**Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.**

Yikes, according to Goodreads my last book review was in July and ... yep. That feels about right. It's not so much that I've been in a book slump. More just stressed out of my mind about a bunch of stuff – which, thank God, has mostly cleared up or entered the “well, nothing I can do about it” space.  Basically, I just wasn’t going to do justice to anything I tried to read. And hopefully I can now.

Irrespective of the mess of my brain, The Bone Orchard has been sitting in my NG queue for an unforgivably long time. I think you can maybe get a sense why from the general tenor of the GR reviews, with readers coming down pretty firmly on the side of "confused" or "adoring". Fortunately for me, I'm very much Team Adoring, but it took me a little while to get there. The world of The Bone Orchard is strange, dark and full of mysteries. While everything is ultimately revealed--and fits together extremely well--the opening of the book is, to put it lightly, somewhat challenging. There's a lot going on, and a lot of is fairly weird, and it's easy to feel overwhelmed by that. But once you get past the initial disorientation, and it really does only take about 10-20% for the plot to feel slightly more navigable, The Bone Orchard is an absolute fucking page turner, full of twists and turns, intrigues and reversals, and a steady drip feed of revelations that keeps the tension high and the momentum going right to the very end of the story.

Normally I feel somewhat ambivalent about insisting that people need to stick with something until it gets good (I remember doing this to a friend about Buffy the Vampire Slayer until we hit about season 3 and then had to face up to the fact she just didn't like the show—and, of course, it is always okay to just not like something) but, unlike three seasons of a long-running TV show, The Bone Orchard asks for a relatively low investment of your time/energy and, to my mind at least, pays that investment off spectacularly.

The book is, not to put too fine a point on it, a fucking ride. 

Anyway. How to give you a bit of grounding in what The Bone Orchard is, y'know, about, without spoiling too much? Because, as I've already said, this is a book that benefits from being allowed to unfold itself to you at its own pace. Let's start with our heroine. Charm runs a brothel called Orchard House, where her rich patrons are served by her "boneghosts" - animated human-like beings grown in vats in her laboratory, all flawed in their own way, and named things like Shame, Justice, Pride, Desire and Pain. Charm is also the mistress of the Emperor of Boren, a war prize taken from his conquest of Inshil. Inshil is a formerly independent country responsible for the development of the "mindlock", a technology that prevents psychics (which are a feature of the setting) from going out of their tree, as the mental strain of simply being psychic inevitably causes them to. The thing is, though, the Emperor has been able to modify the mindlock thing, not only to protect the mental wellbeing of the psychic but to implant specific orders and behaviours within their minds that it causes them overwhelming pain to disobey. Oh, and there's also Rejuv, an eternal-youth oral supplement also seized from Inshil.

Anyway, anyway, the book opens with the Emperor summoning Charm to his bedside because he's been abruptly and inconveniently poisoned. Releasing her from the majority of his mindlocked commands, he leaves her with a new set of instructions: find out who murdered him and murder them back, and ensure none of his four dangerously unstable sons inherits the throne. What follows is a deep dive into various mysteries (who killed the Emperor being, in some ways, the least interesting of them, and the most interesting being exactly who is Charm and what happened to her), a political thriller surrounding a city in the grip of a succession crisis, and a fascinating exploration of power, sex, gender, identity, trauma and survival.

To go into more detail would be to ruin the book and I'm already slightly fearful I've said too much. Because, despite my comments about its opening, I do feel The Bone Orchard is an intricately put together book that's worth experiencing on its own terms.  For me as a reader (your mileage may vary on this one, of course) there's a very rare and particular pleasure in giving a work your trust and feeling that trust was not only proven correct, but respected as well. By the end of the story, I felt like nearly all my questions had been satisfactorily addressed, and--for the most part--the various tensions and conflicts drawn towards emotionally resonant conclusions.

