Member Reviews
Step into a world where mysticism intertwines with profound emotion in Laura R. Samotin's 'The Sins on Their Bones'. Set in a post-civil war landscape, this dark fantasy follows Tsar Dimitri and his husband, Alexey, as they grapple with the aftermath of their conflict. Though the pacing may feel measured at first, the intricate character dynamics and gradual unveiling of secrets keep the narrative compelling.
Samotin fearlessly delves into themes of abuse, trauma, and power unchecked, yet amidst the darkness, moments of hope and resilience shine through. 'The Sins on Their Bones' isn't for the faint-hearted, exploring violence, body horror, and explicit content. However, for those willing to traverse its depths, this novel offers a poignant reflection on love, loss, and the indomitable strength of the human spirit. With its haunting prose and intricate illustrations, Samotin's work leaves an indelible mark, showcasing the enduring power of storytelling.
Thank you to the publisher for approving me! Never got to read this because the arc wouldn’t download on the netgalley app. Would’ve loved to read it.the story seemed interesting and right up my alley.
The Sins on their Bones by Laura R. Samotin paints a dark queer fantasy that follows two estranged husbands after one usurps the other’s throne.
By far what I loved most about the story were the character dynamics. I’m a sucker for messy and tragic lovers, angst, melodrama, which this book delivered on a silver platter.
However, while I loved the premise itself, the execution and structure didn’t work for me.
In essence, this story feels like a sequel to a book we never got to read. There’s so much juicy character backstory and lead up to the events of the coup, but we only get to see snippets of it.
Honestly, I wish that this book had either included more flashbacks or had been written as a trilogy with The Sins on Their Bones being the second book in the series (because apparently there’s already going to be another book that follows the after aftermath of this one).
It strikes me as odd though that the author omitted large parts of that civil war and Alexey’s climb to power and descent into madness when that was by far the most compelling aspect of the story for me.
Hopefully someday we might get a prequel that covers those storylines, or who knows? Maybe it’ll be addressed more in the sequel.
This started off really strong for me and I would say this I still overall enjoyed thus, but I really started to get lost in the middle and I did not realize this was going to be the first in a series (I was under the impression that this was going to be a standalone) so the ending threw me initially as well. I do believe I will pick up the next book because I really enjoyed the characters and I want to see where the author will take their storyline and I am interested in the romance (which is very slow-burn and a little toxic at the beginning-just a fair warning).
The Sins in Their Bones is a dark, Jewish-inspired fantasy story with a second, storyline romance (it is NOT the main focus-so definitely not a romntasy if that is what you are looking for). I am intrigued to see where the author will take these characters next!
This book is an incredible book that will tug at your heartstrings! It truly will stomp on your heart for good measure. However, I was uplifted by the book. It's a powerful tale of overcoming abuse, finding forgiveness a true healing journey with self discovery. Despite tackling serious themes it's also filled humor and passion. The book was well written and the characters were believable and felt relatable. This book will stick with me forever. It will remind me to find hope even in my darkest times. I highly recommend it with a full 5-start rating.
I also loved it so much that I had to purchase the physical copy when I saw it at a bookstore in Pasadena.
Actual rating: 3.5/5
Dimitri, the former Tzar of Novo-Svitsevo, is living in exile with what remains of his court - the few most trusted among his advisors, the only ones he can still call friends. Increasing his anguish following the end of a brutal civil war is the knowledge that the coup that led him to lose everything was led by his now estranged husband Alexey, whom Dimitri thought to be the love of his life. Except Alexey is no ordinary usurper: through a perversion of his religion, he turned himself into an immortal demon-like creature and now claims to be guided by God Himself with devastating consequences should his plans succeed.
The Sins on Their Bones starts off with an intriguing premise for a dark fantasy queer romance. The story is told through multiple POVs, alternating chapters narrated by Dimitri, Alexey and Vasily, Dimitri's spymaster and lover. This certainly adds some dynamism and depth to these characters, all three of whom have to grapple with trauma, impossible choices and love - both the abusive kind and the healing one.
Alexey's and Vasily's chapters were the most interesting for me, as I really struggled to connect with Dimitri. Some of the chapters in Alexey's POV ended up detracting somewhat from the suspense though, as certain key points in his plan were revealed quite early on to the reader while still remaining a mystery to the other characters. I enjoyed the found family vibes between Dimitri and his court, and I would have loved to see more of these characters as well, but they felt mostly sketched rather than fully fleshed out.
