4.5 STARS

Heroes don't just disappear after they save the world.

They still have a story, albeit sometimes not an exciting one. For the last twenty-five years, Kreya has kept to herself, avoiding all the other people of Vos in search of a way to bring her husband back from the dead, even at the cost of years off her own life. He fell in the very same battle that made their team heroes, and it has haunted Kreya ever since.

But a journey to resurrect her husband leads to a deadly discovery, and before long, Kreya must bring her team back together in the face of impossible evil. Apparently, being a hero is a lifelong occupation, even when it's been a quarter of a century and at least one of you ought to be dead, strictly speaking.


"Patience, she decided, is for people unaware of their own mortality."

The shining star of The Bone Maker is, naturally, the cast. The core five characters are a bone maker (who uses bones to animate constructs), a bone wizard (who enchants talismans with different powers), a bone reader (who can see the past, present, and future in the bones), a reformed thief, and a strongman with a heart of gold. Individually, they're interesting in their goals and flaws, but together, they make up a legendary team, one that once protected the nation of Vos from certain doom.

Most importantly, though, they're friends.

I absolutely loved the banter between them all, especially Kreya and Zera, because you could always tell when it was loving banter, or when it was sharp to cover up fear or insecurity. And when there wasn't banter, there was sometimes a state of flow between these characters, a familiarity born form years spent together, from trusting each other with their lives. And when there wasn't flow, it was because twenty-five years sometimes leaves a divide that needs a little extra effort to heal.

In short, the characters make this book. You don't care about Vos being saved primarily because it's the right thing to do. You care about it because the team cares about it. They're making the hard decisions so no one else has to. They're carrying the pain and suffering so future generations of Vos won't. At heart, every last one of them is a good person seeking to do what's right, and it makes a nice change of pace from doom and gloom stories where there is no right way forward, no way to avoid becoming like the villain in the end.


You can't spell necromancer without romance!

Strictly speaking, The Bone Maker is not a romance novel. In fact, the romantic elements mostly boil down to deep love and devotion, some cute kissing, and a couple implied sex scenes that don't actually go down on the page.

But can I just say how delightful it was to have these characters hit the page with established relationships that held up? No major drama about whether they'd stay together, no big fights and refusals to communicate. Sure, there was some friction now and again for very sensible reasons (namely love and concern for a partner's wellbeing), but they were in love! And happy! And taking on the world together!

Basically, if you're not going to give me slow-burn enemies to lovers, then I hope you give me something like this: established lovers supporting each other in the face of the end of the world. They know the costs, the risks, but they're standing by each other to the end to do the right thing, and it makes me turn to emotionally mushy jelly in the best way! 🥰


The Bone Maker is out now, and ready to charm its way into your heart!

If you've ever enjoyed Gideon the Ninth or any story with a hopeful, happy ending (or if you like both, both is good), then The Bone Maker might be for you! Between its fascinating applications of necromancy, its charming and full-hearted characters, and a big bad worth the big showdown, I can't recommend it enough. Plus, it's a standalone! There's no waiting to see how the team's story continues, because this is the continuation of their story, the result of their heroic efforts.

But honestly, if you were just in it for the bone magic, I wouldn't blame you. It's pretty sweet. 💀


CW: loss of a loved one, child death, nudity, gore, animal death, self-harm, graphic injury, violence

[This review will go live on Hail & Well Read at 10am EST on 3/9/21.]

First thing, this genre isn't really my cup of tea. That being said, I found the story captivating and I did like it. What I enjoyed most was the story picking up with the characters in their middle-age as opposed to young teens.

Five young heroes 25 yrs ago fought evil and saved the world. This story picks up 25 years later which I found an intriguing spin on the typical story in the fantasy/sci-fi/dystopian genre.
Verity is illegally collecting human bones in order to bring her dead husband back to life. Yeah..it wasn't as bad as it sounded. There was some creepiness/yuck factor in the descriptions but it was okay. She eventually succeeds and meets up with the other 3 warriors who made up her team.
You find out what happened to them after the final battle, how they continued living their lives as celebrated heroes in songs/myths, and if they would be able to again fight to save their world knowing they're not only out of practice but older.

