Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Book for the opportunity to read and review this book which I am unfortunately DNFing at 55%.
I have been trying to get through this book for a few weeks at this point even going so far to committing myself to read only 2 chapters a day and I still can’t force myself to get through this book. I care so little about these character and this plot that to continue any further would just create resentment and honestly force me to be so negative toward this book that I would rather just DNF and say this book isn’t for me.

Who doesn’t love a good book about necromancers? The world of the dead is so mysterious yes fascinating. This book is in the top ten of my favorite books of the year. I can’t wait to read book two!

This is a complex young adult dark fantasy. It’s not part of a series, but it ends on an open note.

The plot centers around a young woman who can bring people or animals back from the dead using only a bone. She travels with her sister to a foreign land and is quickly targeted by an emissary because of her death magic.

The story features many twists and turns, spans numerous locations, and is told from several different points of view. There’s a lot of magic and lore woven throughout.

Certain parts were captivating, with plenty of action and intriguing magical elements. However, I had difficulty fully immersing myself due to the frequent shifts, not just in point of view, but also in time. I also struggled to keep track of the characters, as many had multiple names, ranging from first and last names to noble titles or professional designations.

Around the halfway point, I became more invested and began to understand what was happening, but it took effort to push through the initial confusion.

This could be the beginning of a very compelling series, with many characters who could easily support deeper, individual stories.

Spice: 0.5/5
Plot: 4.5/5
Writing: 4/5
My Enjoyment: 4/5

First things first: the cover lied to me. This is not a romantasy.
This is a multi-pov, multi-plot fantasy with around 4 secondary characters whose plots intertwine with our protagonist, Azul, so around 5 main-ish characters total and another 5 or so important side characters. The narration is in 3rd person and at some points veers into omniscient by showing what someone else than the pov character thinks, or by foreshadowing future events. There are numerous flashbacks interspersed in the story. There are 3 romantic sub-plots, but 2 of them are very minuscule and even the one that isn't, feels subdued and secondary to the plot and other motivations of the characters.

Okay, with this out of the way, I know the author doesn't control the cover design, so let's judge the book for what it is and not what I expected it to be.

Pluses:

Creative worldbuilding. We have world built upon bones of the gods, interesting religion system, characters with mysterious powers (often themed after the gods, i.e. Death, Life, Dreams), cultural differences between different lands, and a general "swashbuckling" vibe, i.e. pistol & rapier era.

In the sea of paint-by-numbers, run-of-the-mill YA this was refreshing, surprising, unpredictable. It wasn't just following a storytelling beat sheet or crafting a plot like a theme park ride / obstacle course. I commend the author for being bold, taking risks both with structure and with reveals & plot twists. A lot of the time I couldn't predict where the story will turn next.

Characters with strong convictions. Many characters were either motivated by wanting to protect / save their family members, or by their religious and political convictions. They weren't always "right" and some of their goals could be selfish or misguided, but they pursued their goals relentlessly. I often get annoyed if the characters have some "pressing plot goal" but conveniently forget about it to socialize, explore or get entangled in a romance.

Minuses:

This story is cramped, rushed. For a 320-page ARC I've got more plot and side characters than I've seen in some 600-page books. I wonder did the author wish to write a trilogy but didn't get a green light from the publisher? Was there pressure to reduce wordcount?

We're often jumping from plotline to plotline, from present to past, from pov to pov. This makes it hard to follow, and even harder to get connected emotionally to the parade of different characters.

For a big part of the story we also don't know what are the side plots even about. What kind of favour will Nereida ask of Azul? Who is the Faceless Witch and what does she want? Who is De Anvi and what was his role in all the political intrigue? What is Enjul's end goal? Things get a bit clearer as the story progresses, but a lot of things are left in the dark - hopefully explained and wrapped up in a sequel (this is a duology supposedly).

There's a big reveal at around 60% to the reader, but not to the mc, Azul. I thought it would have been more impactful if we learned the truth alongside the protagonist. Like this, it undercut the mystery significantly.

Tying to this, I had no emotional connection to the majority of the cast. Romantic scenes felt perfunctory. Scenes full of danger or tragedy left no impact on me, even though I commonly cry reading dramatic or emotional moments in books. It all felt lacking emotional depth. All the characters' motivations made logical sense, but I didn't FEEL their anguish alongside them. I could somehow feel Azul's obsession about Isadora, but everything else fell flat for me.