The writing is deeply immersive and perfectly paints the picture of this Eastern-Europe-inspired world. The novel also incorporates several elements of Jewish lore, which I wasn't really familiar with but were so seamlessly weaved into the narrative that I had no trouble at all following along. Most of the descriptions were quite evocative and flowed nicely, even though some of the dialogues were a bit too verbose and unnatural for my taste.
The structure of this book is what I struggled with the most. The story starts after the end of the civil war when Dimitri and his friends are already in exile. Several past events are referenced throughout and discussed among the protagonists yet they are never shown, not even through flashbacks.
Though this choice could have been very original, bringing a new perspective to the story, it felt as though I was reading the second book in a series without having read the first. I also ended up getting a bit tired of all this telling after a certain point and would have liked to see more of the things the characters were talking about. The pacing also didn't quite work for me. After a fairly interesting beginning, I started to feel the story drag along and the whole middle section was really hard for me to get through. Things did pick up again towards the end but, by that point, I had kind of lost the momentum.
I would have also liked to see a bit more of this magical yet brutal queer-normative world, which seemed really interesting from the glimpses we got from the characters but wasn't really shown all that much. In this sense, this book gave me the same feeling of a theatre play: mostly played out indoors in few settings and propelled by dialogue between a limited cast of characters. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it wasn't what I was expecting from this given the blurb, and it left me wanting a little more.
That being said, I appreciate what the author did with her exploration of the themes here. All the characters are battling their demons (some inner and some... less so) and dealing with the aftermath of their choices and the pain that comes from having to live with that. PTSD and matters of mental health feature heavily here, and I really liked how Dimitri's friends worked together to ensure he felt supported and loved while going through an extremely difficult time.
Sensitive readers should be very careful approaching this book as there are many content warnings to be given, as well as explicit sexual content between consenting adults. The spicier scenes were actually quite disappointing for me, as they felt very repetitive, but other readers may enjoy them more.
Overall, The Sins on Their Bones is an interesting exploration of what it means to be human, of the seduction of power and the constant battle to do the right thing - whatever the cost. I really wish I had connected more with this book, but maybe it just came to me at the wrong time or with the wrong expectations. I think that readers who do connect with it will really love it, and this is definitely an author I'll be keeping an eye out for!
I agreed to review this book before realizing that it was an adult novel, but it’s endorsed by several of the YA authors that I love, so I wondered if it would be a good crossover.
The main characters are in their early twenties, so they’re solidly adults. Their emotional maturity made them seem young to me, but at least in Dimitri’s case, that’s really part of his character and how sheltered he has been.
Each chapter follows Dimitri, Alexey, or Vasily’s perspective. All three think about sex a lot. Sometimes at what seemed to me to be weird moments. At one point, Dimitri sits on a rooftop, thinking he may end his life, and a few minutes later, he wishes he could cheer someone else up with sexual favors. I think that in that scene in particular, it’s supposed to show that Dimitri’s past abusive relationship has sort of programmed him to “fix” things through sex, so maybe that’s not a great example. The sexual tension did feel pretty constant, though, which I think was just too much for me personally. I kind of found it wearying.
While the central plot of the story is about taking down the man who removed Dimitri from power through dark spiritual means, many scenes focus on the abusiveness of the relationship between Alexey and Dimitri. Despite the fact that Dimitri has literally just lost a war with Alexey, he longs for him and craves the companionship they share, even though it is pretty toxic.
While hard to read, that longing does make sense in terms of my (limited) understanding of how a trauma bond can work. Even Dimitri’s need to have someone reenact the abuse cycle does make a certain kind of sense. It’s just really dark and hard to read. It also made it difficult for me to really connect with Vasily’s character since he’s the one helping with the reenactments.
The characters have Russian names, and some other Russian words are used for titles and other elements. The primary faith of the people of Novo-Svitsevo appears to be Judaism. Characters celebrate the Sabbath and spiritual leaders are called rebbe, a term for a Jewish spiritual leader.
Characters encounter angels and demons in different rituals. I don’t know enough about Jewish beliefs to know whether all of the names and references are made up or what’s drawn from faith or folklore.
The only thing that confused me about the spiritual part of the book was that sometimes it seemed that, in the morality of the story, it was a bad thing to involve demons or angels in your life in exchange for favors. At other times, characters seemed to make those choices more casually or with the understanding that the end justifies the means. It seemed a little weird that they would so quickly jump to playing with the same fire that was burning down the whole kingdom under Alexey’s rule.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book. Even though this book wasn't for me, I was so grateful to be given the opportunity to read it.
