Thank you for letting me read "The Road of Bones" by Demi Winters

A little slow to begin with, I did like the play between the characters. Norse mythology, enemies to lovers, forbidden romance, secrets abound.
Loved it! Cant wait to read the next

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ 3 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕤 ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

ೃ⁀➷ ˗ˏˋ ♡ ꒰ ʚ・୨୧ 𝓠𝓾𝓲𝓬𝓴 𝓢𝓾𝓶𝓶𝓪𝓻𝔂 ୨୧・ ɞ ꒱ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Silla Nordvig is desperate for safety after her world is upended. She will do anything to get to Kopa and follow the instructions her father left her. When she sneaks into a wagon, she has no idea that she is joining the Bloodaxe Crew who are on a separate mission.

Although Ren, the leader of the Crew, allows her to travel with them, she struggles to keep her secrets as she grows closer to the mercenaries.

ೃ⁀➷ ˗ˏˋ ♡ ꒰ ʚ・୨୧ 𝓜𝔂 𝓣𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱𝓽𝓼 ୨୧・ ɞ ꒱ ♡ ˎˊ˗

I love when I'm already planning on reading a book and a publisher picks it up and sends me a complimentary copy to review... it's like - two birds one stone lol. So, needless to say, I was super excited to jump into this one.

The story started out really strong and drew me in almost immediately, somewhere around the middle though I started to drift off and not stay as engaged. I thought the pacing slowed a little but it didn't take long to pull me back in.

Overall, I think this is a really good start to a new fantasy romance series. I think the fantasy elements are well balanced with action and romance- I just didn't stay completely captivated. I am however, looking forward to starting the next one.

ೃ⁀➷ High Fantasy
˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Multiple POVs
ೃ⁀➷ Forced Proximity
˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Vikings
ೃ⁀➷ Evil Queen
˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Found Family
ೃ⁀➷ Intrigue and Mystery

✨ A huge thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the complementary advanced digital copy via NetGalley - all thoughts and opinions are my own. ✨

I loved this! Road of Bones is a Viking-inspired fantasy with romantic subplots, told from multiple POVs. The beginning felt a little slow to understand the world and all that was going on, but the rest of the book was really well-paced. I found the FMC, Silla, to be so unbearably pitiful and helpless at the start of this story, which made it super satisfying to see her growth and confidence in herself improve as the book progressed. I was silently cheering her on when she finally started to depend on herself to get out of sticky situations verses others coming to her rescue (for the most part). One of my favorite aspects of the book is the relationships she builds with the members of the Bloodaxe Crew. The author did such a good job of making this violent group of thieves lovable, I really enjoyed their camaraderie and banter. The magical element of this book is so interesting, I wish it was expanded upon more, but I suspect we'll get lots more magic in book 2. There were several twists at the end, some predictable, but one I definitely didn't see coming that had my jaw on the floor. I will definitely be continuing with book 2! Thank you Netgalley for the e-arc!

I’m torn on my rating for this book and I think I partially have BookTok to blame for that. This has been all over my FYP for the last few months and the hype around it got me excited. Romantasy Vikings, say less. However, after finishing the book I find myself a bit disappointed. The beginning and ending of the book was really good. But the rest of the book was sadly not as good.

Our FMC, Silla is quite literally at times an idiot. Like borderline insufferable idiot throughout the entire book. The amount of times I wanted to scream “the signs are right freaking there” and yet she still wasn’t grasping it. I think if Silla hadn’t been so naive I would’ve connected with her more. Thankfully the ending did redeem her a bit and I’m interested to see how she develops more in book 2

My favorite thing about this book was the found family element with the Bloodaxe Crew. Except Jonas he can get a giant middle finger for all I care. But the rest of the crew I fell in love with immediately and I want to know more about them.

Overall, even though I had some gripes I still enjoyed the story and want to continue on with the series. Definitely pick this book up and give it a chance. Thank you again to NetGalley for providing me an arc to read and review.

The last 20% is where I was hooked. I’m not sure I liked the way the love interest played out. I see how it made sense in the story but I think it could have gone in a way that it wasn’t the love interest. I liked the side characters. The FMC did have growth. Got your classic one horse scenes and learning to fight scenes which I enjoyed.
I did enjoy that there was a twist towards the end. I enjoy twists and betrayals. Thank you to the publisher for the free e-arc!

3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Megan Whalen, Associate Marketing Manager of Penguin Random House, for sending me this free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m giving this book 3.5 stars but am rounding down to a 3. I really wanted to give it a 4 because there are some things I really enjoyed about this book, but unfortunately there are a few more things that didn’t quite work as well for me.