The writer does a good job of descriptions to paint a picture of this world as well as fully developing the characters. There was even some light humor.
She uses great alliteration.
Exs:
"If the fourth tier was known to be decadent as sugar cake, then the fifth tier was like sugar cake drizzled with honey and soaked in chocolate sauce. Kreya stepped onto a disc of white stone carved to resemble a cloud, and it lifted her up the slope of the street. 'No one told them this was absurd?' "


The author wrote this afterword to explain her inspiration for the book:
"We all know how the stories go: There's a great evil. Someone saves the day. The end. Someone rides off into the sunset. The end. Someone kisses the love of their life. The end. But our stories—our real stories—don’t end after a Great Moment. We keep living, day after day, until our last day. And sometimes our story doesn’t go the way we thought it would, for better or for worse. Sometimes it’s terrifying how much of our future is unknown and out of our control. We never know how much time we will have or if we’ve made the right choices on the way. That’s why I wrote The Bone Maker. This book is about life after “the end.” It’s about second chances. It’s me saying to you, “Keep living your story.” "

I believe the writer nailed her objective.

Sarah BethDurst's The Bone Maker is an awesome standalone epic fantasy. She flips the script by writing about characters 25 years after the big battle. This seamlessly leads into a let's get the band together trope. I loved the main characters being women, I loved it even more that they're aging, even broken. Yay for mature main characters. This a great fantasy about the story after the story with found family and love and lovely worldbuilding..

Overall: If you can get past a somewhat slower start, this is a standalone urban fantasy that I absolutely recommend.


Pros:
Standalone. This story is absolutely perfectly self-contained and does not leave anything unanswered by the end.
Necromancy-vibes. Okay, yall know I love a good necromancy book and this one fits the bill in all the right ways. Plus, it makes for the story to not be black-and-white when it came to the moral grounds.
The characters. I love when it’s a group who has worked together before getting back together and you can see their past shining in. The author does a good job of showing and not telling in this regard.

Cons:
Slower start. This one had a bit of a slower start for me due to all the things that need introducing.

The Bone Maker by Sarah Beth Durst is a stand-alone novel diving into what happens after the young heroes save the day. We meet our heroes twenty-five years later. Kreya is a hermit except when she resurrects her husband, Jentt who died in the original battle. To fully resurrect her husband, she needs to go back to the field for some bones. Too bad going back leads to a terrible discovery, that her husband is not the only one resurrected.

Pick this book up. Seriously Durst creates intriguing and new worlds. The world was pretty fleshed out for being one book. Yes, the beginning is confusing, but that comes with building a new world. The heroes all had flaws and were still endearing. The plot was slightly predictable but when you’re reading this it is not about the plot, it’s about the characters and their relationships to each other. I had a hard time putting this book down because it was mostly fast pace and a still fun.

4.5 stars for an intriguing new world, I would have like a little bit of a twist, but I just enjoyed this book. Round up for just making me happy. Thank you to NetGalley, Avon and Harper Voyage, and Sarah Beth Durst for an ARC. This was an honest review.

“Knowledge isn’t itself evil. It’s how you use it.”

Kreya Odi Altriana is a legendary bone maker who’s been in hiding for over a decade after the loss of her husband in battle. We jumped right into the darkness with this one, but I do love a dark fantasy. This story was morbidly depressing from the start. I was immediately interested enough to not want to put it down. The talisman magic system was fascinating! The world building was exceptionally thorough while still being relatively easy to keep up with. I’d definitely classify this as high fantasy.

Kreya is forced to reunite with her old team that she hasn’t seen or spoken to in 25 years. I enjoyed the extra initial time with her old best friend, Zera. Their banter together was so relatable and enjoyable! I appreciated the mental health and healing journey we got to experience. The multiple POVs for the different characters really rounded out the story. It didn’t leave me feeling like I was missing anything. The writing style made it so that it never felt complicated.

The plot kept me surprised all the way through. It was action-packed and that made it all the more exciting! It was an all-around emotional journey witnessing loss, grief, love, selflessness, and friendships through found-family. I greatly enjoyed this story from beginning to end. This is an absolute must read!

