Unfortunately this wasn't for me. I'm all for a sapphic pirate adventure but the book just didn't quite get there. I think my first problem was the Tangled thing. One princess had insanely long hair with magic powers and runs around barefoot - it can only be Tangled, right? It also feels a bit like a fanfic because some character beats are missing. We spend a lot of time in the character's heads but I still don't really understand why they made certain choices. I feel like these beats are something that would have been inferred from knowing the characters from whatever content the fic was based on. But, as a stand alone novel the characters are lacking that depth that you need to really know them and their choices. Ultimately, the main characters ended up very similar and mostly flat. The dual POV affected the pacing a bit because they didn't really have a drastically different perspectives on the events, so it felt like just rehashing old events sometimes. I did enjoy the world and would love some more piratey things to happen. I liked the concept of an undead army and such as well. So there were some good bones here to work with, but the book didn't grab me. The narrators were ok. There were some weird pacing issues with how some lines were delivered. Also, the Kalei narrator chose to do a whisper which made all the other voices sound loud and harsh and anything expressed by that character outside of the whisper was very jarring. Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

To start, overall I found this to be a very enjoyable tale. The story had good pacing, interesting characters, and good world building. I will say that I felt at times some of the non main characters felt a little one dimensional, why build a relationship between Kalei and the advisor just to tear it down so easily? Or to vilify the prince after one decision he made in what was honestly the best interests of most and stayed true to his character. It just felt at times the side characters personalities/morals were more flippant and a bit shallow since they were described/seen as one way by Kalei and then completely flipped once it was Evhen's point of view.

Speaking of pov's, I will say the choice in narrators made it hard to follow who was who. The voices were a bit too similar in pitch, but each did a great job carrying the story outside of that. It would have been almost better to have one narrator just use different voices if the tone was going to be so similar anyways. Overall I did enjoy this book and am looking forward to continuing the series!

Audiobook Review- Overall, the audiobook was okay. After awhile, it seemed like the two narrators started to sound very similar and it was hard to tell who’s POV I was listening to. This, along with some slow points in the story, it was a little hard to keep wanting to listen. I did like concept but wished it was executed. I did think Kalei raising an army was pretty cool but I don’t think we got to see enough action from that.

Thank you NetGalley for letting me listen to this audiobook early!

It was ok. I don't feel particularly attached to any of the characters. The audiobook made it hard to distinguish which of the fmmcs were speaking. Their voices were different but I constantly got them mixed up.

Thank you to Netgalley, Dreamscape Media, and Kay Adams for the audiobook arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book got me out of a reading slump! It's almost like a sapphic Tangled retelling meets pirates. I enjoyed the characters, though one definitely broke my heart close to the end there with his decision. Evhen was my favorite out of the two FMCs, but Kalei was definitely a well rounded, if not traumatized character. (Speaking of which, definitely check the trigger warnings before reading this book, there is some gore.) The writing, descriptions, and narrations were great.

I thought the plot was great overall, though the pacing lagged in some places and went by too fast in others. This was perhaps the biggest thing that knocked it down from being a top-tier book. I also wish there was a little more world-building, especially with the sirens and the moon connection, though maybe that'll be something explored in the next book.

Overall, definitely an enjoyable, fast-paced read!

I was approved for this book Heirs of Bone and Sea and than it disappeared the next day off the app so I don't know how I'm supposed to read or review audiobook I was never given enough time to actually read.

This is one of my favourite reads of the year so far. I recognise that we are only in March but I am obsessed with this and I mean OBSESSED.

Heirs of Bone and Sea follows Evhen who was once the princess of Vodaeard but is now the queen after the brutal murder of her parents at the hands of King of Matama and his undead army. She’s now on a revenge mission. Kidnap the King’s daughter. Murder the King’s daughter. Should be easy, right? It’s only fair and it will disadvantage his supernatural edge in the war. That’s until she gets to know the princess.

Princess of the Dead x Pirate Queen??? I knew I would eat this up. Like seriously, say no more.

The world-building, the characters… EVERYTHING. This was so fantastic and I have spent the past few days talking about this book to anyone who would listen.

This world is so easy to lose yourself in. I was fortunate to be able to receive the audiobook and I would sit down to listen and not even realise how much time had passed because I was so absorbed with the book.

I am completely and utterly obsessed with this book. Have I said that already? Maybe I need to repeat it.

I can’t wait to read what comes next for these characters. I will be anxiously awaiting for another book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for providing me with this audiobook. I received this audiobook for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I want to, thank NetGalley, the publisher "Dreamscape Media" and the author Kay Adams for providing this audiobook-ARC. I will be giving my honest and sincere review.

