I will start of with what I did like about this book. Stewart's writing style and characterization remain consistent with the other two books. No characters get a personality transplant or some other nonsense. There are a few twists and turns in the story, but the groundwork is laid for them. Nothing feels like it was added at random purely for shock value.
I thought the final act of the book was the most engaging part.
Now to what I didn't like. The first 60% of this book was monotonous.
Worst of all, it accomplished nothing plot wise. The action is repetitive.
Our heros show up on to a location, get into a fight with the antagonists, lose, and rinse and repeat.

This book was one of my most highly anticipated reads for 2023, and I was just so incredibly let down by it.

There were so many things I loved about [book:The Bone Shard Daughter]. The magic system we got a taste of was so interesting, the characters were so easy to get invested in and attached to, and plot and the stakes were just so exciting that I had a hard time putting it down. This book, however, took all of those things that I was expecting it to wrap up neatly and satisfyingly, and decided to end them off not with a bang but with a whimper.

Things I liked about this book:
- All the ossalen are still wholesome and lovable
- Ranami and Phalue are still super gay for each other
- ??? yeah that's about it

The things that didn't work for me:
- The separation of our main characters:This is probably my biggest gripe about this book. For the first 75% of the book, all of our main characters are off on separate islands doing their own thing. While I don't mind this too much when it's done in a first or middle book in a series, since I recognize that it's often necessary to show us more of the world and/or to give us a better sense for who individual characters are outside of the definition of their relationship with one another, it is not something I want to see (or at least, don't want to see for significant page time) in a finale. When I'm wrapping up a series, I just want to spend time with the characters I've grown attached to, and more importantly, I want to see them spend time with each other. I want to see the way their bond has grown, their dynamics have changed, and how they work together to tackle their problems. Because everyone was off on their own adventures for so much of the book, all of the character dynamics I was looking forward to were missing, and I felt like I was just waiting and waiting for everyone to get back together again.

- The "villains:" First off, there were just too many of them. If we had been building up to several big baddies over the course of the series that would have been one thing, but most of the characters we're up against have really only been a note-worthy opposing force since the end of book 2. Because of this, I think this book really suffered trying to build up all of their motivations and the threats they pose all at once— and by "suffered", I mean it failed. By and large, all of the characters our heroes are up against are motivated by a one-dimensional desire for vengeance for the various ways they've been slighted in the past, and yet none of their end goals made sense in terms of how it related back to our heroes. There were occasional snippets where it seemed like the book was suddenly trying to give an explanation for why someone was acting the way they were, but it never felt developed enough to be something I was prepared to believe. It seemed like we just needed them to be against Lin for the sake of giving the book dramatic stakes, and the fact that they were all so blinded by anger that they couldn't be reasoned with until it was suddenly convenient for the plot was incredibly frustrating.

- The POV switches: I have no issue with a multi-POV book, and the way it happened in the first two books didn't bother me. However, while in the first two books it felt like a POV switch happened when things were starting to get dramatic so that you would end on a cliffhanger and want to move to the next chapter, in this book, it felt like it would just switch to a new POV because it realized you were probably getting bored with the one you were in.
I also felt like the balancing of the POVs in this book was poorer than it was in the first two. In the first half of the book especially it felt like we were spending a disproportionate amount of time in the villain's perspective, which I was not a fan of. While I could understand why we needed to see now and then what she and <other villain> were plotting, it felt like it was taking away from time I would have rather spent with our heroes. Again, when I'm reading a finale I want to spend quality time with the characters I've grown to love, so I was so annoyed at how much time we spent with a character we were rooting against— especially since I didn't find her perspective particularly interesting or insightful to begin with.

- The pacing: To put it bluntly, I just found this book to be incredibly boring. It felt like for most of the book, all the characters did was sail to an island, fail at whatever their goal was, and repeat— and it only took a couple of times of this before I was falling asleep waiting for anything interesting to happen. I remember The Bone Shard Emperor fell victim to this a bit, and I disliked it then too, but in its case that repetitive loop only spanned maybe 100-150 or so pages rather than the first 450 pages of the book. I was just never excited to pick this book up after I put it down, and it felt like this book was just trying to fill page time so the last book could be the longest in the series.