(There are some MAJOR spoilers below)

One of the issues I had was the pacing. This could’ve been a “me” thing. Honestly, I’ve been having trouble enjoying reading lately, and every book just takes a lot longer than I know I can read it. But, I will say, there’s a lot of traveling in this book. A lot. It is broken up by stops at towns and various things, so it’s not terrible but it did have trouble keeping my attention a lot of the time. Then, at the end of the book, the main character Silla remarks that they’ve been traveling for a month. Realistically, yeah, I can see their journey taking that long. But it felt A LOT longer than a month. So much time was spent inside the characters’ heads with a lot of repetition of the same thoughts (Silla and Jonas lusting after each other, Rey thinking he can’t trust Silla, etc etc) so the repetition didn’t help either.

I have mixed thoughts over how the characters were depicted as well. Some of them had great character development while a majority of them remained mostly flat.

The book does include different depictions of disabilities, which was cool. But while Hekla (who has a really cool metal prosthetic arm) was given a back story, Siggrun (who uses sign language) wasn’t given any characteristics other than her disability. Representation is great but not so much when the character is reduced to only their disability. So I wish the author had included more scenes of Silla interacting with Siggrun, and maybe more of her teaching Silla how to sign. (It also is a little odd that only the two women in the Blood Axe crew are the ones with disabilities while none of the men have any.)

And Gunnar and Ilias, two of them men in the crew, aren’t really given any depth either. Gunnar makes a few jokes every now and then, and so does Ilias, and that’s kind of it. (Now, Ilias does serve a different function in the book, which I saw coming twenty miles away lol, but it would’ve been nice to get to know him more because not really knowing anything about him sort of ruins the effect of what happens to him later.)

Last but not least of characters who could’ve been better: Skraeda. She has magic, which makes her wanted by the throne and in danger of being put to death. However, because her talents are rare (not to mention she’s very good at what she does), she ends up working for the Queen and using her powers to arrest people the Queen wants brought in and killed. Working for the very person who wants you dead should have added a lot of complexity to Skraeda’s character but she spends so much time in the book just chasing after Silla that she ends up sort of reduced to a mustache-twirling 2D villain. Her powers are cool but not once did I truly fear for Silla or anyone during this cat-and-mouse chase.

Skraeda and Silla are also both twins, which was supposed to be a sort of parallel to show how people in the same situation react differently, but again, because so much time is just spent on her chasing Silla, not much is done with that parallel. Her last fight with Silla was cool, only because Skraeda’s last words finally address how she truly felt working for the queen. And it was such a good line that I really wish more had been done with that/her. And the fact that she was supposed to be this cool badass female villain was lessened by the fact that she had to keep reporting to male commanders of the king’s soldiers. So she was essentially kept on a leash the whole time, which didn’t quite allow her to do as much as she could have and definitely not as much as she wanted. (Which, again, could’ve been a point the author was trying to make but I don’t think she quite made it.)

Jonas and Rey, however, had some of the best subtle character work, and I love what the author did with them. Silla and Jonas sort of have insta-lust with each other, and you think they’re going to end up with each other as Jonas starts to develop (what he thinks) are real feeling for her as they enjoy their sort of friends-with-benefits situation they have going on. But Jonas has issues stemming from childhood, and as much as he hates what his father did to his family, you realize his feelings for Silla are slowly turning into feelings of possessiveness and jealousy. He nearly kills a guy just for bumping into the two of them in a market because it shows disrespect towards them, and then later tries to beat up a guy that’s hitting on Silla despite the fact that she was showing interest in the guy too. If you’ve read ACOTAR at all, Jonas has a very Tamlin arc going on, and it’s great to see, because you think you’re supposed to be rooting for him but at the same time, you’re like, “….I don’t know that I like how Jonas is acting right now.” And then it all comes to a head at the end, and your dislike of him ends up totally justified. It was just really nice to see the love interest do bad things but stay the bad guy instead of forcing the main female character into justifying what he did simply because he’s hot or something.

Rey, also, had great development because it’s so obvious over the course of the book that he’s falling for Silla but never once does he actively think about her in a romantic way. It’s in his actions and just how he describes her in his thoughts. Towards the end of the book, he thinks to himself, “What mess was she in, this curly-haired woman whose smile was like sunlight?” To go from saying he might kill her for stowing away in his crew’s wagon to those kinds of thoughts—without the possessiveness or jealousy of Jonas to blind him—was just really well done. Jonas wants to turn Silla into the Queen for reward money as revenge for getting his brother killed; Rey wants to apologize to her for causing her distress because he’s the crew leader and thinks Ilias’ death is his fault. (I also enjoyed the parallel of both Jonas and Rey having lost their younger brothers and then the difference in how they reacted to it.)

