A review by mrtvavrana
The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

 

Right in the beginning, we are thrown in the middle of a story. Everything is pure chaos for about a hundred pages. I did not necessarily mind that, but it was really a struggle to follow the story. 

 

The chaos does not disappear until the very end, unfortunately. The world-building leaves a lot to the reader´s imagination. I mean, you can definitely piece some things together, but a lot of important details are shrouded in mystery. 

 

When it comes to the plot, I think it was really well thought out, but it was rushed and it missed many explanations. And while The Bone Orchad appears as a murder mystery at first, it mostly felt like a slice of life. It has strong steampunk and sci-fi elements, but unfortunately they are not explored in much detail. Similarly, we are only provided vague information about the magic system. 

 

Charm and the other characters surrounding her really make you wonder about what and who they are up until the end. For the longest time, I thought she had DID (dissociative identity disorder that was previously known as multiple personality disorder). I still don´t think the reality was well explained; we mostly just received bits and hints throughout the story and had to put it all together. 

 

I really liked the concept behind Charm, The Lady, Justice, Shame, Pain, and Desire, and I honestly wish it was explored in more detail. Generally, I do not think this book works well as a stand-alone. There is simply too much going on, and it felt like we were only scratching the surface. 

 

The ending seemed a bit underwhelming after all the build-up, and I have to say many of the events that happened towards the end were predictable even despite the endless mysteries surrounding the story. 

 

The Bone Orchad deals with some incredibly heavy topics, such as paedophilia, murder, child murder, abuse, prostitution, and sexual assault, but I was genuinely surprised that there were no explicit scenes. 

 

I really enjoyed this book, and while it had many holes, I think it´ll make it into my top 10 books of 2024.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Murder, War