- Unanswered magic system questions: I found the magic system in the first book so compelling and interesting, and I kept hoping the later installments would delve into things more, so having now finished this book and discovered it never really did, I feel let down. I wanted to spend so much more time learning about bone shard magic; how it works, why only some people can do it, how it was discovered, what its limitations are, and on and on, and this book barely brushed the surface on any of that. While we did get some interesting information, most everything else was just left open-ended and unanswered, and the book mainly leaves us with an incredibly unsatisfying "we're still researching and don't have the answers yet" rather than actually making an attempt to give closure.

- The ending: sdfddfgfjsfk wHY??? (I'm redacting my spoiler-filled rant about the ending until the book is released, so just know that I am angry and have lots of angry thoughts about it.)

I had such high hopes for this book and I'm just so incredibly disappointed by it. I enjoyed The Bone Shard Daughter and The Bone Shard Emperor so much and I never could have expected that this one would let me down so greatly. If it weren't the last book in the series I probably would have considered DNFing it, but I just couldn't leave it unfinished after how far we've come. Honestly this book probably deserves 1.5 star just based off of how many things I actively disliked about it, but I am going to generously keep it at a 2 only as a credit to how much I enjoyed the first two.

I hate when I don’t absolutely love a book. I especially hate it when it’s the ending to a series that up to this point has been really phenomenal. Maybe I’m just too wrapped up in it because I read all three books in just a few weeks but this book felt different from the others and there were aspects that I didn’t enjoy.

Firstly; the beginning of this book, with the time jump felt disjointed. We just skip two years ahead and get a whole lot of info dumping on what we missed. I hated the lack of consistent storytelling because the other books were very straightforward instead of info dumping information later on. We really should have been with Jovis and Mephi and their ordeals after the end of the second book, I feel cheated of that experience and trauma because I didn’t get to see it, only told about it which didn’t hold the same emotional impact as it could have.

Secondly; I felt like Lin was smarter in the other books. I think she was portrayed to be more like a human in this book than the others, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it was definitely a change in character. She’s very clever and always trying to think ahead but in this book she’s constantly reacting and she hardly ever causes the action. She really doesn’t impact that much of the story, at least for the first 80% of the book.

Thirdly; Phalue and Ranami were treated poorly in this book. They barely were there (especially in comparison to how much time Nisong gets), and I think it’s a travesty. We got so much from them in the first book and we developed them as characters who were interesting and then in this book they were only used in the story to be convenient. Phalue is only used in the story to help Lin, but again, Phalue presence in the story doesn’t affect much. Only Ranami matters and she doesn’t get the page time she deserves.

Lastly; I think this book was just too long. I felt like we wasted a lot of time watching Lin search for the swords and Jovis not contributing to the plot except as filler stuff. There was a lot that could have been trimmed down to make this book feel more concise and to stream line the plot that was relevant to the overarching narrative.

As I stated before, I wanted to love this series with my whole heart. But just because this book didn’t work for me doesn’t mean I wouldn’t recommend it to others. This book has a fantastic ending and I really felt like it was told as cinematically as possible. Unfortunately the 80% prior to that just wasn’t as engaging for me as the last bit of the book.

I absolutely loved this conclusion to one of my favorite series. The ending was everything I wanted, and some that I didn't want but still made sense. It had a great wrap up in a bitter-sweet-life-goes-on type of way. I think all of our characters got great endings, even if they weren't exactly the ones we'd hoped for.

Publishers really need to start including mini summaries of the key points of the previous novels in fantasy series. My enjoyment of this novel would have been so much better had I remembered more from the previous novels.

The Bone Shard War continues as Lin is left alone after Jovis leaves to find Mephi and attempt to save the empire, Dione and Ragan continue their relentless fight to dethrone Lin, and Renami and Phalue fight for their home and each other.

