Admittedly I didn’t like this book as much as the first one. It was good and the characters were still brilliant, but the pace was a lot slower, and nothing seemed to happen for the majority of the book - you have to get two-thirds of the way in before things start kicking off (and then it just doesn’t stop!) So still enjoyable and worth a read if you enjoyed The Bone Shard Daughter, but it does suffer a little from second-book-syndrome.

Lin, a woman grown in a lab by an emperor who used bone fragments to create constructs that drain the life out the people he has taken the bits of bone from, now sits on the throne of the Empire. Who is she? What is she? How will she rule? Well we don’t have the answers to all of these questions but what we do know is Lin wants to gather support by giving the bone shards back to the people. Easier said than done when there is a mysterious rival using bone shard constructs to create a zombie army bent on taking the throne from Lin who’s only support is Jovis, former smuggler, double agent and hero of the people who is her head of security.
This was good, I liked it a lot. It was fast paced and moved everything along nicely, it felt progressive rather than a set piece for the final book as middle books have tendency towards. Lin and Jovis are both well fleshed out and I liked how their story evolved. There is a lot going on here but the plotting was kept tight and I felt everything contributed towards what was going on in a useful way. That monk though, never trust the priests. The monks are always tricky.

Fantastic follow up to The Bone Shard Daughter! Everyone loves an Underdog story, but you don’t often get one in the position of Emperor! We really benefit in this book from the complex world building laid out previously, leaving the reader perfectly placed to deal with all of Lin’s troubles in this book. We delve deeper into the world of the Alanga which was great!

Thank you to the publisher for a review copy. This was a great continuation from The Bone Shard Daughter. We got to delve more into her life on the path to becoming the Emperor.

I liked that they had animal companions, it added a really interesting layer to the narrative.

Jovis was definitely an unreliable character, who you could not be sure if you could trust.

I'm very much looking forward to the final in this trilogy.

I'll add a full review to my site, Amazon and GR within the next week. I've been catching up on a lot of reading having had a break due to several projects.

Thank you for the arc. I also have my Goldsboro copy ordered!

I loved the first book and was so excited for this one its didn't quite live up to my expectations but I am still looking forward to the next book in the series I NEED answers!

The Bone Shard Daughter was a really entertaining fantasy debut, creating an intriguing archipelago ruled by an insular emperor who maintained power through constructs powered by magical shards of bone from living people. While it had a number of engaging points of view - Jovis, the smuggler with a heart of gold who adopts a magical otter-kitten-pet, was a firm favourite - the heartbeat of the book was with Lin Sukai, daughter of the emperor who is struggling to cope with mysterious memory loss and pass her father's increasingly bizarre tests while putting her own plans into motion to move the succession along and come out ahead of her rival. Lin's story centred around the workings of bone shard magic, which is essentially a form of blood-magic coding which creates more or less complex automatons that run on the life force of the people whose shards are used. Lin's story was full of unique magic and tense twists, and at the point where The Bone Shard Daughter ends, it left her teamed up with Jovis, ascending the throne, and unable in good conscience to continue using the magic that had defined the series to this point.

That puts Bone Shard Emperor in an interesting narrative position, but luckily there's plenty of other interesting elements seeded throughout Bone Shard Daughter that come to the fore here. Stuck leading an empire that has no idea who she is and only tolerates the power of the Emperor as far as it offers magical protection (which it doesn't), Lin needs to consolidate her power while trying to stay true to her own ideals, seeing off independence grabs from the islands and the machinations of the revolutionary force trying to unseat her while seeing off the invasion of a rogue construct group (who will be very familiar to readers of book one). Jovis, and his magical kitten-otter (actually an ossalen, now very big and very talkative, and still the best character) is now working alongside Lin, but with conflicted loyalties and ghosts from his past to deal with. Meanwhile, islands keep sinking and the looming supernatural threat - the rise of the Alanga, a magical race that the Sukai dynasty claimed to be able to hold at bay - seems to be much closer than expected. Lin and Jovis' travel gives the opportunity to see more of the empire and the worldbuilding here continues to be top notch, especially around the various factions vying for power around the new emperor.

There are also some elements that don't work as well. The secondary storyline with Phalue, governor of one of the islands, and her wife Ranami, is entertaining but still feels quite distant from the primary storyline, and its independent payoffs felt even more limited despite their actually meeting with Jovis and Lin this time. that said, Phalue and Ranami's story adds more depth to life on the islands, and I'm invested in how the two come through as a couple, and I am very excited to see more of Ayesh, their orphan-adoptee, in the next book - so perhaps I'm just out of practice with parallel stories in this kind of fantasy storytelling. There is also a romantic connection between Jovis and Lin that doesn't have much time to incubate before bursting out as a "every time they accidentally touch we get sentences about how a-flutter they are" type deal. There are elements of both characters' experiences that make it more understandable why they'd fall in love so fast, but it feels uncomfortably like it happens because that is what is supposed to happen when two characters like this spend time together in this story, rather than it flowing organically. Still, those are minor elements in what's overall a very enjoyable continuation of the series.

I was really looking forward to The Bone Shard Emperor, the sequel to The Bone Shard Daughter. The worldbuilding and the expansion of the world we already knew were well done, but unfortunately, I didn't think this was as good as the first book.