We follow two princesses, connected by the dark crimes of one of their Fathers, the King of Marama.
Princess Evhen of Vodaeard saw her parents die before her and she now only thinks of revenge.
Princess Evhen kidnaps Princess Kalei to punish the king for his greedy actions. but Kalei is so clueless about the King's affairs outside of their lands, trapped in a boat on the way to Vodaeard, she starts to see the cruel truth, leaving her to process the lies she was fed all her life, and fear of a truth related to her gift, that not even she will be immune to her father cruelty.

I feel that the story was unique we have a zombie concept with Kalei having moon powers to turn the dead into living again, but they don't come out how they were. I felt it, to be quite repetitive being a duo POV, The narrator did a good job. We see an enemy to lovers (Sapphic), and you can understand the attraction and the conflict from the beginning.

#HeirsofBoneandSea #NetGalley #bookstagram #bookaholic #bookreviewer #Bookreader

Oh this one was good! I can't wait to read more in the series. There is a lot of violence and gore in the story but I like the play on "healing" really being necrotic. Resurrections aren't just a new "life" like in a video game. The enemies to "something more" trope isn't usually my thing but I was hooked in this one.

Two princesses, warring kingdoms, sacred stones, and a frantic race against time, "Heirs of Bone and Sea" retells the traditional story of "Rapunzel" with heightened stakes and enemies more ruthless than ever.

This book includes:
- a lonely, moon blessed princess with the ability to bring people back to life
- an undead army
- LGBT subplot
- betrayal of the highest order
- a queen terrified of her responsibility and the gravitas of her role
- cliffhanger ending

I really enjoyed "Heirs of Bone and Sea." It was a fresh take on Rapunzel that added so much depth to the classic story. Evhen and Kalei were both dynamic and flawed in ways that made them believable and their struggle for power engaging. Kalei in particular drew me in, and I am eager to read more of her story and hope she gets some much needed reprieve in book 2. Fans of "Red Queen" will really enjoy this book and I hope it reaches a wider audience because I could see it easily becoming a huge hit. There are so many satisfying twists and turns, and a great back and forth where the princesses must choose between themselves and their futures.

I listened on audiobook and I was a massive fan of the narrator who voiced Evhan. They were very emotive and really brought Evhen's terrified rigidity to life in the way that made her so easy to relate to.

I received this ebook as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Kay Adams, and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to review this book. This review has been posted to GoodReads - check out my profile https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/62314863

DNF @44.%

I regret not stopping sooner, but I thought it might get better. If anything, it got worse. I don't know how the author managed to make such a violent book so boring. I hated all of the characters. Nothing they were doing made any sense.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the Tangled vibes this book gave me, but I wanted to know more about the magical hair. I enjoyed the pirate vibes too because it was great fun. We need more pirate books in the world. I want to know more about the magic in this book and the blood moon. I look forward to the next book in this series.

I enjoyed the rich descriptions and the ideas behind the story of this audiobook.

The narrators did a lovely job.

However, I had a hard time following the story in the audiobook format. I think this book lends itself better to a read along (audiobook and written book read together).

Overall I enjoyed it and think that it’s an interesting book, and I would recommend it in physical/ebook format.

TW/CW: Death, violence, fantasy violence, death of a parent

REVIEW: I received a free audiobook from NetGalley, Emerge Books, and Simon & Schuster and am voluntarily writing an honest review.

STORY: Heirs of Bone and Sea is the sapphic fantasy romance of two princesses on different sides of a bloody war – Evhen and Kalei. Following an enemies to lovers trope, this book was below average to me. I found the writing to be nothing special, and peppered constantly with repetitive phrases. For instance, I think if I heard ‘wine-dark sea’ or ‘death’s dark shores’ one more time I might have screamed. There were also parts where it fell into melodrama and lost my attention. The story itself was vaguely interesting, but held few surprises. It also ends on a cliffhanger, clearly waiting for the sequel to resolve a very large part of the plot.

NARRATION: This audiobook had two narrators. The woman who narrates Ehven was my favorite of the two, although I felt that both of them had issues. The narrator of Kalei spoke in a breathy near-whisper and sounded far too old for the character. While Ehven’s narrator didn’t do this, both narrators had issues with phrasing – seeming sometimes to run out of breath or to finish the phrase at the line break instead of at the end of the phrase. The narration at the ‘exciting’ parts sometimes were also a bit overboard and cringy.