Jovis’ chapters were my favourite. His situation was heartbreaking, but watching him rise to the occasion despite some of his low moments was uplifting.

Stewart continues to expand her world with incredible reveals I didn’t see coming. I don’t think they were fleshed out as much as they should have been, the reveal itself was truly incredible. I did not see it coming.

The end is bittersweet and perfect. Too many novels wrap the story up with a neat little bow with little to no consequences. Stewart strikes the perfect balance between happily ever after and reality after fighting for so many years.

Overall, The Drowning Empire is a vastly underrated fantasy series you don’t want to miss out on. It’s full of adventure, love, magic, and battles.

The third in the Drowning Empire series. Coming out April 20,2023

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Filled with tragedy, bone shard magic and even more character development, this book did not dissapoint. I think this is a definitely an underated fantasy series. Andrea Stewart Builds a unique magical world with a fast paced plot and intriguing characters. If you haven’t read The Drowning Empire Series yet, you have until April 20th to catch up before this book comes out!

This was a great ending to a wonderful fantasy Trilogy! It started off a little bit slower and took me a little to get reacquainted with the characters and story, but after that it was so good! I love all these well written characters, and it was such a satisfying ending! I can’t wait to read more from this author!

*The Bone Shard War* by Andrea Stewart
4/5
I received copies of this book from Orbit Books and NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This was by far the book I was most anticipating this year after reading the first two around the release of book two and absolutely adoring them. In preparation of this finale I reread both of the first books and enjoyed book 1 just as much if not more than I did the first time around, but was a bit let down by book 2 which was slower than I had originally remembered which is also how I felt about this final entry. I think this is still a strong and fitting ending to the trilogy and I don't have any significant faults with the story or character work, but the whole book just felt very slow and meandering, and some of the plot points felt a bit contrived and unreasonable. There aren't any major surprises in the worldbuilding, and most of the reveals are telegraphed well throughout the first two books without being too obvious in my experience while still rewarding attentive readers or people going through the book multiple times and coming up with predictions on why things in the world work the way they do. While not the resounding triumph that I originally thought this series was, it is still very strong and enjoyable throughout its majority and something I would recommend to most if not all fantasy readers, but there are some pain points along the way. You can certainly see Andrea Stewart's growth as a writer as the series progresses though and I'm as excited as ever for whatever her next work may be.

This was my most anticipated release for the year and, let me tell you, it was worth the wait. There is so much room for this world to be explored, but all of the important pieces came together in this conclusion. There were times that I paused the audio, put down my Kindle and just kinda stared at the wall for a bit processing the information I'd just been given. There were other times when I needed to put it down and go to bed, but I just couldn't stop.
There was so much growth of the characters across this series. It's incredible to think about where they all started out and how they perceived the world then compared to what they know now and how they have responded to their experiences. These characters had depth and emotion and indecision. I loved that every character was given a fair arc. It's easy to write a hero or a villain and have them consistently do heroic or villainous things. You can still write a great book if that's all you do. Stewart went so above and beyond that. She had her heroes do villainous things and she had her villains call out her heroes for those villainous things. She left doors open for her villains to have redemption and she let her heroes have compassion for their enemies. I won't go into any specific arcs because I don't want to spoil anything, but every character has an arc that makes complete sense for them, flaws and all.
As for the world building, my mind is blown. This series asked so many questions over the course of the last few books and the answers have been revealed so perfectly and strategically. There are so many more questions I would love to have answers to, but as I said, I'm so satisfied with this ending that I'll be content if we never get another story from the Drowning Empire. I'll just re-read this series forever and pull out as many hints as I can to answer my own questions.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
The Bone Shard War concludes The Drowning Empire in epic fashion. Andrea Stewart impeccably brings the story to a compelling close, leaving me satisfied and moved.
It was a bit jarring at first to jump in and find that two years had passed in the timeline between the end of the last book and this one, but Stewart filled in the gaps and made it work.
The character growth is perhaps the most intriguing part of this installment, especially in terms of their relationships to power. Lin has risen so far politically from her initial origins, but even with her new sense of power, she’s still making mistakes, but she’s also becoming more self-aware. Jovis, usually a charmer, is in a much more emotionally vulnerable position, reckoning with the trauma of what he’s been through. And each of the major side characters also remain interesting, especially Nisong, who is a bit of an antagonist to Lin, even if she’s not really acting entirely of her own volition. Ranami and Phalue are always a bright spot as a sweet sapphic couple in the midst of all the chaos, especially in how their different strengths play off each other.
While there was a lot of action and intrigue to keep me engaged, I definitely felt the length of this one. It is ultimately worth it, but the moments of lull definitely stuck out here, as a contrast to the more exciting moments, and I do feel like things could have been at least mildly trimmed…just a tad.
Overall, this was a great conclusion to a great trilogy, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a fantasy series with unique world building and layered characters.