I will say that I felt the more psychological/metaphorical/allegorical aspects of the book tended to work slightly better than the intriguey-political sections but that could have been because I'm personally more interested in psychological/metaphorical/allegorical stuff than I am intriguey-political shenanigans. But it also could be a kind of ... scaling issue? In that one of the things I feel is unexpectedly bold about the TBO is that Charm leads a very insular and locked-down life, both in terms of her role and also geographically speaking (until she is summoned to the dying Emperor's bedside she has never left the walls of Orchard House), and this insularity pervades the book. Charm is a marginalised person, existing on the margins of her society, and this does not change when it’s plot convenient (well, at least, until right at the end, when the bloke invading the city who, admittedly, is not right in the head, bashes down the gates and barges straight to a whore house to have beef with a courtesan).  In general, though, I did find the way book deals with a heroine who is limited by both gender and circumstances refreshing, especially compared to all the fantasy sex worker protagonists who manage to not only be present at but completely central to an unfathomable number of global crises – looking at you here, Phedre no Delauney. However, it does also mean TBO is at its best when it’s focus is at its narrowest.  Because Charm's story is so intensely microcosmic, and so deeply embedded in her fractured sense of self, this can make the bigger events, like riots, parliamentary coups and enemies at the city gates, sometimes feel ... oddly vague? Despite the emotional hooks the book offers for all of them.

To give a specific example of this (mild spoilers ahoy) one of the major "city in dissolution" events I referenced earlier is a riot in one of the poorer sections of the city that is, shall we say, violently curtailed by the army. Obviously this is abstractly a pretty horrible event but, in fiction (as in life), abstractly horrible doesn't always cut it. And TBO, I think, attempts to address this by ensuring we-as-readers suffer the loss of a character we knew, thus making the political as personal as it needs to be in order to be more than abstractly pretty horrible. Unfortunately the person in question is … like … in a single scene. So while it was, y’know, sad she died in a riot—very much a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—it wasn’t quite enough for the riot to matter to me or feel as real as anything that happens to Charm (or affects her more directly than her laundry not getting done).

I will also say that, looking back on it now, I think there’s a degree to which TBO carries you along on its conviction and its … well … charm. Because the story combines a surprisingly compressed and pacy narrative with a richly detailed study of its central character, there isn’t a tonne of spaces for … anybody else. I ended up caring about quite a few of the supporting cast but I honestly couldn’t quite tell you why. I was intrigued by many of them, and the world they inhabit is a complex and deadly one, but I think I was more sort of … caring in the gaps? Or caring on principle. That doesn’t, of course, mean I didn’t care but I do retrospectively wish there’d been just a touch more space to develop at least a couple of the more plot-central characters – Major Nathair, for example, Ylsbeth, the deceased Emperor’s wife, or Oram, the de facto leader of the Emperor’s army of identity-stripped, mind controlled psychics. I also find myself wondering if the author perhaps slightly over-extended herself in the Emperor’s four—count ‘em four—fucked up sons. They’re all absolutely terrible people, partially because terrible things have happened to them, and partially on their own account, and at least two of them are severely mentally compromised, Phelan from his father’s botched attempted to surgically modify his psychic powers (to save him from future insanity) and Aerleas for being an empath and waging an incredibly bloody war. Luther has been banished for unspecified reasons (reasons we find out later) and Strephon seems to be just a basic shithead. To be fair, I found the mystery of Luther genuinely super interesting, especially because he initially seems like the best of the bad lot and I didn’t mind Strephon being a bit of a one-note monster, because some people kind of are? With Phelan and Aerleas, though, it’s more complicated, because they’re kind of victims as well as villains, and I never felt that this was explored, or even acknowledged, more than glancingly. I mean, maybe it wasn’t meant to. But that’s complicated in a different way, since trauma and survival are such important themes in the book as a whole.