My other big issue is with the two plot twists dropped back to back at the end of the book. I won’t spoil these twists because they’re really cool but my problem with them is that once we’re told this info, nothing more is said about it. The first twist doesn’t really need explaining because you realize there were very subtle hints along the way that sort of explain it. But the second twist?? Absolutely needed to be explained because it basically means this one character was in two places at once, and despite the fact that magic exists in this world, that’s not possible. So I know it will be explained in the sequel, but just an extra line or two would’ve gone a long way in helping that twist land.

So yeah. I liked what was done with Rey and Jonas, and even Silla got better along the way, but the pacing, not explaining some things, and lack of attention to the rest of the characters prevent me from rating this higher. I definitely want to read the sequel though. The epilogue with Saga made her sound really cool.

Jonas has long braided blonde hair?? I should have KNOWN!!! Pulling an SJM is all fine and good until i hate both of the love interests. I don’t need a fantasy to have romance but when it does i need to love the romance and in this….i didn’t in the slightest, so unfortunately this really hampered my enjoyment. This is like the opposite of enemies to lovers - it’s lovers to enemies

This follows a pretty basic fantasy romance plot - average girl that something happened to and now she’s on the run, doesn’t know what she is, meets a group of warriors who train her how to fight, slowly discovers she’s royalty/magical/etc.

I found this interesting for the first ~75% and then really started to struggle (probs because of the love triangle). The ending was filled with action and reveals but I didn’t love it as much as i wanted to

One of my favorite reads of the year!

Found Family ✅
Vikings ✅
Tall, Dark, & Handsome = A Black Man ✅
Blonde MMC ✅
Resilient FMC ✅

Some of my favorite things in one book. This story was great, touching on some hard topics. It did so well and with intention. Silla is a smart and lovable FMC who is struggling to find herself after losing her father. So, a journey ensues where we meet the rest of the cast. I love third person, so the POVs never bother me. The pace, for me, was well-paced and entertaining. This is one of my favorite reads of the year so far.


I received this as an ARC from NetGalley

This book was so much fun to read. The author really wove a lot of secret's, lies and surprises in this book. I love any book that has any type of mythology in it as well.

The Road of Bones by Demi Winters
-The Ashen Book 1-

4.5/5⭐️

Holy romantasy debut, people! Look out!

•My Thoughts•
This was fantastic! Vikings, gods, political intrigue, a fascinating world, cool magic and THE CHARACTERS! I went into this one mostly blind (like I heard Vikings and I RAN 😆) and I am so glad I did. The characters were brought to life in such a beautiful way! Our FMC, Silla had such beautiful growth and were along for the ride. There was a trope in here (not included above) that I don’t usually choose to read but, wholly moly, did it work👏🏻so👏🏻well!! This gave me just a tiny bit of the vibe from Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse world but more romance and all Vikings and I LOVED it. I had a little trouble settling into the book…and I’ll absolutely admit that it’s partly my own fault - I find with fantasy, I have to read a decent beginning chunk in one sitting so I can get through the world building and immerse myself into the story and my week just didn’t allow for that. Stupid real life. BUT once I did, I was sucked in and had so much trouble putting it down. Plot and character development is equal here and it’s such a great mix!! This one is absolutely worth a read!!

Loved it!! Great fast read! Slow in the beginning but it picks up and hooks you! Would have been a 5 star if it wasn’t hard to get into at first.

I’m starting to love Viking stories. World building was necessarily slow for us to get to the full picture of the setting. I really enjoyed it.

If you like "A Fate Inked in Blood" you will like this story. Love a story with strong female characters. It was hard to put down because I really wanted to know what would happen next. Can't wait for the next in the series.

The Road of Bones" offers an intriguing fantasy world with some unexpected twists, but it's not without its challenges. Most of the book is excruciatingly slow, to the point where I nearly gave up. However, perseverance pays off as the story picks up significantly in the latter half.

The world-building is interesting, though there are noticeable gaps - whether due to actual omissions or my own tendency to skim during slower sections is hard to say. The sexual tension is well-crafted and adds a layer of intrigue to the character dynamics.

While the protagonist's personal storyline didn't particularly captivate me, the found family aspect and some of the supporting characters were more engaging. The last 20% of the book is what had me changing it from a potential 2 or 3-star read to a solid 4 stars.

I'm not super eager to read the second one, but won't actively NOT read it.

This was offered to me as a widget by the publisher on NetGalley. I was drawn to the description... then realized it was a romantasy. I groaned, but carried on... and color me shocked: I enjoyed this. A lot.

