This book was really engaging and hard to put down!

This is the story (mostly) of Tomas Piety, who is the leader of the Pious Men, a sort of crime syndicate or gang. He, his brother and their men were conscripted into a war three years earlier and now that the war is over, and won, they’ve come back to their city to find that all their businesses are gone, the brothel is burned down, the prized racehorse killed, and the aunt that they left in charge a nun.

So Tomas, now a priest of the goddess of soldiers, a position that put him in charge of his regiment when the captain died, is going to take it all back.

But it won’t be easy, and there will certainly be shenanigans involved. Probably a little stabbing too. Just a little.

Tomas is an easy character to root for, even if he definitely isn’t necessarily a good man. He’s not inherently a bad dude, but he’ll do whatever is necessary to reach his goals. He’s morally grey, I suppose. He is often snarky, and often rather dangerous, and when he finds himself in a position where he can’t give an inch without losing face, he will not give an inch. This story is told in the first person from Tomas’ POV, in what felt like a memoir, and I really liked that. Tomas has a really strong voice, and he is really the perfect person to tell it like it is.

Some of his gang-mates are interesting as well. Bloody Anne is a good character, who is a good second to Tomas. Jochan, who is Tomas’ brother, is also an interesting character, if not particularly. He’s rather crazy, is Jochan. Billy the Boy was a really interesting character, who I wondered about a lot. It’ll be interesting to see where that goes. Many characters here to like or to not like.

This book occasionally talks about some difficult subjects, and man, it got me right in the feels at times. Unexpectedly so. I wasn’t expecting to get overly emotional while reading a book that was more or less about a street gang. But here we are. Surprise emoting is… good emoting? :D

There is so much delightful swearing in this one, I felt right at home, but if swearing is not your jam, then probably skip this one, as it is swear-tacular. <3

All told, I really liked this one. It was fast paced enough that I never wanted to put it down, and slow-paced enough that I wanted to read it slowly and savor it. Also that ending was just… wow.

I also have to say that with the right narrator, this book is going to be a phenomenal audiobook. I might just have to investigate that!

I’ll definitely be picking up more of McLean’s work because wooow!

Thanks to the author, as well as Ace via NetGalley for the review copy. :)

Review by 2shay..........

First, this is not a genre I’m usually attracted to, but having eclectic taste in reading material, I thought I would branch out into something new. I’m glad I did. I enjoyed this book.

If you’ve been following my reviews, you know that I’m going to be as honest as possible without giving up spoilers, so I’ll try to keep my comments fairly generic. This book is...DARK! I can’t emphasize that enough. The language is raw, vulgar actually. There are scenes of cruelty, rape and near rape, violence, scheming and betrayal. There are also characters that are wonderfully written in all their darkness, not to mention that it’s wonderfully written.

Tomas Piety is an anti-hero. In the world as we know it today, he would be a hunted criminal. In the context of the story, he and his men, the Pious Men, are heroic. They battle groups that are so much worse in an attempt to take back the property and businesses he lost while away at war. There are losses. Men die, some brutally. Tomas mourns them all, in his own way.

I found this story to be, not just interesting, but compelling. If nasty language and horrible violence makes you lose the flow of a fascinating story, this may not be a book you would enjoy. I, on the other hand, will be begging for an ARC of the next book in this series. The author, Peter McLean, has a very unique voice. Beautifully done, Sir!

Pick up a copy and...

Enjoy! ARC graciously provided by Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for an honest and voluntary review.

Priest of Bones is the beginning of a new series by Peter McLean. It reads like a cross between high fantasy and military fiction in a time of rudimentary gunpowder usage. The title character has returned to his home city from a war with what is left of his platoon. He is attempting to go back into his old life as the chief protector/mafioso of his neighborhood and the book describes the struggles he and his group endure to achieve their ends.
All too often, it feels like the reader is thrown into the middle of the story. The background of the characters is grudgingly revealed, and often in a cursory way. It is an engaging read, nonetheless.