Wow. Just wow. This is a slow boil of a book that ends with a bang.
We enter a world where bone magicians are the norm and they make it possible to do extraordinary things. We enter 25 years after one of them went crazy and tried to destroy everyone. We enter with the group of heroes that defeated him broken and separated. We enter with their leader buried in grief and willing to do anything to save the one she loves.
It's a hard job to set up all the emotional depth of those that survive a war like the one the Five Heroes of Vos did, but Durst does it brilliantly within a couple of paragraphs of introducing each one and proceeds to weave a tale of tired but honorable warriors taking up arms once again to defend the lives of the people. Durst truly does excel at character development and making you care for even the lowliest of constructs within the story.
The fact that there's also politics, studies on relationships, expertly-crafted magical lore, necromancy, and even a little bit of romance only adds to the impressiveness of this story. It has depth. It has action. It has humanity. It begs to be read and enjoyed.

Many very happy thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the early read.

3.5 stars

The tagline for this book should be: "Aging, washed up superheroes come together for one last ride when an old foe reappears."

Of course, they're not superheroes in the literal sense but a group of very skilled magic users that have saved the world previously. I absolutely loved how Durst showed the struggle many of them had dealing with the aftermath of what they did. This is the "what happens after the happily ever after?" question that arises for many stories.

I've read almost the entirety of what Durst has written and this book has all the key points of what I love about her works. The thread of hope in all of her stories. Things may seem bleak but there is always the hope of happiness which runs through her characters.

Her plot ideas are always so different and I love the fact that she tries to challenge herself with each one. In her adult books we run the gamut of character ages and I'm so happy we get to see not only vibrant youths in the prime of their life but also older and mature characters who have experience and wisdom at their side. This is no different in this story where the main cast of characters are well into their middle ages.

The magic system is really cool, there are rules and boundaries, and people are not overly powerful just adept at using them. There's a whole variety of monsters, spell weavers, and individuals that make up this world.

Another awesome thing is the organic friendship she's built with this group and how they come to life on the page. You get to see how they understand each other, support each other, and find out what makes the other tic. Their interactions are lovely and run the whole range of what you might expect when you interact with yours. I always say characters should have friends in books, or at least a confidant or someone they tolerate.

The Bone Maker is lacking in action as compared to some of her other adult titles, so some of the scenes may feel like filler or fluff, and the middle of the book is especially an area of this. The plot is also not very complex and very straightforward so there isn't much to surprise you but the story is still very engaging.

Sarah Beth Durst's adult fantasy works are perfect for those who don't want to read something too grim and dark with an excess of violence. But also a great introduction before stepping into denser epic/high fantasies. For fans of her work, you'll enjoy this new addition as well. I can never go wrong when I read her stuff!

Got an arc copy from the author Sarah Beth Durst with NetGalley so I can give an honest review, here we go…

From award-winning Sarah Beth Durst, best known for her works such as the Queens of Renthia series, comes a new epic fantasy with a band of aging heroes and dark magic...but wait, it's a standalone?!

Five heroes have defeated the powerful but corrupt necromancer Elkor but it came at a terrible cost when they lost one of their own and since then people have told their stories through song or story. The team broke up and it has been like that for twenty-five years. One is broken, one should be dead, one is stuck in the past, one trying to pursue a simple life, and one has gone soft. Their stories should have ended but it seems fate had other plans for these aged heroes. 

I’d enjoyed this story, here are my PROS and CONS with the book.

THE PROS:
•A retired group of Chosen Ones ("King of the Wild" vibe)
•The world-building, especially the bone-based magic (necromancy of sorts)
•Great characters, from Kreya to even Eklor.
•The numerous twists and turns made me question characters.
•Lastly, that freakingly good book cover 