I’m not a big fan of time jumps but this one was done well enough that I didn’t mind too much, took a bit to get used to but once it got going IT GOT GOING! A very satisfying and emotional ending.

I've loved this series since the very beginning, and The Bone Shard War didn't disappoint. It featured so much of I loved from the first two books in the series - the magic system, the world building, the depth of the characters - while also bringing the plot to a satisfying conclusion, resolving lingering unanswered questions whose groundwork was laid in earlier volumes, and making me both laugh and cry while doing so.

The world of The Drowning Empire felt complex and well-thought-out from the book one, and The Bone Shard War was no exception, taking place in a world that felt lived in. The universe's history and mythology were further explored, and I loved how rich it all felt.

Along with doing an admirable job of wrapping up the plot elements from the prior two volumes, I felt it shone the most while exploring the growth of characters I had gotten to know across three books. Nisong's journey was particularly reasonant with her gradual exploration and reframing of her memories from a past life portrayed particularly masterfully. The changing of a character's motivations and goals, especially in the final book of a series, can often feel unearned and rushed, but this wasn't the case at all with Nisong's transformation, nor the other characters who experienced growth in The Bone Shard War. I love how The Drowning Empire manages to feature a number of antagonists without making their motivations or goals feel flat or overly black-and-white, and this final book in particular explored how different characters with different motivations could be initially be united in one goal but ultimately be driven in different directions according to their personal experiences and beliefs.

I can't wait to see what Andrea Stewart comes up with next!

I have been WAITING for this book. When I picked up the trilogy’s other two novels, I didn’t expect to fall in love with the characters as much as I did. Especially Jovis and Mephi. Goodness, I loved Mephi. He reminded me of my dog if she ever could speak. Staunchly at my side, regardless of circumstance. Brightening the darkest situation with a spark of humor. And Jovis—the imperfect hero. The man who wanted so badly to do right, but he went astray. Then, of course, there’s Lin, Ragan, Nisong, Dione. All of them with their own motivations and goals. The Bone Shard War by Andrea Stewart gave me the satisfaction and closure I needed. The book takes readers through emotional turmoil. Trust me when I say you’ll experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. But don’t let that deter you from experiencing Andrea Stewart’s newest work.

Set two years after its predecessor’s conclusion, the Empire is in shambles. Lin has Thrana, but she is without Jovis. Not remembering many details from The Bone Shard Emperor, I screamed inside. How could Jovis leave her?! But Stewart connected the pieces together through allusions backward. I wish I had reread at least The Bone Shard Emperor before reading The Bone Shard War, as I was definitely lost at the beginning. But everything came together by the end, and Stewart answered questions—solved mysteries—I didn’t even realize I had. Everything about the trilogy’s conclusion is BRILLIANT.