The short version: this kind of book is not my jam but I enjoyed it

Longer version: I actually had to go back and read the synopsis again because I couldn't figure out why I picked up this book that is very unlike me. It would not be entirely inaccurate to call this Lies of Locke Lamora's big, bad, PTSD-ridden brother. This does not have the Ocean's 11 lightheartedness of Lies, but it has the same layers of story building and intrigue, and I'm curious to see how the fantasy elements will be handled in the next book. While the book takes place directly as the main character comes back from war, it definitely still reads like a war novel. My one problem is the protagonist is a priest, but it doesnt really make sense with the ending.

I love low fantasy. Give me a gritty story with swords and sewage. I want wars and mud and crime and just a hint of magic. McLean has given us a dark, bitter brew of a fantasy. Tomas Piety and his men are back from war with mental and physical scars aplenty. Of course, for some the war never ends. McLean’s characters are interesting and broken, each uniquely dealing with the horrors of their past and present.

This story deals with the repercussions of war, and what happens when the battle follows you home. Nonetheless, the story has a pitch-black humor that keeps it from becoming a slog. As the start of a planned series, I would certainly call this a win. You end the book wanting more about Tomas and his Pious Men.

An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Grimdark fantasy. The whole book really read as a prologue. A long one, but prologue all the same. I'm guessing the story will pick up and actually go somewhere later in the series, but I don't think I'll be there for it. Too violent and too much gratuitous vulgarity for me, thanks.

I do appreciate NetGalley for loaning it to me, though.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37884491-priest-of-bones?from_search=true

This book's style will be very familiar if you've read Joe Abercrombie's work; men returning from a faux-medieval war, rough language, light fantasy elements sprinkled in. It's nothing ground-breaking but it's all perfectly fine, with a tolerable narrator and a predictable but still enjoyable plot.

And then it ends.

It just ends, it doesn't resolve or even really set up a sequel, it just abruptly stops. I was ready to give this book three stars and say that it's enjoyable but not revolutionary, but now I can't. Go ahead and read it but don't have high expectations.

A lot of fun. Gritty and quick paced. Strong character development and a thoroughly thought out plot line.

I really loved this book. At first glance, it's easy to suggest this is another grimdark fantasy tale with its gangsters, murders, and general cast of ne'er do wells. But it's actually a lot of fun. the pace is relentless, and it builds to a very satisfactory ending. Sometimes I could see its influences a little too clearly but that never distracted from my enjoyment of the book. I loved the cast (and their nicknames) and eagerly look forward to spending more times with them. It is essentially Peaky Blinders with swords and that is a great thing indeed. Highly recommended

I loved this book. It is adult-themed, meaning that the language is realistically salty and the sex, while not explicit, it a part of the story line throughout the book. The main character is not a good man in any sense of the word, but he has his own sort of honor and has strong feelings about his responsibilities to others. I loved that his second in command was a woman who could hold her own against him and there wasn't any romance between them. The ending leaves an opening for a sequel, but the story was great in and of itself.

I just completed Peter McLean's "Priest of Bones." It is a gritty tale full of hard knocks and ruthless business in what could be described as gang warfare in the fictional town of Ellinburg. Tomas Piety has just finished his last tour in a messy and bloody war to the south. He returns home with whats left of his platoon. Tomas is an Army Priest but it has a very different meaning in this alternate reality. Before the war, Tomas and his family owned many businesses in the STINK in Ellinburg. It is a region of Ellinburg known for the foul air that comes off the river. Now that Tomas has returned, he finds that all his businesses have been taken over by a rival. Tomas plans to get them all back. It is a costly endeavor. A spy for the Queen, a Queen's Man, pulls Tomas and his gang into a plot to save the kingdom from a war with a northern invader, the Skanians. There is violence galore in these pages as Tomas and his brother, Jochan, and his right hand, Bloody Anne, change the landscape of the "Stink" and deal with his rivals and the Skanians along the way. We are left with unfinished business as this is only part one of the War of the Rose Throne. We will have to wait and see what becomes of the machinations that Tomas has started as he has flushed his enemy out in the open.