Azul herself, despite being 19, behaved in a way as if she was completely oblivious to fairly obvious consequences of her actions. I don't mind when YA protagonists are lacking foresight and self-awareness because this is often a trait of the young, I'd take that any day over a character who's inconsistent, i.e. sometimes acts smart and then randomly catches an "idiot ball" just to have the plot rolling or gets "distracted by a hot person". But be warned if you have allergy to "immature" characters in YA, Azul reads very stubborn and yolo sometimes.

Also I must add I didn't find the romance very believable due to how much of a backseat it was taking in the story.

In the end, I think this deserves a solid 4 star. It was engaging but not impactful. Still, I'm surprised this has such low average rating because I didn't struggle to finish and I enjoyed the story.

I would recommend this title for readers of plot-driven YA fantasy, readers interested in multi-pov braided plot stories with more distant narration, people who love unique worldbuilding, fans of swashbuckling vibes, and those who seek YA fantasy with less romance focus in them.

Thank you Netgalley & Wednesday Books for the ARC!

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC, but this is a DNF for me about halfway through. The premise is fascinating as it follows a magic system that includes necromancy but the world building is difficult to follow and I was struggling to stay connected to the story.

This book had such a cool idea — gods, death magic, forbidden deals — but it didn’t fully land for me. The timeline jumps made it hard to connect with the story, and Azul, the main character, felt way younger than she was supposed to be. I loved the dark, haunting vibe and the whole necromancer-falling-for-Death’s-emissary romance (seriously, iconic), but I just couldn’t get fully invested because the emotional attachment to the characters never really hit. Still, if you’re into chaotic gods and dark, messy fantasy, it might be your thing.

Enjoyed this one! Very compelling and interesting world Medina built in this book, and the main character was very engaging to read! The amount of POVs did make things a bit muddy and hard to follow at times, though. Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday for the arc!

The premise of this was so unique! I thought the writing throughout was exceptionally beautiful and the magic was super interesting!

Thank you Netgalley, the publishers and the author for sending me this arc of “Mistress of Bones”.

I have to say, it is quite an interesting read with complex world-building, an invigorating plot and shocking cliffhangers that had me at edge. The plot is so unique and compelling which made this a memorable read.

But… and there is a but..

I felt like the complex world building made it harder to follow who the characters were. There were so many characters and several POVs that I just found myself questioning who’s who and who are they related to.

All in all, it is such a different read and I really enjoyed the writing style!

I loved the overall premise of this book. The story was unique as were all of the different characters we meet throughout the book. I was rooting for the main character the whole time and felt connected to her. The chemistry between the two main characters was fantastic. It was definitely emotional towards the end and I think it ended perfectly.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc of "Mistress of Bones" by Maria Z Medina.
Though it makes me sad , this book was not for me. The start of the book was very good. I devoured the first few chapters. Then it became very confusing. The multi POVs along with multiple timeline, made me frustrated. I spent better parts of the book, trying to figure out what the hell was going on and getting the event sequence according to timeline. This book had so much potential , especially the plot was great. I just wish that there was no back and forth in time.

I received this as an ARC via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

What I liked:

I enjoyed the world. It had a lot of lore to it that I wanted to learn even more about with the different gods, their function, how people followed them, etc.

Virel Enjul: his character was super interesting and made up for a lot of the downfalls of this book. He was snarky, pushed the FMC Azul de Arroyo, and mysterious.

Things I did not like:

The plethora of POVs! If felt like Oprah Winfrey giving out POVS “you get a POV! You get a POV! You ALL get POVs!” Some of the character POVs were unnecessary and just muddled the story.

The time skips. Most chapters had skips as far back as several years, to a couple hours, to 45 minutes! Then mid-chapter it would switch to the present. It was too much jumping around for my liking. If the book was set up with more information on the past or whole chapters of it instead of a couple pages in a chapter it would have made it better.

Info dumping. The world building was thrown onto the reader and felt like a lot at once with no real fleshing out until much later. I think the author should have worked on fleshing out the story’s setting more at the beginning and that would have made it a smoother ride.

Thank you to NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and Maria Medina for allowing me to review.

Alas, drop dead gorgeous covers tend to deceive more than not.

This book was so damn confusing. The instant opening immediately caught my attention, with Azul taking her dead sister's bones and bringing her back to life. But then the next chapter switches to the love interests POV, where the excessive info dumping immediately killed all my interest. Even as the worldbuilding got less in-your-face, I still for the life of me couldn't understand fully what was going on. There are lots of other characters who get their own chapters, and all it did was unnecessarily kill the pacing and muddle the story. It was just so confusing and boring that I stopped trying to get it nearly halfway through.