THE CONS:
•A ton of dialogue that seemed too much at the time reading this.
•Although marked as an adult fantasy, a few times I found the book to be hovering towards young adult in genre.
~~~~~~~~~~
Sarah Beth Durst’s “The Bone Maker” is one of the few great novels that I’d read in 2021. Due to a few cons with the book, the overall score I would give it (out of five stars) would be 4.8 stars. Out of a scoring system of ten, I give this book a 9.4

Five heroes went to kill the corrupt bone maker Eklor, and when he was defeated only four returned. Jentt, the quick and nimble thief, died to save another. His wife Kreya, the leader of their heroic party, has hidden herself away in a remote tower for decades following his death where she has been learning how to resurrect him. The only hitch in her plan is finding the human bones required to bring Jentt back to life and to do that she must cross the wall, to the field of the last battle. Of course, all of this is illegal and if Kreya were caught she would be summarily burned, just as the dead traditionally are treated… good thing she’s resourceful and has old friends that can be called upon!
Fair warning, the paragraph above is only the smallest fraction of The Bone Maker’s plot which I thought was pretty damn delightful. This book absolutely did not go in the direction I expected it to which kept me turning pages late into the night. How could I put it down when the evil guy might not actually be dead!? And then, the characters were absolutely fascinating. The whole gang reunited once again, proving how massively surviving such a harrowing ordeal can screw up a person’s psyche. I got unexpected Kings of the Wyld vibes from this book but with less humor. The whole “reuniting the gang of retired heroes to fight the big evil” schtick is absolutely one of my favorite things in fantasy.
Let’s talk a bit about the characters now. Kreya, of course, has been an unkempt hermit for at least a decade and she has her husband’s corpse in a spare bedroom at the start of the book. She’s also got creepy constructs doing tasks about her dilapidated wizard tower. Very mad scientist/magician vibe. Jentt has been a corpse on and off for a while now, but once he’s revived he’s definitely the more stable of the two. Zera, Kreya’s best friend, has become an obscenely wealthy bone maker, creating talismans that grant abilities like speed, flight, stealth and so forth. She’s excellent, and doesn’t hold back on how she feels about Kreya abandoning her after the battle ended. Marso was the bone reader of the group and he’s practically raving mad when they find him naked in a fountain. He was seeing things he thought for sure couldn’t be true. Stran, the muscle of the group, has turned into a doting father and loving husband who assists his terrifying competent wife Amurra in running their farm. I love the variety we get with the characters and their chemistry when they reunite is amazing.
This was a brilliant book and Sarah Beth Durst is cementing her place as one of my favorite fantasy authors. She writes epic standalones that leave you completely satisfied at the end. I’m considering returning to the Queens of Renthia series to complete it, despite my lackluster feelings about the first book in that series because everything else I’ve read is SO GOOD.
As I mentioned previously, I think this book would be perfect for fans of Kings of the Wyld or anyone searching for a fantasy focusing on the aftermath of victory. I can’t recommend this enough!

Considering that the book opens with the main character trying to steal a dead girl's body, I liked the main character.

Twenty-five years ago, Kreya led four heroes to stop a mad man bent on destroying their world with his undead army. During the fight, Kreya's husband is killed, and she goes into seclusion, learning how to bring him back to life. After seeking help from one of her old companions, Zera, they discover that their enemy might not be so dead after all.

Kreya was a fine main character, but Zera was much more interesting. Fortunately, there are chapters seen through her eyes. Zera is smart and hurting from Kreya abandoning her to mourn her husband. Their relationship is beautifully written and unique. Kreya cares about Zera and goes about mending their relationship.

It's a welcome change to read about battle-worn characters who have learned from their past to save the world while fully knowing the repercussions.

This review is based on an advanced reader copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.

𝕻𝖊𝖔𝖕𝖑𝖊 𝖈𝖆𝖓 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊. 𝕳𝖊𝖗𝖔𝖊𝖘 𝖈𝖆𝖓 𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖕 𝖇𝖊𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖔𝖊𝖘. 𝖁𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖓𝖘 𝖈𝖆𝖓 𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖕 𝖇𝖊𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖛𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖓𝖘.

For the Five Heroes of Vos, 25 years have passed. They have lost touched with one another and have gone their separate ways. But when one of them needs help, and they stumble upon an old enemy, they reunite to save the world (again!). And despite those 25 years they are able to do just that because they are together, they are heroes, but above all they are family.

I absolutely love the message of The Bone Maker. “Keep living your story”. Stories don’t just end, in real life we keep on living, day after day, until our last. The future is unknown and out of our control, but our stories continue for better or for worse. This is a beautiful story of second chances written by a brilliant author.