By the time Aerleas shows up, he’s incoherently unwell, which I think is okay, but it mostly manifests in calling Charm a bitch. And Phelan … oh Phelan. I ended up feeling more for Phelan than I think the text wanted or expected me to. Like—and this is where it gets messy—he’s randomly and openly a paedophile (he’s allowed to get away with it because he’s a prince), as a direct result of his father’s digging about in his brain. I don’t want to get into the whole paedophilia-as-mental-illness thing or even remotely suggest that the pain some paedophile’s clearly suffer is more significant than the harm caused to some of the most vulnerable people in society. This is not me defending paedophilia or even defending this fictional character who is a paedophile. It’s more that I see no narrative reason for Phelan to be a paedophile, if that makes sense. And by “narrative reason” I’m not talking about the makeup of the character (people don’t “need” reasons to be a certain way, positive or negative), it’s more I don’t see why this creative choice was necessary or what it was textually achieving that could not have been done in a less distasteful way. Like, the paedophile and the uncontrollable violence are direct results of the surgery—not traits endemic to Phelan personally—and he would have been equally unsympathetic as a character if he’d sexually abused adults. I guess it was possibly there to make the point that the social dynamics in play here are so massively corrupted in favour of those at the very top, with enough power behind you, it’s possible to get away even the most condemnable transgressions. But, to be honest, I felt it mostly a blunt tool employed by the author to ensure that Phelan remained hateable. I mean, there’s a scene towards the end, when he’s succumbed almost completely to madness but, amid the ranting and misogyny, he talks about they ruined him with the surgery, and I found the whole scene—his plot arc in general—really harrowing. I think because there’s such a long history of queer people forced to undertake medical and surgical procedures, aimed at correcting who they are, that this just struck at me in a really painful, fundamental way. I know it’s not the same, because psychic powers do literally drive you mad in the setting of TBO, but … I mean, as someone whose mental health is not the best, my right to remain myself *in spite of that* is deeply important to me.

ANYWAY.

You know, it occurs to me I’m doing that thing where I say how much I really loved something and then pick at it like an unhinged crow for thousands of words. It is, however, genuinely my love language. This is me being deeply interested by a book.  The Bone Orchard is a unique and ambitious work, full of complicated ideas that—and your mileage may, of course, vary here—I’m not sure it always wrangles successfully. For example, hotly anticipated moments like Aerleas’s return, or Charm’s confrontation with Luther (which, to me, lacked the bite I expected, simply because it consists of Charm discoursing at him) fall a little flat. I could also have done with learning a lot more about Inshil, since there’s a lot of backstory there, especially about Inshil’s treatment of psychics and Charm’s role/complicity in that, that remained a bit … hazy-feeling, right to the end of the book. And, honestly, I couldn’t always tell if the character work was nuanced or … err … incoherent. Particularly when it came to the Emperor, since there seems to be a “well, he did the best he could” type undertone sometimes, even though he has mind-controlled and stripped of personhood a subsection of his citizenry. We’re offered the fact he didn’t sleep with Charm for twelve years—that they did, in fact, become friends, and the lovers was an optional part of their dynamic, despite her being his mistress—as evidence he broadly did good by her, but she is also literally his prisoner? His incontrollable prisoner. Who he insists keeps the body of a nineteen-year-old? Um. Of course, Charm is an unreliable narrator, and caring for people we shouldn’t care for is another theme of the book so … who knows?

Finally, I always wrestle a bit with books that explore themes of social and political upheaval but ultimately re-establish the exact same power structure as were proven corrupt and inadequate by the upheaval. I mean, I’m not saying TBO should have end with Charm, somehow, instituting democracy in Boren. But the future of the empire seems to come down to nothing more than “let’s make a decent man Emperor and hope for the best”— which is fine, as a compromise, but everyone seems broadly chill with it. And maybe I’m just a natural cynic but, while I’m willing to concede that a decent man is definitely going to be a better Emperor than a mentally ill misogynist, I’m not sure being a decent man makes you a good emperor? I’m kind leaning towards thinking it might make you a bad one. They also discover that it’s possible to use the mindlock technology to prevent psychics losing their mind without also using it as a form of mind control. Again, though, call me a cynic … if the technology already exists to mind control people, I’m not sure that’s a world domination cat that’s returning to the whoops bag any time soon.

Political concerns, however, the book ends with two women and a SPOILER character, sitting round a kitchen table, all of them in some way freer, happier, and gifted with greater knowledge and self-knowledge than they were at the start of the book. Irrespective of whatever happens to Boren in the next five years, or even the next fifty, I found this a deeply satisfying conclusion to the core the story itself. All of which is to say, as an exploration of political change, The Bone Orchard may falter now and again. But as a deeply personal story about a shattered woman doing whatever she can to put herself back together—including fighting against herself when she has to—it is beautiful, profound, messy and damn near perfect.

