A review by jazzbartholomew
Broken Souls and Bones by LJ Andrews

4.0

In broken souls and bones we follow Lyra who, at the beginning of the story is living a life hidden in a small village due to the power she holds. Lyra is a melder, a magic skill both feared and sought across the different kingdoms in this world. At the start of the book Lyra is discovered by the kings men and taken to serve him. Throughout the story learn more about the melding craft, its history and what the kind intends to do with the powers of a melder.

Due to her craft and being revealed to the world, Lyras life is now under constant threat, even within the walls of the palace. To protect his prized possession, the king assigns his Sentry to guard Lyra and through this we see a bound develop between them.

So I really enjoyed this book 🙂 It is Viking inspired which was great and I felt like it was well paced throughout. There is interesting and unique world building, as well as an intriguing magic system. I will say it probably took me most of the book to get my head around the magic but I definitely enjoyed it. I also enjoyed Lyra as a character. I really liked some of the concepts introduced around souls which is woven through the magic system in this book. I also really reveal relating to our MMC towards the end, I wasn’t sure how it would be managed and felt it was well done (don’t want to spoil).

I enjoyed the romance between our main characters, particularly the way they communicated. Roark is a dark brooding soldier with a reputation for ruthlessness & ☠️. Due to an incident in his past, he is not able to verbally communicate and instead, has his own language with hand gestures. From their first meeting, Lyra begins to learn his language and I thought this was really interesting l. There is plenty of tension throughout the book, touch her and ☠️ vibes and Roark is definitely a possessive/over protective MMC. There is some spice in a few scenes, I would rate it as fairly mild (open door). 

Overall this was a great start to a new series and I will definitely be picking the next one up when it releases.