I love Andrea Stewart’s imagination. While some fantasy novels I’ve read I would be considered too…MUCH for young adults, I’d say her trilogy is safe. It is incredibly developed, with thought-out political motivations, but nothing is too difficult for a younger mind to understand. The trilogy has the right amount of tension, broken up with humor and some mild romance between the characters. I sucked in every word of The Bone Shard War—imbibed the entire series, truth be told. It intoxicated me. And if you can have a hangover from a good story, Andrea Stewart gave me one. No regrets, though. No sensitivity to light or sound, but I have missing memories. Memories of “real life”—of anything but my time spent in the pages of Stewart’s work.

Andrea Stewart, I can’t wait to see what else you have in store.

That took me on an emotional roller-coaster. I love this series, and Stewart pulled off the ending.

The first half is slow paced, and while having some interesting story and worlding building along the way, it starts feeling a little repetitive over time based on the structure - get on boat, look for sword, fight Ragan for sword, get on boat - but you can feel it building throughout, and the back half of it flies without it feeling rushed.

Mephi continues to be one of my favourite book animal companions, with Lozhi and Thrana right behind.

I've been rather lukewarm on Lin for the majority of the series, but there was a moment in this book where she finally got the thing that I wanted her to get - the awareness that wanting the best for the Empire and the best for the people of the Empire were not necessarily the same thing, and that was what I had been waiting for.

The thing that I did really like was the progression arc of Jovis' character through the entire series, and overall he reminds me a lot of Kaladin in the Stormlight Archive. He's the hero. He wants to be the hero. Sometimes you can't be either due external or internal circumstances, but at the end of the day hopefully the coin will flip your way when it matters. I think I needed more from his perspective at the end of the book (or perhaps a POV from Mephi) based on the crux of the finale, but I'm satisfied with how it turned out.

I would highly recommend that you read this soon after finishing Bone Shard Emperor so that it is all fresh in your mind - it's been a year for me, and while I remembered BSE fairly well, there were some moments where it took me a while to catch up (what are Ragan and Dione doing again? oh yeah...), so I'd worry about people who have even longer gaps between books. This is a series that I would love to reread back to back, as one full story.

A fitting end to an original trilogy! I loved the magical system in this & the characters throughout. The ossalen were so likable, even if their Alanga were not always. While I did think the last one ran a little longer than necessary, I did really enjoy how everything came together in the end!

One of my most anticipated releases this year and Andrea Stewart did not let me down! A great conclusion to the Drowning Empire trilogy. Stewart left no stone unturned and answered every lingering question the reader had, gave us characters that had strong development, and just gave us characters to love and root for. I’m pretty partial to Lin’s and Jovis’ chapters. One, because I’m a Mephi and Thrana fan, and two, their chapters being first person POV really helped get me invested in their characters. Jovis is the lovable Han Solo outlaw character type, as we see him grow from an anti-hero into a proper one. His ending in particular was an emotional one, but very fitting and appropriate. Lin, for me, had the best story arc in this book and I loved following her on this journey. Not to say that Nisong, Phalue, and Rashimi weren’t great because they totally were. Not a dud POV in this book. If you read the first two books in this trilogy, you’ll be very happy with this conclusion. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?! Highly recommend to fans of more sci-fi fantasy (at least in terms of the magic system), high stakes, A+ world building, and multiple POV.

This is such an excellent series! What a conclusion! Cant wait to read more by this author.

thank you to net galley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Bone Shard War

What an ending. Truly something special. This has all the things I loved from each of the previous books, only MORE.

<b>“Power always did have a way of warping those surrounding it.”</b>

There’s complex character development and growth, there’s the reveal of secrets culminating from crumbs Stewart has dropped over all 3 books, epic battle and intrigue, and exciting political scheming and machinations. This truly delivered on all fronts, forcing every character to take a good, hard, long look at themselves. For some that might mean a welcome change or next step, for others it won’t change the path they’re on, but it still forces the reader and audience to acknowledge the circumstances that have made the characters who they are.

“I was a villain. I just hadn’t admitted it yet to myself.”

I was gasping, sweaty, and truly STRESSED at several times throughout as Stewart takes us on an epic journey and battle of wills between 3 conflicting power schemes and parties that I truly wondered how it would all end.