This is the perfect spooky season read. It has all of the things I love in books: witches, court drama, necromancy… what more could a girl want?

This was so interesting! The concept was unique and I know readers will love it. I do think there could be areas for improvement, at times it seemed to drag.

I wanted to love this but it was way too cerebral for me. I found it hard to follow. I found the fragmented consciousness an excellent idea but difficult to execute.

DNF- did not finish. Couldn't get into this one despite the spooky creepy vibes. Will try again at another point.

In this house we support sex workers and don't stand for the vilification of them. This sounded super interesting, but in the end it just wasn't for me.

I gave this 3.5 stars. It was sometimes hard to follow. It felt like it was the second book. I would have liked to know more background information. I liked the aspect of multiple personalities that they were all created to guard the main personality. The topic of bone garden was pretty interesting to go in the backyard and have actual bones sticking out. I could have never guessed where it had gone at the end. I like the bizarre aspect in the book, especially with the brothel.

The author will drop you in the deep end and you will at least twice despair that you're never going to understand what's going on. (Political cloak and dagger plus who-done-it will not help with this feeling.) You'll figure it out, but you'll still keep learning new things about the world up until the end.

Napoleonic sci fi with rail guns, psychics, and.... whatever it is that Charm does. I'm not in a position to speak learnedly about DID but I think they have similar aspects. She peels off different aspects of her personality to protect her main psyche, but then they work for her at the brothel she runs because they're also physically different people. The Emperor dies just after psychically compelling Charm to find out who did it and kill them, so that's a thing. Then there's the war. Wars. One hot, one cold, one more or less resolved so long as nobody breaks it.

Everybody has a dark side, so be prepared to feel betrayed by characters you thought you could like. Except for the Duchess/Commander Flashheart character, upon whom you should place all your affection without regard.

The world is grim, and content warnings for sexual violence (offstage and on) pedophilia (offstage) and suicide, possibly some others.

I’ve tried for a while to find words for this book, and I’m struggling for something other than unique. This was a dark, twisty tale, definitely not for the light of heart.
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Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan-Tor/Forge for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I did not get to this book and as a result am removing from my list. I ended up selecting other books to read instead. This review is not a reflection of the story, but rather shows that this was not high on my TBR list, which is a factor in itself.

Thank you Tor for my copy!
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One of the most unique books I have ever read. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading. Would recommend to my followers!

Atmospheric and haunting— two words I’d use to describe this unique book. I haven’t read a book like this before and it was right up my alley. I’ll definitely be looking for more from this author.

I LOVED this book as a personal read. I have a few students I know would appreciate this story, but the world building.and storyline may be too complex for most to understand. I enjoyed the sex worker spin, the darkness and the beauty that this author created.

With a style reminiscent of Tanith Lee and a world as complex and byzantine as M. A. Carrick’s, Sara A. Mueller spins a tale of magic, identity, politics, and hidden pain. The Bone Orchard is difficult to describe in terms of premise or plot because so much of the reading experience involves following the development of unreliable narrators who may or may not be the severed aspects of a single person. But who that person truly is and how much autonomy the other aspects possess pose questions that Mueller reveals gradually and with consummate skill..

We know that severe early trauma increases the risk of dissociative identity disorder, formerly called multiple personality. Suppose, then, that it were possible to create a synthetic version of yourself, using bones grown on trees, for example, a “you” that would bear that unbearable pain? Or take away your shame upon herself? At what point would you cease to be you? How many aspects of yourself must you lose to become someone else, and what would be left?

From the very first pages, I was enthralled by The Lady, Charm, Pain, Pride, Shame, and Justice, and how they each survived (or perished) in the game of ruthless, often lethal magical politics. I especially loved how each found a wellspring of compassion in her burden, especially Pain. The unexpected love story was like a chocolate left on a pillow.

Mueller writes that it took her many years to create this story, and the care she took shines through the depth and complexity of the world and its people. All too often, a debut novel that is the product of long development is followed by another that is comparatively rushed by early success. I hope Mueller is given the same scope for her next novel. If The Bone Orchard is any indication of what we can look forward to, it will be a treasure. She is definitely a talent to watch.

Definitely check the content warnings before reading this one but wow! Such a stunningly beautiful dark and lush read! The plot and premise was so unique and executed so perfectly, an easy five stars!