I loved Kreya and Zera and their strong female relationship. They are both tough as nails, sarcastically funny, loyal, and brave. My only complaint is that I wanted to get to know the boys a little better too. Honestly I think I just want more of all these characters and this world. I knew this was a stand-alone novel and I knew I was going to get emotionally invested but I would absolutely LOVEEEEE a prequel to see the original battle that took place 25 years earlier.

This is a true master class in fantasy storytelling. I highly recommend you get your hands on this book when it comes out next week, March 9th!!

After reading this author's Queens of Renthia trilogy and Race the Sands standalone in 2020, I was so excited to read her new book, The Bone Maker, and it did not disappoint. Set in a world twenty five years after a massive battle against a genocidal bone-magic user, we follow the heroes of that battle as they come back together for a new adventure. The characters are flawed but so very vivid. The world is pretty unique as it has a bit of a Land of the Lost feel. The bone magic is so fun with constructs created from bone and talismans used to enhance the physical abilities of the people using them. While this is a great adventure story, it is also full of heart with the heroes reuniting and dealing with moral dilemmas. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy.

The Bone Maker is such a breath of fresh air! It's a fantasy novel that's a standalone (and perfect for readers who love the genre but are burnt out from waiting as well as newcomers) and has a kickass premise--what happens after the heroic quest, after the world has been saved?

Sarah Beth Dursr has written some wonderful YA, so its no surprise that The Bone Maker is not just populated with well drawn characters, but that it also ask important questions about the cost of being "heroic." Highly recommended.

Twenty-five years ago, a group of five warriors risked their lives to fight to overcome the corrupt bone maker named Eklor to protect the country of Vos. Defeating his army of animal bone constructs came at a heavy price—only four of the victors survived. Now, they have to come together again to fight for their country against the sinister force they failed to vanquish in the past. With higher stakes and deadlier magic to face, will the once-famous heroes be able to come out on top?

The Bone Maker is a book that asks the question: "What happens to heroes after their story ends?" and answers it in a beautiful, dark, and poignant way. Durst explores this narrative by putting the doubts, fears, and uncertainties of the characters at the forefront of the story. The cast in this book are older now, have their own internal struggles, and find it hard to fall back in with each other like they once did; especially when Vos doesn't seem to think it needs a group of heroes. The author made each character conflicted and morally grey, yet easy for the reader to connect with which made them all the more realistic.

Durst has created an amazing entry in the standalone fantasy genre that is not only a magic-filled adventure but also a story about the nature of evil, relearning forgiveness and how one picks up the pieces of their life and puts it back together again.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Bone Maker is a stand-alone fantasy with a setup that vaguely resembles that of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn meets Gideon the Ninth, resulting in something that is delightfully unique. And considering I did not have the best first impression of Sarah Beth Durst’s work (a poorly executed romance/sex element in The Queen of Blood was an instant turnoff), I am glad I gave Durat another chance, as she truly shines here.

Older protagonists have become rare in modern fantasy, with a few notable exceptions, so I found it fascinating to follow a cast of characters who had had their days of youthful glory in their past. And the fact that Kreya, who the blurb openly declares has a likely grim story arc ahead of her? Durst is able to get the reader invested in her character, while also posing key questions through Kreya’s inner monologue, about what separates heroes and villains.

The supporting cast is also pretty interesting, and each of the rest of the band has unique talents related to bone making. I will say that not all are fleshed out in equal measure, with the focus being on Kreya, Zera, and a few others. However, given it is a stand-alone novel, I can see why some of these choices were made.

This was an enjoyable read, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy.

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone fantasy that I got from NetGalley to review.

Story (5/5): It was fun to read about heroes that are later in life and I really loved the bone magic throughout. There was a lot of wonderful adventure here and this was an excellent twist on the typical vanquishing ultimate evil type of storyline.

Characters (5/5): The characters are a big part of what makes this story amazing. The story focuses around five heroic warriors but initially mainly follows Kreya. Kreya lives in an isolated tower with her dead husband and bone creations. All the characters are intriguing and easy to engage with. I really enjoyed reading about them and watching them grow and change even though they were older and had already been through a lot.

Setting (5/5): I absolutely adored this world driven by bone magic. The setting itself is fairly typical fantasy, but the bone magic drives most of the world and adds a really intriguing aspect to the story.