Azul was interesting in concept, but her death defying read as more childish and willfully ignorant than thoughtful and deep like the various convos she had with love interest made it out to be. This only makes her character weaker when you know she's nineteen, with everyone else in the cast confirmed, or presumed to be, older than her. Knowing she was inevitably was going to accept her sister's death was a given, but nothing about her made me care about the journey getting to that point. The only character who held any interest for me was Nereida, the envoy, but the side plot involving her and the aforementioned other POVs was so draining to read.

All in all, this was a very confusing and boring read. A shame, really, because I really love that cover.

A story about a young necromancer trying to get her sister back, an Emissary of Lord Death who is equal parts repulsed and intrigued by this power (and by the necromancer) and a web of characters who have their own intrigues makes up this exciting book.

There is some world/magic/religion building in the beginning of the story and once developed, the story unravels piece by piece in a way that always keeps you guessing what's next. The story has different timelines that slowly share events that have contributed to each character's personality, choices, and ultimately their mission. There is simmering tension between the Necromancer and Emissary and definitely a big enemies to lovers vibe. This book was captivating, intriguing, and based on the ending, it looks like it'll be a part of a series. I seriously cannot wait to get back into the story and learn more about what will happen to these characters. Highly recommend!

Let’s start by saying the description and the cover sold me on reading this. It’s definitely have a very interesting premise and ideas throughout the book. The characters were good but I feel like the connection and consistency was there for me. There were part where the story didn’t keep the momentum and that was a struggle for me. I know it is promoted more of a romantasy fiction but I didn’t get that from this so don’t go in expects so much romance in this fantasy fiction story.

Dense, vivid and often perplexing, MISTRESS OF BONES is unlike any fantasy I've read in a long time. The worldbuilding and intrigue was utterly fascinating, and many scenes had my heart pounding in my mouth! There were long stretches where I felt disconnected from the plot, and sitting down to write this review after having finished, much of the book is already slipping from my mind. I can't put my finger on exactly what made it difficult for me to immerse myself in this one. But I'm certain it will find readers who adore darkly romantic, clever fantasy!

I loved the idea of a necromancer having to try to save her sister but obviously, things go wrong. This book was super interesting and I am glad I got a go at reading an arc of it! The characters were fun to read about and I felt very connected to them and the overall plot of the book.

Thank you NetGalley, Mistress of Bones had all the ingredients for a story I should’ve loved: defying Death, morally gray characters, and a world where gods’ bones shape the very continents. The premise is undeniably rich and full of potential, and I was intrigued by the idea of a heroine fighting to reclaim her sister’s remains from the clutches of Death itself.
But despite all that, the story just didn’t manage to capture my attention. The pacing felt uneven, and I found myself struggling to stay immersed in the world. The characters, while interesting on paper, didn’t feel fully fleshed out in execution. I kept waiting for that moment where everything clicks and pulls me in, but it never comes.
There were glimmers of something powerful, a gothic, tragic romance and some creative world building but for me, the emotional stakes never quite landed. I wanted to care more than I did. Overall, it was a beautifully written concept that, unfortunately, left me feeling more detached than invested."

📖✨ Just finished Mistress of Bones and I am UNWELL 😭🩶 This book has everything:
🦴 Bone magic? CHECK.
⚔️ Rapier duels? CHECK.
🩸 Morally grey chaos gremlins I’d die for? DOUBLE CHECK.

Azul & Virel’s enemies-to-lovers tension had me screaming into the void 😩🔥 The vibes? Immaculate. The worldbuilding? Rich like ancient gold. The gods? Fickle, terrifying, and deliciously real. Medina, if you see this… please know you have ruined me in the BEST way possible 🖤🕯️

This was a really interesting book! The synopsis sounded really good, and the idea of this cat and mouse game between this two sounded really interesting! Getting to know these characters as they plotted and navigated others plans was so thrilling to read!

The way that this book was told, with a lot of the chapters starting with a period of time in the past, at different lengths away, then following that character in the present, it was a bit complicated, trying to pin down the timeline down, but it was certainly entertaining.

Watching as the story built, of the different desires, and the history of these characters, how they got to this point, was just great! There were a lot of hidden motives, and we slowly got to understand them and their actions as the story progressed.

I really hope that this becomes a series. The way things ended, with all the plot points, there's plenty left still to do, that I really want to watch happen! Like the deal that she made, or that bit with ? and her brother. Plus the opening mentions how the gods might not be happy about having given up their bones for the humans, and then it wasn't an obvious part of the story. Maybe it'll be motivations, which I really hope we see in this theoretical sequel.

Loved reading this book, and I really hope that it becomes a series!