<b>“Maybe no one was a hero. Maybe I’d gotten it wrong from the beginning. Maybe there were only heroic moments and decisions and we all had to keep choosing those as best we could. When we could.”</b>

For Lin, I truly enjoyed seeing her throughout this book as each step forward and giant step back brings her closer and closer to her own realizations. She comes so far from the emperor’s daughter that we see in book 1, that I loved rooting for her, even knowing she’d stumble, and badly, often. Jovis, the dashing and charming liar I have come to love, was really interesting in this book because so much of the bravado and charm he uses as a veneer is stripped at times to almost make him unrecognizable. It was hard to read some of his passages and at other times o truly found myself cooling off on him, and yet I would always be brought back in by the searing and raw kindness beneath. He struggles through trauma and his own identity in this book and although tough, I think it was so needed. This is the kind of character development that you don’t often see, because it forces even the audience to really judge and pick him apart before accepting him back in.

“But I knew, deep down, I’d weighed my life against the lives of the people I’d hurt and not knowing them had made it easier to sway me toward survival.”

The previous side characters, Phalue, Ranami, Nisong, and Ragan all play central roles in the conflicts though some are much stronger than others. For Nisong, I felt this did relaxer her a bit too much to just aiding Ragan. Given her actions in book 2, I found myself constantly expecting more from her and I’m not very keen on the resolution with her in the end. I expected much more of a powerhouse and presence, especially as a female villain of sorts to fight against Lin, but she was just a tool for Ragan to use here, which felt a shame given all she could have done (and did) on her own.

With Ragan, Stewart continues to shine and demonstrate how villains can be shaped and made. There aren’t excuses for Ragan and what he does, but she does give us layers to him and an understanding of his why which I think is so smart and was well executed. Dione was much less present as a third power player, but ultimately I don’t think this is a bad thing as it would have just been too much.

Ranami and Phalue are the power couple of my dreams and I loved how Stewart shifts the focus here to Ranami and her quiet political strength of Phalue’s military and traditional power. There’s a lot of plotical scheming and power brokering that happens and I liked how Stewart included both that and epic magic battles throughout to show different scales of influence and might.

Overall this, and the series as a whole, is incredibly ambitious. The magical world and powers are fairly well explained by the end of this, though there are definitely some open threads to follow should Stewart decide to return to this world (and I hope she does)! For some, it may not be as neat and buttoned up as they want but to me this feels right and would have felt too cheap of an ending to make everything so perfectly explained and polished. Throughout the war we’re told again and again that there’s a cost to every decision, and we see how there are no east answers, there’s no magic bullet to make and remake the world equally, so I think the ending is fitting in giving us hope and a path, thought not yet a reimagined and balanced future.

<I>“It belongs to us. We are the ones who’ve toiled, unseen, building the pieces that make this world work. We deserve a say in how it’s run.”</I>

In case you’re wondering, yes, WE GET MORE OSSALEN!!!! Ossalen are the coolest fucking magical pets and sidekicks and I desperately want my own. These literal killer otter kittens that become giant beasts and more are EVERYTHING. Mephi and Thrana will always hold my heart and truly I would read a novella just from their POVs any day.

Sigh, I’m sad it over, but what an epic journey it was. Perhaps a tiny bit too long at parts, I still enjoyed all of this, absolutely glued to the pages. I can’t recommend this series enough— it’s smart, it’s riveting, it’s fantastical. The audiobook was also especially well done by 3 amazing narrators to bring Lin, Ranami, and Jovis to life brilliantly. That you Macmillan for my ALC and orbit for my galley!

One of my most anticipated reads of the year and it absolutely it did not disappoint!

Overall I liked this but it is long and I felt like it dragged in some parts. I loved the world building and the whole atmosphere of the book - the author’s writing does really transport you. For whatever reason none of the characters resonated with me as much in this book as in previous ones but that might just be me.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read (if I qualify)