Writing Style (5/5): As with all of Durst’s books this was very easy to read and the writing flowed well. There is excellent description throughout, the story was well paced, I really enjoyed the characters and the magic system. I loved that this was more of a classic fantasy adventure story but with a little twist. I love adventure fantasy but I feel like not a lot of good adventure fantasy is being written right now; this story was perfect for me!

My Summary (5/5): Overall I really loved this. I had high expectations for this story and they were all met. This is a great balance of fast-paced adventure, wonderful characters, an interesting magic system, and a classic “evil vs good” fantasy storyline with a bit of a twist. I loved it! Durst continues to be a must-pick-up author for me and I am so excited to see what she writes next!

Sarah Beth Durst has always been a bit of a hit or miss author for me. When she’s on her game, I really love her books. But there are others of her titles that have really not worked for me. So I never quite know which one I’m going to get when I pick up a new book by her. But this one, with its interesting premise and its focus on an older woman as its heroine, sounded like something that would be right up my alley!

What was a day of triumph to the nation was a day of horror to Kreya. While she and her four companions were successful in the heroic mission they set out upon, to take down the viscous bone maker Eklor, Kreya lost her husband in the process. Now, years later, Kreya is living as a recluse, desperately working forbidden magic to buy just one more day with her lost love. When she seeks out a method to work this magic on a more long-term basis, she discovers horrors that she thought were long ago settled. Now she and the others must grapple with the reality that their story may not actually be finished, and they’re not sure they can win this time.

This book checked two boxes of interest for me. Recently, I’ve really been enjoying stories that look at the “after” of heroic tales. Veronica Roth’s “Chosen” was one of my favorite reads last year and dealt with this very topic. While both that book and this one essentially present the same story, that the first “ending” wasn’t really the end at all but simply a pause on everything, they each tackle the topic of what life is like for these heroes in what they think is the end. While this book is mostly Kreysa’s story, Durst also offeres insights into the other heroes who fought alongside her. Through them all, we see the various methods each is using to handle an entire lifetime after such a momentous start. You save the world in your twenties…then what? Not only is the resulting PTSD and trauma something that must be carried afterwards, but the sense that one’s biggest moment in life is already behind one has to play with the mind. I really like the variety we see between the heroes and how they are all coping, nor not coping, with these challenges.

The second point of interest is its focus on an adult heroine. The book never specifies Kreya’s or her friends’ age, but we know their fight happened 25 years ago and that Kreya was married at the time. It’s like that she’s in her late forties or older. It’s always refreshing to read a book that focuses on older characters. By necessity, their lives look very different than the young adult heroes and heroines we so often see. Instead of new love, it’s often an established relationship or a second love. Instead of the challenges of coming into one’s power for the first time, it’s managing a life that has already contained a multitude of defining moments. Kreya and her friends have lived a quarter of a century’s worth of life since their grand adventure. During that time they’ve built lives and come to terms with the events of their youth. They also have to face these new challenges as the people they are now, not the people they were when they first fought their foe. There are both new strengths and challenges that come with taking up the mantle of heroism again later in life.

I specifically enjoyed the established romance between Kreya and her husband. We see all the strengths that have been built into it over the years of loving the same person. But there are also some unique challenges that come along with this. Specifically, of course, the fact that one member of the marriage has been dead on and off for the last 25 years…but it also speaks to the way that relationships grow and change alongside the individuals in them.

The only ding I have against the book is that the world-building and magic system are kind of simplistic and lack detail and depth. There are some cool monsters that live in a particular forest, some magically-operated cable cars, and a few other things. But none of them are described very fully or really made to feel like they are part of a fully-realized world. However, it was also clear that the focus of the book was meant to be largely about its characters, so while the world wasn’t very complex, I wasn’t necessarily feeling that it was lacking while I was reading. Fans of Durst’s work are sure to enjoy this, and fantasy lovers who prefer a more mature hero and stories focused on the “after” of the heroic journey should definitely check it out!

Rating 9: A very enjoyable, fast read that highlights the fact that no hero’s journey is every really over.

(Link will go live March 3)

Twenty-five years ago, they were known as the great Heroes of Vos. Together, all five stood against an army of unnatural constructs and their maker, the evil Eklor. Together, they fought, and one of them fell.