I received a free eARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

3.5/5
I really liked this story. It was Peaky Blinders/ Gangs of New York in a fantasy world with a nice Godfather-esque climax. Soldiers return from a war with some serious PTSD issues and find their territory overtaken by some newcomers. They rectify this situation under the guidance of Thomas Piety, leader of the Pious Men. Not a whole lot of surprises as it works out the way you'd expect it to. The addition of the Queen's Men spy handler added some twists but I didn't like how Thomas was convinced he had no recourse but to do what she said at every turn, especially at the end. I hope that as the series progresses that will be taken care of.
The biggest detractors for me were the amount of profanity (I know its a grimdark fantasy, but come on) and Anne and the Piety brothers backstories. I really didn't need to know about genital mutilation and child buggery. Aside from those things, I enjoyed it.

Priest of Bones by Peter McLean
Review by malrubius
Priest of Bones is the new fantasy novel by Peter McLean, author of the Burned Man urban fantasy series. It is a decidedly grim and dark, not-for-the-kiddies-thank-god, story that essentially recounts a turf war in the city of Ellinburg, told by one of its gang leaders, Thomas Piety, an army priest. With its fast-moving plot, intense conflicts, interesting characters, and compelling narrative, Priest of Bones is sure to be among the favourite reads for grimdark fantasy fans this year. I am already looking forward to its follow-up in what will eventually become the War for the Rose Throne series.
Piety, along with 65,000 other inhabitants of Ellinburg, has just returned home from a brutal war to find his home city of Ellinburg a hollow shell of a town with no jobs and no prospects. Worse, his own business ventures—a tavern, a whorehouse, and a casino, among other things—that he’d left in the able hands of his Aunt Enaid, have been taken over by rival gangs and foreign riff raff. Piety reconvenes his gang, the Pious Men, to retake his piece of the city. In doing so, though, he uncovers a secret about who is behind the surge of his rival gang, the Gutcutters, and his little problems start to outsize his own ability to control them.
Adding fuel to this fire is the uncontrollable rage of Thomas’s brother, Lochan, who has every right to assume the position of Thomas’s second, but Thomas already has a second, Bloody Anne, a sergeant from the war, whose loyalty, intelligence, and steady hand he is not willing to give up. This triangle adds intense and constant micro-conflict to the larger conflicts of the story. As if this weren’t bad enough, the Queen’s Men, the real government’s brutal and extremely crafty military-intelligence unit, is onto Piety. He has a history with them, no power to untangle himself from them, and cannot let his band know that he might be forced to work with them on the Queen’s larger conflicts. In other words, Thomas Piety is in a bind, in fact, several binds.
If there’s one thing that puts Priest of Bones above your every day, run-of-mill fantasy novel, it’s the narrative voice of Thomas Piety (which, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, is why PoB is being published by a big house). The story is told by Piety in a charmingly low-key voice, which immediately reminded me of Croaker from Glen Cook’s seminal Black Company series. Without exception, the reader feels like they are being a told a story by the guy who was there. It’s intimate, subtle, and flows like a lazy river. The prose is rhythmic and captivating, and laced with the humble grammatical error of the use of “me” as the co-subject of compound subects — “Bloody Anne and me went to . . .” — that lends a deep authenticity to the voice. Piety is no aristocrat, and that becomes an important distinction later in the story. When I read a multi-POV third-person novel, I always find myself questioning whether I should continue when a new voice takes over. Usually, I was just getting into the previous character. You will not want to stop reading the charismatic and humble Thomas Piety.
