epic nature of the story you should begin at the beginning. I definitely recommend that you start with the first book and work your way through them all. In addition to the three novels, there are two novellas that I definitely plan on reading.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Cry of Metal and Bone was a fun expansion of a world I have come to enjoy, but it felt somewhat less robust in comparison to Song of Blood and Stone. I feel like some of my experience was affected by my inability to read the second book before reading the third. but due the structure of the series and ample explanation I was able to understand fully what was happening and was not lost.

My favorite storyline was once again Ella and Benn's--I enjoyed Ella's investigations into the Hand of the Reaper and their experience of creating a nontraditional family amidst the tensions in Elsria. Plus, their adopted daughters were super cute. Kyara and her story were my second favorite, and I enjoyed her friendship with Jasminda's family. However, I felt Darvyn's character, as well as Tai's to some extent, were bogged down by the focus on their relationship with their significant others as opposed to actual character development. Lizvette's redemption was interesting but once again I felt she was cheated by how much of her storyline was taken up by her enemies-to-lovers romance with Tai. Two of my favorite characters were actually Vanesse and Clove--their relationship was adorable and I could have read a whole book about them and Clove's escapades as a pilot in the race.

Overall I thought the novel was a solid follow-up, though I was more excited by the world-budiling than the characters. I could have used a little more focus on individual development as opposed to relationships, but it didn't detract too strongly from my experience.

Five stars! What a fantastic installment in this already fantastic series. I cannot get enough of L. Penelope's work, and this book might just be my favorite. I think it can be difficult to write fantasy romance with super compelling, super relatable characters, but this book handles it perfectly and beautifully. I can't wait to tell all of my friends about this one.

A beautiful story with relatable characters. The story was so moving and compelling. I love this entire series by L. Penelope. The characters are so beautifully written. Her plot points are so compelling. There isn't a book she has written that I didn't love. Her writing style is so well done.

This was a really compellingly written fantasy romance but I made the mistake of not reading the first two books in the series. The world building is really great and I definitely recommend it, I just recommend reading the first two books if you haven’t already.

Lizvette and Darvyn are great characters and their romance was lovely to read. Again L. Penelope knows what she’s doing regarding balancing the romance and the fantasy world she created.