Review: Bone Crier's Moon

Bone Crier's Moon
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Borrow 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

Bone ​Criers have a sacred duty. They alone can keep the dead from preying on the living. But their power to ferry the spirits of the dead into goddess Elara’s Night Heavens or Tyrus’s Underworld comes from sacrifice. The gods demand a promise of dedication. And that promise comes at the cost of the Bone Criers’ one true love.

Ailesse has been prepared since birth to become the matriarch of the Bone Criers, a mysterious famille of women who use strengths drawn from animal bones to ferry dead souls. But first she must complete her rite of passage and kill the boy she’s also destined to love.

Bastien’s father was slain by a Bone Crier and he’s been seeking revenge ever since. Yet when he finally captures one, his vengeance will have to wait. Ailesse’s ritual has begun and now their fates are entwined—in life and in death.

Sabine has never had the stomach for the Bone Criers’ work. But when her best friend Ailesse is taken captive, Sabine will do whatever it takes to save her, even if it means defying their traditions—and their matriarch—to break the bond between Ailesse and Bastien. Before they all die.  

Bone Crier's Moon has been one of my anticipated reads for a while so I was eager to dive in, unfortunately it didn't quite live up to my expectations and often fell a little bit flat. While the world was intriguing and I was incredibly fascinated by the Bone Crier's and the lore surrounding them, the negatives outweigh the positives for me. 

I'll start off this review with what I did like about this book. As I said, the world is intriguing and so is the lore that surrounds the Bone Crier's, I actually thought it was quite original. I was excited to dive in and learn more about them and how everything worked. The opening of the book was misty and evocative and the atmosphere for the book was very well done throughout and was, in my opinion, one of the best parts of the book. It was atmospheric throughout and it was this atmosphere that helped pull you into the book and bring the settings to life. It just added a little extra something to the scenes and provided certain feelings depending on the scene and location. I was really able to get a strong feel for the aesthetic of the book as I was reading which I particularly enjoyed. 

There's some nicely placed ominous hints throughout the book about what's really going on with one of the characters and serves to provide a sense of intrigue to keep you reading. However, I think the biggest plus about this book is how badass all of the female characters are. They're strong, they can take care of their selves and they aren't afraid to fight back when they need to. Even Sabine who doesn't really enjoy violence all that much! Each of the Bone Crier's really had each other's backs and I loved the strong, deep female friendship depicted between Sabine and Ailesse though I would have loved to see a bit more of it! I'm a sucker for strong female friendships in books and this one certainly provided! 

However, there was quite a bit about this book that let it down for me and made me rate it three stars. While I did love the world and was intrigued by it, I felt like the world building was really lacking. There was enough detail for the magic system and so on, and the lore of the Bone Crier's, but when it came to the actual world and setting a feel like it wasn't followed through on enough. I assume it's a French inspired fantasy world judging from some of the words that were used, and there's the catacombs that are built from bones, but other than that I don't really have much of a feel or picture of the place. The Bone Crier's, the catacombs and the small area that Bastien inhabits are all expounded upon to a decent extent in most cases but other than that small corner there's not much known about the world. Some royalty are then thrown in at the end with not much detail. There's also a mention of some distant war but that's about it and we don't see much of the world. So much is poured into the mythology and magic system that I feel like the world building fell to the side a little. 

The same could be said for the characters and their backstory. They seem quite two dimensional and flat and all we really know about them are their basic motivators. Revenge, completing a ritual and rescuing a friend, there's not really that much more to them than that. In fact I wasn't even aware that Ailesse was the main character when I started reading, I thought it was Sabine and I think I might have actually preferred Sabine as the MC because I did feel like out of all of the characters, we got to know her the most and see her develop unlike the others. 

I also really wasn't feeling the romance, I have to be honest. It was straight up insta-love and I really wasn't a fan of it. All signs seemed to point towards Bastien and his female BFF who's name escapes me, but all of a sudden he's in love with Ailesse and I didn't...really...see why? All I gleaned from the book was that it was 'just because'. So I really didn't enjoy the romance, there was no chemistry between the two and it felt really lacklustre and then to make it even worse another guy is thrown in right at the end and again...it's insta-love. Hell, he hasn't even met her and he's falling all over himself because of her and I'm not entirely sure how a love triangle full of insta-love is going to pan out in the next book because I'm not particularly rooting for either couple. Honestly I was expecting a really intense/deep romance and this was...not it. 

After the initial excitement over the world and the mythology, my interest waned pretty quickly. While it does have a fast start and a fast pace, I just ended up not being that hooked? To the point I could quite easily skim read to get through it. The insta-love had my attention straying but also the very repetitive plot. Ailesse is constantly running away and getting caught and then running away again over and over, while Sabine is looking for her and there's shady goings on. There's huge time skips that I honestly didn't feel worked because the plot still went nowhere? And I would have  preferred to spend more time with Sabine as she developed and had to do the one thing she didn't really enjoy all to save her friend instead of reading the same sequence of events over and over. I ended up being pretty bored, and once I'd finished the book and was reflecting on it I realised that not a lot really happened, honestly. Which brings me to my next point.... 

For the majority of the book not a lot happens, as I said, and it's super repetitive but in what felt like the eleventh hour there was a plot twist that literally came out of nowhere. There were no hints to it or anything, at least not that I detected, and it really seemed like it was thrown in for shock value or to add something to make people keep reading and anticipate the next book. It really didn't seem to have the most solid basis to me, which wasn't helped by the lack of world building to be honest. 

Despite a promising start and premise, Bone Crier's Moon ultimately ended up falling for flat for me and being more than a little bit disappointing. Perhaps my expectations were too high as I know a lot of people actually really loved this book, but for me there were too many negatives and aspects that I wasn't too big a fan of! I haven't quite decided if I'll check out the sequel to see how it all ends or not yet!