I really wanted to make it through this one because it was an ARC, but it really wasn’t for me, and I unfortunately had to DNF. I am a relatively quick reader, and I only got through 144 pages in over two weeks. I felt like the book started in a really weird place. The entire beginning of the book was talking about things that happened before the book started which I didn’t understand. There was apparently a huge coup, a dissolution of a marriage due to dark magic, and the ousting of a Tsar that was constantly mentioned in this book, but that’s not what the book was about… it started with just the aftermath of all of this and a group of friends dealing with the repercussions and trying to dust themselves off to go and fight for their country again. It was such a good premise, but the timing was so odd to me.
Also, the first 144 pages were just SO slow. The former Tsar was mourning his marriage and the death of so many of his soldiers, so the entirety of these pages were dedicated to him dealing with the toxic relationship he lost while starving himself, having sex with a member of his court, and drinking himself silly. The only interesting part, to me, that I felt moved the story along were Alexey’s chapters, who was the antagonist. I just found myself wishing that all of the turmoil that was briefly touched upon was the actual plot.
This book, unfortunately, just put me in a funk. I’m so appreciative that I was given a chance to read this ARC, but I found myself not wanting to pick it up…
Something went wonky with the formatting for this and I can’t get it to work on my kindle 😭 But it’s still on my TBR and I will read it eventually! 5 stars for now bc queer books are the best in the land.
Dark, moody, and incredibly sexy, Samotin has taken a base foundation of lore and turned it into something exhilarating. From the moment we meet Dimitri smoking on the rooftop, we're swept into his agonies and defeats. The story begins at rock bottom, but from there we launch into a tale of intrigue, romance, and victory that anyone who enjoys fantasy and dark academia will love. This book quickly launched Samotin onto my "authors not to miss" list, I can't wait for her next work!
In the real world, we say "I love you" but in The Sins on Their Bones they say "There will merely be this, between us, this recognition of the perfect hurt and pain that honed us into blades, so we could cut each other free." How's that for dramatic? I love it.
This book has so much going on and it was a lot darker and gorier than I was originally expecting it to be. For content warnings, there are VERY detailed descriptions of gruesome body horror-type injuries. There is a LOT of physical and emotional abuse and some of these beatings are described in extreme detail. There's also a lot of religious fanaticism. One of our three POV characters, Alexey, is very much a villain, he is completely megalomaniacal and doesn't see himself that way, he sees himself as the hero and relishes in the pain and humiliation of everyone around him if they don't submit to his will.
I have to admit I wasn’t sure about it at first, but the more I read the more I got into it and by the last 100 pages I was fully invested and on the edge of my seat. Everything is so tense. Even though this is a fantasy it also includes a lot of elements that can be found in a regular psychological thriller, very genre-crossing. You thought the last hundred pages of a Maasverse book were chaotic, this is next level. A character literally gets scrimshawed by God himself in order to fight evil. (And somehow this is the second book I have read in the last 12 months that contained scrimshawing as a plot element and that was not something I had on my bingo card never mind expecting it to come up more than once!)
This is a queer fantasy romance that leans more into the fantasy side, but it wouldn’t function without the romance so I think we can indeed label it romantasy, albeit a very dark romantasy. You've got two overlapping love triangles that are both various shades of toxic. There are lovers to enemies (Alexey/Dima), friends to lovers (Dima/Vasya) and a relationship for convenience (Alexey/Ivan). Our three POV characters are Alexey, Dima, and Vasya and I feel like we could have done with some of Ivan's perspective. Not only are all the main couples queer, but queerness is also normative in this world, which is an alternate 19th version analog of Russia. One of the major main characters is nonbinary and that's never treated as anything other than fact, never questioned and they are never misgendered or treated badly.
It’s set in an alternate version of 19th-century eastern Europe. Novo-Svitsevo is very clearly a Russian analog. If you can handle super dark themes give this a go.
“If I die first, I’ll tell you the secrets of heaven”
⭐️⭐️⭐️.✨
First off, thank you @penguinrandomca for the advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.
I want to start off by saying that while I did rate this 3.5 stars, that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. For some reason people think that if I rate something lower than 4 stars it means that I don’t like it. That is not the case. But this book does have some issues that did stop me from giving it a higher rating.
So let’s jump into it!
What I liked:
1. Character development is 100% Samotin’s strength. Each character was fully developed & had a distinct voice. This not only included our three main characters but the side characters as well. Oh & the LGBTQIA+ rep was very well done.
2. I loved how elements of Jewish mythology, culture & religion were weaved throughout the story.
3. We all know I’m a sucker for death magic & we have it in droves here! I loved the magic system & thought it was executed flawlessly.
4. The commentary on DV, toxic relationships & childhood trauma was skillfully done in my opinion.
5. We have an actual true, well developed villain, with their own pint of view. Alexey is absolute garbage but his character was thoroughly flushed out.
