So some of you may remember that I absolutely loved the YA contemporary fantasy novel The Hearts We Sold by Emily Lloyd-Jones. (Some of you probably remember that mostly because I recommend it to you every chance I get and will not stop until you read it.)
So when I found out that Emily was releasing a new YA fantasy titled The Bone Houses, I jumped all over it immediately. And though I’d like to thank NetGalley and Little, Brown Young Readers for allowing me to read this early, as always, all opinions in the review are my own!
The Bone Houses—billed as a historical horror with elements of Buffy the Vampire Slayer—releases September 24th of this year, which is great because this is going to be literally the perfect fall read. It’s a little spooky, a little badass, and I can perfectly picture cozying up with this novel and a cup of hot chocolate right when the leaves start to change later this year. (Does it seem like I’m already looking forward to fall? Because I am.)
Ryn, short for Aderyn, is a young woman keeping her family afloat after inheriting her family’s gravedigging business. Unfortunately, she’s dealing with more problems than just paying the bills (although, to be fair, that’s a pretty big problem). The uncle who was supposed to be caring for her and her two as-yet-underage siblings has apparently run off, and she’s also the self-appointed first line of defense for her village against the magical undead creatures known as “bone houses”—AKA the risen dead in somewhat skeletal form wandering back into the land of the living, often with ill intentions. (I’m picturing Draugr from Skyrim but with less fus-ro-dah abilities.)
But as with all good stories, things cannot go on as they are, and the shift happens when Ryn comes across a lost mapmaker named Ellis wandering about the woods. After saving him from an attacking bone house and then appropriately ribbing him for being a mapmaker who has no idea where he is, the two eventually develop a tentative friendship (I think we all know where this is going—cue “oohs” from the audience).
Ellis is a wanderer with a mysterious past (he doesn’t even know his own surname, which is apparently a real point of contention for some people), but what makes him even more mysterious is the fact that the bone houses activity only seems to intensify after his arrival. After a particularly brutal attack puts Ryn over the edge, the two decide to set out on a (pretty epic) journey to fin and destroy the source of the magic that brings the bone houses to life once and for all.
Considering how much I loved THWS (you can check out my review here) and how well-written I thought it was, I was pretty much expecting to love The Bone Houses—and I did. The Bone Houses is magical, dark, spooky, and wonderful, and it really has it all: a badass female MC (which you know I’m a sucker for), fantastic world building, creepy undead creatures, dry humor, and adorable romance. On its surface, The Bone Houses is a tale of a gravedigger with a bring it on attitude and a mapmaker with a past full of questions making their way to an abandoned castle of the fairy folk to break a curse, while accompanied by their pet dead goat (yes, you read that right). But at its heart, it is so much more.
Because underneath the concise synopsis, The Bone Houses is a richly complex story, which was one of the first things I loved about it. There’s really a lot of layers to the characters and their stories and the way they intertwine with each other, both intentionally and unintentionally. While Ryn struggles with the deaths of both her parent and the responsibilities she’s been burdened with, Ellis struggles with not knowing who his parents were and why they seemingly abandoned him in his infancy. Both of them end up confronting more inner demons than they’d planned to en route to their destination, which definitely seems to be a theme in Jones’s work.
And speaking of themes in her work, our main character in The Bone Houses channels her inner Gremma from THWS as she runs around with an axe as her weapon of choice (only not just when she may need to bust it out of her purse to threaten her friend’s abusive dad—this is her chosen weapon all the time). Ryn is a genuine badass who accepts her role in life, but still sometimes struggles with finding herself along the way. It’s easy to love her as both a character and a person, and she’s someone a lot of readers can probably identify with. Plus, she’s a smartass with a heart of gold, which is one of my favorite types of people—both in fiction and in real life.
Of course, we know that in a fantasy novel especially, the setting can be as much a character as our main players, and Emily Lloyd-Jones did some excellent world building here. She relies on Welsh mythology and history as the foundation of her building, and I really enjoyed reading about the Welsh mythical creatures, like the afanc (a lake monster in the same vein as Nessie) and the Tylweth Teg (the Welsh name for the fairy folk). She really deftly and effectively weaves the Welsh mythology and lore into Ryn and Ellis’s world, and for me, this is the type of fantasy setting I really like. I find the world building to be much more believable and relatable when its based in something real and the author makes that a part of the characters’ lives. You can tell when the setting is more of a “make it up as you go along, who cares if it makes sense, it’s fantasy anyway” type of situation and that is not at all what happens here. I have to applaud the amount of research and hard work that definitely went into this. Overall, Lloyd-Jones creates a really beautiful world of magic and lore for her characters to live in.
I really enjoyed the relationship between Ryn and Ellis, as well. From the jump, there’s instant chemistry and you’ll find yourself playing not so much the “will they or won’t they” game as much as the “WHEN will they come on guys get it over with we know you love each other” game. There’s even a moment where Ryn offers to help Ellis get his shirt off because his shoulder was injured, and I couldn’t help but think, okay is this the new and improved version of “oh no, there’s only one bed”?
But in all seriousness, their romance develops naturally and through some really serious soul-searching moments—but not without their fair share of sarcastic quips and good-naturedly poking fun at each other.
Plus, I’m sure it’s easy to bond over instances of risking life and limb, which there’s no shortage of. If you like action in your fantasy novels, you’ll find plenty of it. Ryn and Ellis are consistently finding themselves going up against new enemies, facing unfathomable beasts, and taking new risks that will make you tense even just as the reader. There’s a good bit of fighting amongst the soul searching and romance, and I’ll be honest here—there was a point where I had about 10% of the book left and I found myself thinking, “welp, this is it. This is one of those books where every character dies and that’s how it ends.”
Suffice it to say, it will keep you in suspense and keep you turning the pages so quickly you’ll forget about your hot chocolate and it will get cold in the autumn air as you read this because it’s the perfect fall book.
But I digress.
Y’all know I’m a pretty big fan of Emily’s (and I have the lovely ladies of OwlCrate to thank for introducing me to her work! They featured The Hearts We Sold in their August 2017 box and it has been one of my favorite books they ever included), but I seriously can’t recommend this book enough! I don’t easily hand out five stars reviews (I just think books really have to earn them—I can’t love every single thing!) but I’d definitely give this one five out of five. It’s spooky, dark, complex, and beautiful. It has a badass grave digging, axe toting, sarcastic comment making main character who wants nothing more than to take care of her family, a richly developed world full of equal parts magic and creepiness, a cast of fantastic beasts that would give Newt Scamander a run for his money, and an adorable begrudging friendship turned romance. What more could you ask for?
Oh, a zombie goat companion? YOU GOT IT.
I definitely recommend you add this one to your fall TBR and grab it up when it comes out September 24th because you are going to love it. You’re going to love it just as much if not more than THWS and if you still haven’t read THWS after I’ve been telling you to for two years what are you even doing?! It just came out in paperback and the paperback is freaking adorable, so there’s really no time like the present. Emily Lloyd-Jones is an amazing writer—vastly underrated, if you ask me—and I have great admiration for her particular brand of YA.
What do y’all think? Have you read The Bone Houses yet? Is it going straight to your fall TBR? Let me know in the comments! As always, I’d love to hear from you!