I want to first start off by saying that aesthetically this book is gorgeous. I am someone that loves darker covers with hints of beauty and I could not have designed a better cover. Also as someone who battles a few mental illnesses, and am tired of seeing a theme in books where mental illness suddenly becomes the catch all explanation for people doing bad things... I am so appreciative that this author did not take that easy way out. Because I am a strong believer that while yes there are situations where mental illnesses contribute... sometimes people are also just bad people all on their own. On the subject of bad people, I also loved how you couldnt even trust your own opinions of characters a lot of times in this book. There were so many characters who had my heart just to break it apart piece by piece which I think shows brilliance on the authors part. Overall I adored this book. It was gothic it was lyrical it was haunting and it was everything my nightmares could want and more. This will definitely not be my last book by the author.

I almost did not finish this book, it was hard for me to get through, but I decided to finish it. I do not think I disliked this book because of anything major, I just did not get along with it like I should have. However, I loved the concept and think if I read it at a different time I would have had a better reading experience. Overall, I was just... confused? The writing style was difficult for me to follow at times, and I had a hard time truly comprehending all of it. But, again, I still rate it high because I think this was a *me* issue. There are some really interesting themes and I do think I would still recommend it, but just with the caveat that people should take their time with it.

However, I will be buying a physical copy because LOOK AT THAT COVER. Whoever designed that needs a RAISE. That is GORGEOUS.

The Bone Orchard sounded great, and this one 100% lived up to its promise. This was a very dark, adult fantasy/murder mystery. It’s full of political intrigue, and just a dash of romance. There are quite a few darker aspects to this book though, so I would look up content warnings if you need them.

Charm was such a fascinating character, I loved seeing how her story unfolded. The best comparison I can think of for this book is that it’s like an onion - there are so many layers and subplots, and each reveal just shows you another deeper layer of the book. I would not have expected so many of the events that happened, but they all made complete sense in context.

Overall, this was a dark fantasy novel that totally sucks you in. I can’t wait to see what Mueller writes next!

*Disclaimer: I received an advance digital copy of this book for free from the publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Thank you to Macmillan Tor and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

If you're a fan of Gideon the Ninth, this is your next obsession! (Be sure to check trigger warnings!)

I was immediately intrigued by this world and wanted to know what was going to happen but also I wanted to know more about Charm and figure out her world and her story. She is such a compelling character right from the start, but she continues to get more complex and even more relatable, and I loved watching her story.

The fact that this story deals with dissociative identity disorder is something that makes it extremely complex (and at times confusing) but I think it was what gave the story its depth and meaning. The way that each bone ghost is made to deal with a specific part of Charm's history and trauma is so telling and so true to the disorder.

The plot was a bit predictable at the end, and I'm not sure that if I hadn't read reviews and figured out that it was about DID that I would have really understood any of it. But overall I really enjoyed the lush world and the way it deals with the story and healing of DID.

If you're a gothic fantasy lover, definitely add this to your list!

"You’ll find that what you can bear increases a great deal when you are not offered any other choice."
"I tore myself apart so they wouldn’t destroy me, but I can stand it now."

Charm is a necromancer witch, taken from her homeland and now held captive by the emperor of Boren. Her prison is Orchard House. Behind the house is the Bone Orchard, trees that grow bones from which bone ghosts can be grown, meticulously arranged and reanimated. Charm is also the emperor's mistress and a madam, providing her bone ghosts to those to seek company with the girls that aren't real. On the emperor's deathbed, he tasks Charm with finding his murderer and deciding which of his sons is worthy of the throne. In exchange, Charm will be granted her freedom.

This book was great to read at the start of spooky season; necromancy, mind control, and ghosts all packaged in a beautiful gothic setting. The concept of this book is great, I loved the idea of the bone ghosts being the personification of a character trait (Shame, Pride, Justice, Desire, and Pain). I can't say too much without spoilers. While the idea is fantastic, the execution of the narrative was a bit lacking. It was difficult to follow at the beginning and it was hard to understand all of the various subplots. But, everything does come together in the end and I really enjoyed it.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor Forge/Tor Books, and the author for an advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.