True, it was a romantasy - and my first I enjoyed - there was a lot more going on. You have a girl who has powers, is seeing a girl she may or may not be conjuring, and is thrust into being on the run after the death of her father. In a world where people have various powers and can be executed for them, Left with a name and city of who she can turn to, this is the path she must take for answers. While on the Road of Bones -where all sorts of dangerous creatures may show up - she encounters a group of dangerous warriors. Lead by Rey, this group reluctantly takes her in and the story begins to gallop to the finish.

I liked the group. I liked that they all had well built personalities, stories, and reasons for being in the group. Jonas and his brother are strong focus in the group (and since Jonas becomes her love interest, there are pov chapters from him). Jonas seemed to have an interesting story brewing and the things that happen at the end of the book have me needing to jump into the next as soon as I can.

The reason I mark it down a star is because the world building / powers / monarchy bit is underdeveloped and the threat doesn't come across as strong as it should. We know the queen is after her, but we need more of a reason because of her powers.... why is the queen evil, besides hating people with powers like her. What exactly are the powers? Why do some have it?

There is to be five books, and I am hoping my issues become resolved / explored.

This book was interesting! I thought it was a really enjoyable fantasy romance! Most of the novel takes place on the go due to our heroine being on the run for reasons she herself is blind to. The vigilante vikings were great and I loved the idea that there was an assassin coming after her. This book reminded me a lot of another authors writing style pf mystery with a lot of secrets around the heroine/vikings, which was so exciting to see slowly be pulled apart near the end of the book. I liked the romance, I wish there was more focus on this angst with some banter but super intrigued to see where that goes in the next book! And the ending!? That sold me on continuing the series and I can't wait to get to book two!

This book really grew on me. I found that the first ~1/3 was a little hard to get through and the formatting was slightly confusing with the 4 different perspectives, but once the plot picked up and I became familiar with the characters I enjoyed it much more. There were a lot of exciting twists that I was not expecting and I felt the back 3rd of the book had a lot more character development that really made it enjoyable for me. The premise of the book is different than a lot of others that I have read recently and I thought the world building was very well thought out. Really hoping there is a sequel! I will be looking out for other books by Demi Winters in the future.

I thoroughly enjoyed my journey of this read! The action packed introduction immediately hooked me. I am a huge fan of Viking lore and I felt like Demi Winters did a fantastic job infusing it into this story. The imagery of the setting, the characters down to the clothes they wore and the weapons they yielded, and the dialogue felt natural for Vikings.

The found family element was super enjoyable, the side characters having enough depth to keep me emotionally attached. Hekla and Silas still cross my mind 6 months after my first read!

I also LOVED the romance in this, constantly keeping the reader guessing who was going to be end game. The tension was scrumptious and paced at the most opportune moments. As much as I loathe one of the romantic leads, I couldn’t help but feel the attraction that led the FMC right into his stronghold.

While some of the plot lines felt obvious due to usage of familiar tropes, others were shocking enough to keep me holding out for answers to my questions. I loved how this novel ended on a cliffhanger.

Some parts dragged on and the novel could’ve probably been cut my a hundred pages and better segued into the second installment. From what I hear, this is supposed to be a 5 book series, however I have a feeling it will have been better suited in a trilogy considering how the pacing dragged a bit in this. Nonetheless, I am intrigued enough to continue in the series and gets answers to many open ended questions.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

This book. This book has my whole heart. I absolutely adored this! From the incredible characters, to the plot, to falling in love with everything so quickly- I couldn’t put this down. I highly recommend this!

I first want to say thank you to the author and publisher for sending me an e-ARC of this book. I am very appreciative!
•
I really liked the plot line of this book, it was very unique. It is a Viking inspired book with magic. I really like the magic aspect. One of my complaints though is this book is 485 pages and 400 pages of it is traveling and not much happens throughout that time. We also get the point of view of other characters, but yet don’t learn much about them. The bloodaxe crew is hired to do a job and they do not discuss this job once throughout the book. I would’ve like to hear more about the job and how they were going to handle it. Also SPOILERSSS. Jonas ends up not being a great guy and I figured that was going to happen, so it seems Rey would end up being the new love interest in book two, but the main character, Silla, and Rey have not had many moments together. Also, the big reveal at the end of the book was more confusing than crazy because it didn’t have any moments that led up to it.. but I will say the betrayal of Jonas and the ending was pretty crazy and has me curious if book two would be faster paced and explain more of the world. I also think maybe the romance could be better in the second book, I’m just scared it might be instalove. But with all that being said there were aspects of the story I did enjoy. I did like the plot line and the magic aspect and also the side characters added a lot to the story