Now, the Heroes have broken apart, all going their own ways. Kreya, the leader, lost everything when her husband fell on the plains. Now, she dedicates every spare moment to reading through Eklor’s research, trying to find a way to resurrect her husband, to bring back some of the life they used to have before he died. Kreya knows that for him to live, she has to give up part of her own life, but the sacrifice doesn’t matter. She’s willing to do it. But when she begins to seek out more components for her spell, she learns that Vos may still be under threat, and the heroes might have to come back and save it once again. The only problem is, not only is one of them dead, but the others have spent so much time apart, they’ve changed and grown into different people. Can the five heroes come together and save their country, again?

I received an advanced reading copy of The Bone Maker in exchange for an honest review.

By now, the name Sarah Beth Durst should be familiar to you, if you’ve been following my blog for a while. Sarah Beth Durst is the author of several fantasy novels, and I’ve read quite a few at them at this point, and reviewed them all on this blog. She wrote the Queens of Renthia series, the standalone Race the Sands, and now, The Bone Maker. I was excited when I heard about the adult fantasy novel The Bone Maker, since I’ve grown to be quite a fan of Durst’s, so I was incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to read an advanced reading copy of it! So, what did I think?

First of all, I absolutely loved the concept of all the events of The Bone Maker taking place about twenty-five years after Kreya and her gang defeated the big bad. So many novels talk about the moments where the heroes first come together, when they face insurmountable odds, and manage to defeat evil, potentially losing some of them along the way. But I almost never come across a book that talks about the heroes after they’ve survived. After all, the heroes are mostly young when they first go up against the bad guy, and they still have so much life ahead of them. What happens after is the question that Durst is seeking to answer in this novel, and it really delivers.

We have everything here: the one who refuses to move on from what’s happened, trying to return. We have the one who’s capitalized on their reputation as a hero. We have one who quite literally died during the last battle. We have one who’s gone insane. And we have one who’s moved on and now lives a quiet life, nice and content. I won’t go into too much detail on who was who, but I appreciated seeing all of these reactions to some very intense past trauma, and how the events from so long ago continue to influence their lives, even the lives of the more well-adjusted ones. But, I especially loved seeing how the others, the less well-adjusted, were trying to fit into a world they hadn’t been sure they could save.

Each character here stands out to me. Kreya, of course, is our main character. She will do absolutely anything to bring Jantt, her husband, back to life, even if it means breaking laws of nature and society both. I really identified with Kreya, actually. Everything she did, it made sense, and I felt for every one of her losses, and got excited at her victories. I loved her as a main character, and I especially loved her relationship with Zera, who I actually also sort of consider a main character. She doesn’t get as much of a limelight as Kreya, but she gets several chapters from her POV, and she managed to straddle the line between cockiness and hilarity, while also able to stand up to the friend who abandoned her in the midst of battle. I just love these two women, guys.

The other characters were also all amazing. They were strong in so many different ways, and I loved seeing as they worked to put themselves back together, bit by bit, all the while knowing that their world needed them to save it, again.

In fact, I’d call the characters here the star of the book. That’s not to say that the world and plot aren’t great. I’m also a huge fan of the magic system that Durst created here. Using bones to make magic? So delightfully macabre but cool! As for other elements of the world, I appreciated the dangers of it in certain sections, and they certainly helped highlight the tension in some areas, but they soon sort of faded into the background.

And I guess here is where I should get into the plot. The book was exciting! Very much so! I read the last third of the book in a single sitting; I couldn’t put it down! I guess I just felt a bit confused sometimes over where the plot was going. I kept expecting the plot to go one way, and then it went another. That’s not a bad thing! I liked that it kept me guessing, I just wish that it had felt more like a single plot than two to three different storylines, each with its own act. I actually think the book could have been expanded to a series, now that I think about the storylines of each act, but I’m definitely grateful that it’s a standalone because I don’t really have time to add another series to my list. I guess I should also mention that I’ll basically read anything Durst writes, so adding more books to that already-long list just makes my life harder (but probably more fun)!

I’d recommend this book to fantasy fans, especially those who wonder “what happens next?” when the heroes walk off the battlefield, having miraculously survived the fight against the enemy. This book is a fantastic answer to what happens to them, and a great adventure for any reader.

The Bone Maker will be released on March 9. You can pre-order your copy from Harper Voyager at this link.

The Bone Maker
A Novel
by Sarah Beth Durst
Avon and Harper Voyager
You Are Auto-Approved
Harper Voyager
General Fiction (Adult) | Sci Fi & Fantasy
Pub Date 09 Mar 2021 | Archive Date 04 May 2021

If you like thrillers you will really enjoy this book. I don't usually read Sci-Fi and Fantasy but this was an excellent read. Thanks to Avon and Harper Voyager as well as Netgalley for this ARC.

4 star