6. I also really enjoyed how they made Corpse Reviver cocktails. Which is a favourite drink of mine and my husband.
Now for what needs work:
1. The world building was severely lacking. Luckily I have an over active imagination which filled in a lot of the blanks.
2. The dialogue was a bit much at times & I found myself skipping parts which had zero impact to understanding the overall story or characters.
3. The plot was slow. Not knowing what was going on for the first bit kept me engaged but the middle was a slog.
Overall I think this was a fantastic debut from this author. The ending left us with the possibility of a sequel, which I would definitely read!
If you do end up picking this up be aware that it does deal with some pretty triggering themes on page such as DV and SA.
I really REALLY wanted to love this book.. Jewish mysticism? Russian analog? Dark themes? Queer? Count me in!! But I just really struggled to get into this and, at 20%, called it a DNF.
It might have been that the format limits, which meant I was desperately trying to get a good zoom of the page, made the act of reading rather frustrating already, so perhaps I would have persevered if the experience had been smoother. But I really struggled with a lot of the writing choices. Dialogue served to clumsily get the reader up to date instead of really serving to categorize the characters (think “remember how I’ve been serving you since x because y”) and a lot of pining and remembering what happened without actually knowing what happened. I know it’s been brought up by others but I definitely feel the inciting incidents would have made for a good story, or at least a better story than vaguely hearing about them while the characters drown their vague sorrows. And again, maybe it does pick up and become amazing, I’m still hoping!! I want my Jewish magic! And the tiny hints I saw were intriguing! I was also promised super dark! And it’s probably in there somewhere! But I just could not manage to get there. Maybe when I can get it in physical I’ll give it another try.
Thank you to Netgalley and Randomhouse for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I absolutely LOVED this book!!! The characters, scenes, and emotions felt so real!
As someone who is has Jewish heritage and PTSD themselves, this story truly hit home!
DNF'd around 30%. I wasn't really interested in this story at the time and was getting a little bored.
Okay okay, it’s dark fantasy and it took me a while to get into it but grew on me and I’m glad I stuck with it. There is a lot of sexual trauma and queer representation throughout the whole story and just in case you didn’t get the memo it’s an Ashkenazi Jewish Folklore inspired story and it’s sooo worth it.
# The Sins on Their Bones
# 5/17/2024 ~ 5/22/2024
# 3.75 / 5.0 Rounded up to 4
The Sins on Their Bones was a solid read with a Tzar hiding in disgrace and defeat after engaging in a civil was against his husband after he was sucked into mysticism and magic rooted in religion. It features a well developed cast of characters who all bring their personality to the plot and leave the reader wanting more.
My only complaint was that it was a bit of a slow start with almost no information about how the Tzar was in disgrace other than it was the fault of his ex husband. We slowly learn more about the civil war as the story progresses, but I was still wanting more and I think the story would have benefited from starting at the end of the civil way instead of already deep in the aftermath.
I love political fantasy and I love messy, broken characters, so this one was pretty much set up to be a slam dunk for me. And there WAS a lot that I loved: the character and relationship work is exquisite (really, it's a trio of character portraits first and foremost), the worldbuilding rich and layered, the prose self-assured, the plot well constructed. Something kept me at arm's length, however, and made getting through the book feel like *getting through* it rather than being pulled along--some combination of the pacing and tension just didn't quite land for me. Overall, it's an excellent debut from a really promising author, and a real standout in the unflinching way it examines abuse, grief, and the ugly parts of love.
Many thanks to PRH Canada and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my review!
Thanks to Netgalley for a copy to review.
I enjoyed the start of this and thought the premise of having a married couple leading the opposing sides of a war was a really compelling setup that was for believable reasons. The world building/magic although did take a bit to get going did come together but it does get dark and spicy in the middle that I personally wasn't a fan of (but I'm not into romance or spice reader anyway) however I did think when it went back to the central plot it wrapped it up well.
In "The Sins on Their Bones," Laura R. Samotin weaves a dark and immersive tale of political intrigue and betrayal. While I found the world-building and character relationships compelling, I struggled with the darker sexual scenes that felt unnecessary to the story.
Samotin's exploration of themes such as loyalty, sacrifice, and the corrupting influence of power resonated with me. The complex dynamics between Dimitri, Alexey, and Vasily added depth to the narrative, and I found myself invested in their struggles.
Despite its flaws, "The Sins on Their Bones" offers a thought-provoking reading experience for fans of dark fantasy who can navigate its more disturbing elements. While not entirely to my taste, I appreciate Samotin's engaging writing and the novel's ability to tackle weighty themes.