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A review by teenykins
The Emperor's Bone Palace by Hailey Turner

5.0

Pray for a star to burn as guide
Never to live, always to die
A road is a future and it carries a past
For what is burned is only ever ash


This second book was a bit slow to start, what with pieces and pawns needing to be put in strategic places and that took a bit of time but after the 27% things picked up and never slowed down. And oh how everything moved on a chessboard that has many masters.

If you discount today (Monday) that I had to work, I was reading this almost non-stop. I say almost because I just had to stop at places to breathe and assimilate everything that was going, put pieces of the puzzle in place, broaden the map of what I knew.

Wardens are nameless and starless. There is no guiding star for us.

And if that isn't the biggest tragedy and injustice I don't know what is.... maybe it's what Eimarille did to the Warden's Island filled with young and teen tithes, recovering Wardens and Wardens that could no longer be on the field.

"After you finish walking this road the Dusk Star sent you down, when you come home, I'll marry you all over again."

"It's never a goodbye between us."

"My road will always lead me back to you."


Unlike the first book Honovi and Blaine had a lot of time together here and it was lovely seeing them just be with each other, reminiscing times their lives were their own and hoping against hope for a peaceful future that they could travel the skies together. Hailey of course had to pull her signature move, separate them and let's just say our poor boys went through hell and they haven't reached the other side yet!

[...]her road no longer her own.

Ah Caris! Poor Caris, losing her beloved, losing her parents, losing the future she had planned for herself and getting one she feels like a puppet being lead on, by star gods, by Meleri, by a people loyal to a bloodline she didn't know was hers and doesn't know she wants with how suddenly it was thrust upon her.

She stands up though, proud and fierce and blazes a unique roads of hers. It may be leading to the crown of Ashion at first glance, but Hailey spins quite intricate stories so who knows how the Ashion throne will be in the end.

She was a Rourke, after all, and the Rourke bloodline was meant to rule. Whether by decree or by force, one way or another, Eimarille would take a throne and wear a crown.

Eimarille is the perfect villain, and I mean that as a compliment. A perfect villain that I will never, ever come to like! She's conceited, arrogant and power hungry and more of a pawn of a star god than anyone else in this amazing second book of an incredible steampunk fantasy weaved by Hailey Turner.

Nathaniel Clementine's body was a battlefield, and his mind was a graveyard of who he used to be.

There's a lot happening here with Nathaniel, the Klovod, veils and rionetkas. A lot of questions were answered of how rionetkas might go unnoticed. But I'm now wondering about the Klovod. In the first book it seemed like he was doing what he was doing willingly, but now I'm questioning this... it seems like the puppet master might be a puppet himself. I'll be waiting to see how this will evolve.

"I never wanted your vow, but you gave it to me anyway. I can do what I want with it."
"You've asked for nothing over the years."
"Because if I ever did, I'd have to leave.


The one thing you couldn't trade for your heart's desire was your heart.

"You had me[...] No one else ever did but you had me."

Oh how good things were going between Vanya and Soren. Oh how it wasn't meant to last. In the face of a deep betrayal in Vanya's household, Soren's truth coming to light isn't something that Vanya can think on clearly and things fracture between them. Will they be able to mend them? Who knows... but I'm on Soren's side here. I understand Vanya's first reactions but then he had time to cool down and think. But he was too butt hurt to see things from Soren's side. To talk with him. See him truly!

All this unrest in Solaria and Eimarille has manufactured advanced style of Sentinels that I don't know if the forces that oppose Daijal's and Eimarille's oppressive rules will be able to fight against. I'm really hoping Hailey will surprise us here and not let them be decimated.

Can't wait for the next book for which we have no title or tentative release date (°0°)

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.