Official Synopsis:

Her destiny was death. The shadows brought her back.

Wrongly accused of her brother’s murder, Sonara’s destiny was to die, sentenced to execution by her own mother. Punished and left for dead, the shadows have cursed her with a second life as a Shadowblood, cast out and hunted by society for her demon-like powers.

Now known as the Devil of the Deadlands, Sonara survives as a thief on the edge of society, fighting for survival on a quest to uncover what really happened to her brother and whether he is even dead at all…

Blood Metal Bone is the astounding new novel from New York Times bestselling author Lindsay Cummings. This is the perfect adrenaline-packed read for fans of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows, The Mandalorian and Sarah J Maas’ Throne of Glass series.

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Review:

Lindsay has created a stunning world of complex characters and situations that makes readers question what it truly means to be good and evil.

I’ve had Lindsay’s books on my TBR for years (one of these days I’m going to get around to The Murder Complex, I swear!), so when I had the opportunity to participate in promo for Blood Metal Bone, I jumped at the chance! HQ (and Lindsay) were kind enough to provide an early copy, and the book was just released in the UK last Thursday!

It did take a bit for me to get into the book, especially once I became invested in Sonara and Soahm, and then we shifted to ten years later and to Karr’s POV. Once I got further into the book though and everything started to tie in together, I really appreciated how Lindsay wrote them. (The reveal as to who the Captain is at the end of Karr’s chapter? That was really, really good.) I don’t normally read books that are written in third person, but it was still very easy to get attached to the characters. 

Speaking of getting attached to characters — the mystery of going along with Sonara (that’s right, we’re going on the journey with them as we read) to try to find out what happened to Soahm was heart wrenching. I was stressed out, because I was hoping against all hope that she would find him alive. (I’m not going to say what happens…although I will say that all of my predictions were wrong.) There are a lot of reveals and twists that I didn’t see coming (my predictions were way off, but that’s a reflection of not having read fantasy in a long time, not Lindsay’s writing — everything ties together so nicely), but made perfect sense. 

This isn’t a romance book by any means, but we definitely get the glimpse of the possibility of romance happening at some point in the future, which I liked because that way it added to the story, and didn’t take away from the missions at hand. The intersection of the “aliens” (aka humans) and Dohrsar was really cool, and I especially liked how Lindsay gave all of the characters understandable motivations for their actions. We only see a few POVs from Cade, but through that and Karr’s POV, it’s hard to hate him. Like, yeah, is he an antagonist that’s doing bad things? Of course. But his motivations make you understand why he’s doing what he’s doing, and how good people can do bad things.

Anyway, before I give any more hints as to the plot, I’ll wrap this review up. Lindsay wrote a lovely, violent, heartbreaking book about family, found family, and what it means to do the right thing. I would categorize it as new adult, since Sonara is 23 for the majority of the book!

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Buy it here! (International)