In all, this book was not for me.

I enjoyed this! I don't read a ton of YA these days and I really don't read much romance either, but this book intrigued me. I saw it all around instagram as an anticipated sapphic release and as I am always up for some more queer rep, I figured I should at least check it out. It was such a fun read! I liked the Rapunzel retelling within the story and I though the enemies-to-lovers was done well. I enjoyed the dual perspective, particularly as it played with the information that was being withheld from the other protagonist. Overall, I think this will be a great addition to the YA romantasy genre. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC audiobook.

This book is very different to what I usually read but I have tried this month to read more “pirate” themed books (books with people on ships) and it fit that description pretty well. I liked the story in itself with the death powers, I don’t know why but I have always felt like you couldn’t give someone death powers I really don’t know why I felt that way before because it works out great in this book.
I liked both of their personalities although the narrator that read Kelei’s part waws a bit disturbing, she kept making her voice small when Kelai was speaking, it (in my opinion) didn’t match her. I know she is supposed to be small, but she is also (if I remember right) 16 years old. Because of the I found the book a bit hard to get through, but that is also one of the only problems I have with the book. I loved listening to it when drawing, cleaning, and getting to and from school, so it was a bit sad when it was ending. I am looking forward to the next book.


I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

While I appreciate that this was a young adult sapphic fantasy with princesses, pirates, and even a 'princess of death' (basically a necromancer), this story was kind of dull, and the audiobook honestly made the experience even worse.

Whichever narrator voiced Princess Evhen did a great job, and I felt like it was believable that they were a 17-year-old princess. They also did a wonderful job portraying the wide array of emotions that Evhen goes through during the book. However, whichever narrator voiced Princess Kalei really missed the mark. The narrator voiced Kalei in a whispering tone for the entire book, which I found EXTREMELY irritating. I'm assuming this was done as an attempt to make her sound younger... but it did not translate to the audience. Since they don't mention Kalei's age until further into the book, I thought that she was a proper adult and was really confused how a teenage pirate was capturing her... On top of the irritating whisper tone, the audio mixing was terrible, with a huge volume difference between the narrator's whispering tone and when she would talk in her normal voice to portray literally anyone else who wasn't Kalei...

The book itself had a lot of pitfalls. In general it was just a boring story with a bunch of keywords checked off to make it sound more entertaining than it actually is (which I obviously fell for). I usually like dual POVs... but every chapter swapping back and forth between the 2 POVs was a bit much especially when literally nothing was happening to need to see the next chapter from the other POV.

Honestly, I came really close to DNFing this audiobook around 20% just because of how annoying I found Kalei's narrator... but I ended up just sucking it up and speeding up the audiobook to see how the story panned out. At the end of the day, I wish I would have just DNF'ed it because the story itself didn't really do it for me.

Thanks NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for providing this ALC in exchange for my (obviously) unbiased review.

**I received an advanced copy for my honest review for NetGalley**

I loved how the characters were portrayed, at times they seem so real. The plot seemed stagnant here and there though.
The narrator was okay, sometimes it felt like she was making her voice dark and creepy at unnecessary times.
The character development is really well written but the hitting between the women just seems lacking and takes me away from the story. Usually enemies to lovers is the banter, the feeling of hating each other, but not actually physically hurting one another.

Fairytale vibes for sure, but not sure I'll be continuing the series,

Young adult sapphic story. There’s blood magic, war, a princes or two, pirates, murder plots and so much more. If you are looking for a YA fantasy this is a great one.

# Heirs of Bone and Sea
# 3/21/2024 ~ 3/22/2024
# 4.0 / 5.0

Princess Evhen is out for revenge against the chief who killed her parents. She takes his daughter Princess Kalei captive with the intention on killing her. Throughout their journey they go from enemies to lovers with a new common goal, to stop Kalie’s father.

The concepts for the story was really strong I enjoyed the Princesses dynamic and how it grew over the course of the book. What I didn’t love was the hitting of each other I get they were enemies to start out but that seems very childish. Most of the book is about their journey back to Vodaeard it was paced nicely with some action in well timed places. But the story fell flat for me at time which disconnected me from the story.

I enjoyed the narrator who voiced Princess Evhen. I felt she did the Pirate/Princess well. I felt the connect to the character. However I was taken out of it by the narrator for Princess Kalei. The Princess were younger, so her voice didn’t match the image in my head. There were also randomly placed pauses and I felt the reading was very slow! I had to speed it up to make it more bearable. I also picked up on mouth sounds and that became distracting. Over all it could use some fine tuning.