Piety is surrounded by an interesting and diverse cast of characters that will also keep you engaged. His brother, Lochan, is constantly drinking, constantly on edge, looking for a fight, perhaps with Thomas himself. The two brothers have a brutal family history that is not for the weak of heart. Piety’s second, Bloody Anne, is a cagey veteran with a hoarse voice and a taste for ale. His “fancy lady” and barmaid, Ailsa, is beautiful flirt who is not what she seems to be. And there are many more characters, each with their own motivations and desires: Fat Luka, Black Billy, Cutter (a fascinatingly deadly member of the Pious Men from Lochan’s side of the bunch – I hope to learn more about him in the next instalment), and Billy the Boy, a twelve-year-old magical phenom who is as nice as he is deadly. The reader gets to know these characters through the voice of Thomas Piety, which gives the reader a sort of intimacy not found in more distant narrative styles.
On the other side of town, called the Wheels because of its many mills, are Ma Aditi, the leader of the Gutcutters; Gregor, her right-hand man, and Bloodhands, a mysterious warrior who has returned with her from the war. Since the novel is told in Piety’s first-person voice, the reader does not get to know these characters as well as the Pious Men, and perhaps more interaction with them could have given more tension to the conflict, but the first-person narrative is so well executed that the sacrifice is well worth it. Yes, there are a lot of characters here, but in case you need help there’s a dramatic personae at the beginning of the book that I found completely unnecessary. In fact I didn’t even remember it was there until I began this review. In general I find dramatic personae unnecessary and a type of spoiler that I nearly always skip over. You can decide for yourself.
The setting for Priest of Bones is limited to the City of Ellinburg, which at times can be a little claustrophobic, but which seems to be a characteristic of low fantasy, as opposed to high fantasy in which a sprawling secondary world is the expectation. Ellinburg is a somewhat typical small medieval-esque city with its gambling houses and whorehouses and tanners and bakers and the rest. Outside the seedy part of the city is a suburb where aristocrats seem to live safely away from the gang life of the city. Like the characters in a first-person account, the city is only seen through the eyes of Thomas Piety, and it is his hometown, so there is no intricate, lengthy, detailed description of it. The reader gets to know it as Piety needs to move around to take care of business. A picture of a raucous, somewhat lawless and corrupt, middle-sized city does come together, and by the end of the novel, the reader knows pretty much where everything is as if they’d been there. There’s reason to believe the setting will expand in the sequels, and I hope it will. It would be great to hear Piety’s take on a place he is unfamiliar with.
Thematically, Priest of Bones covers a lot of familiar territory: loyalty (not just in the gangs but also Piety’s loyalty to the people of Ellinburg), revenge, love, class, and also some darker stuff that might seem gratuitous were the story told in a more distant third-person style. Piety, though, is as seemingly trustworthy a first-person narrator as you’ll find in fantasy, but he doesn’t claim to know everything about the world – not even close, which makes for a lot of tension as his fate becomes clear. He begins to learn how the world works, and he shares that with the reader as he does, which makes for great reading.
If there are any drawbacks to Priest of Bones, they are that it doesn’t seem to matter a whole lot, except on rare occasions, that Piety is a priest. Based on the title, I expected his priesthood to be integral to the story, but it’s not, or at least it doesn’t seem to be, except in that it enhances the loyalty of his followers, perhaps. The other nagging thing, which many readers won’t care about but which I am beginning to see in a lot of grimdark fiction both in novels and in Grimdark Magazine, is that the SFF element, in this case the magic, is not integral to the plot. Billy the Boy is a fascinating and somewhat frightening character, but his magic is just another weapon in an otherwise unmagical story. It seems to me that the expectation in SFF used to be that the science or magic was the MacGuffin around which the plot revolved. This (sadly, in the opinion of this reviewer) no longer seems to be the case in much grimdark fiction.
Nevertheless, Priest of Bones is a great read. You can decide for yourself if Piety is too good to be a true grimdark hero. He certainly does some nasty stuff. But that’s neither here nor there. Fans of the Black Company, Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, and the like will surely eat up Priest of Bones. Highly recommended.
Priest of Bones is scheduled for publication on 2 October 2018 by Ace.
Published @GrimdarkMagazine 20 may 2018. As of 1 June 2018, 855 views.