Multiple POV's are hard to do right, because if you don't like one of the POV's as much, it can make the reading experience as a whole not as enjoyable. The villain POV wasn't really to my liking and I found myself wanting to skip to the POV's of Jovis or Lin, who were my favorite characters.

Overall, I didn't think this was a bad sequel, but it disappointed me a bit.

Filled with even more magical adventures, I absolutely adore the whole cast of characters and world building even more than the first instalment. Quite unlike any fantasy I have read and I enjoyed every word of this. I can’t wait for the next one!

Just as dark, just as clever, and lot more explosive. The second instalment in The Drowning Empire trilogy expands its scope as it shifts the focus from the mystery of the world to the revelations ranging from political schemes to potentially cataclysmic histories. The truths uncovered are unspeakably macabre, bitter, yet impossible to turn a blind eye to - and across all this Stewart makes an argument on how uncovering these truths are key for a more hopeful future. Stewart ramps up the stakes, and creates a breathtaking climax filled with so much chaos one cannot look away.

After a strong first book in the series, the second one holds its own. I loved the character development and any scene with Mephi was a favourite. I would happily feed him all he wants. The scene is set for an epic final book and I can't wait to read it.

I really enjoyed the first in this series and this was even better, the action ramped up and I really loved the character development. Absolutely can't wait for the final book in the trilogy!

This is a fantastic sequel to the Bone Shard Daughter. I had high expectations going into this book and I'm happy to say that it didn't disappoint. The characters continue to been wonderfully written and I loved their development in this sequel. The plot was compelling throughout and it was great to see more of this world. I highly recommend checking out this trilogy. I cannot wait for the next book to be released,

The Bone Shard Emperor is a second book in a series and, rather naturally, I was expecting more of the things I loved so much in the first book. I don't mean the same exact events, obviously, but the same sense of not being sure of my own footing, so to speak. Alas, this book didn't really deliver that.

It's a bit slow, like the first one was, but instead of more questions growing like apples on trees absolutely everywhere, there is only that slowness. It got boring, sadly.

There's also the issue of one of the main relationships explored in this book which just... I would never in my wildest dreams think to link those two people, and it didn't bring me an ounce of joy to read about them. It does diminish your love for a book.

All in all, it simply wasn't as good, as interesting, as gripping as The Bone Shard Daughter.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Little Brown Book Group UK for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

TWs: violence, death, torture, body horror, body manipulation

The Bone Shard Daughter was one of my top books last year and I was so excited to receive the sequel as an ARC. Andrea Stewart continues a stunning story with an even more character driven sequel, with higher stakes and a more elaborate world. The main characters- Lin, Jovis, Phalue and Ranami- all have apparently "won" by the end of book 1 but the Bone Shard Emperor shows that their journeys are only just beginning. The introduction of Nisong, especially now she knows who she is, was chilling and her gradual advance across the world towards Imperial and Lin was chilling. I loved the way that "natural" disasters are used as a weapon in this story, as well as how Jovis' legend from folk hero has changed over time. Ranami and Phalue's relationship is such an important part of book 1 and now that they're married, it's clear that they're an ideal team to be governor. The prominence of a F/F married couple was lovely to read and I can't wait to see what challenges they'll face in book 3 with the Shardless Few. Jovis and Lin are a wonderful relationship, especially considering they didn't meet until the final pages of the first book, and I enjoyed their development so much throughout this book. They don't fully trust each other but as time passes, it becomes obvious that they only have each other (and their beasts, Mephi and Thrana) as they try to solve the mysteries of Lin's father and the Alanga.

The stakes of this book were so much higher, with characters frequently switching sides or hiding things for different reasons. I loved the sections where Lin visited the different islands, especially where she met with her late mother's sister. Even though the Emperor is dead in this book, his presence looms over the story which I really admired from a reading perspective because it created so much tension on Lin's part. This is a brilliant sequel, and didn't suffer at all from the slower pace; I can't wait to read the third part of this series and see where it might go next for these characters.

i really enjoyed the bone shard daughter when i read it last year so i was looking forward to the sequel - now call it second book syndrome or change in reading tastes, i don't know, but the bone shard emperor didn't quite hit like i wanted it to.

pros:
- worldbuilding is as solid as ever - nothing revolutionary but i'm intrigued by the alanga's history, the inclusion of elemental magic alongside bone shard magic, the drowning islands, the political conflicts.
- love the lore behind the magical animal companions (or ossalen). mephi and thrana were my favorite things about this book.

cons:
- the characters - i'm just not all that attached to any of them. the first book left me ambivalent on lin and those feelings continued in this sequel. i loved jovis in the first book but he really frustrated me here with his wishy washy decisions and the constant one-step-forward, three-steps-back progression of his character arc. phalue was great but she played too much of a secondary role (though i can see her arc being built up for the finale).
- the romance - almost ruined the book for me. completely unnecessary, forced and annoying as hell. it just felt like such a painfully straight thing to read, as in, there's no real reason for jovis and lin to be together apart from the fact that they're a man and a woman. zero romantic chemistry.
- the climax was exciting and well-written on the whole but - this is probably just me - i found it a bit ridiculous to picture lin in the middle of this big violent battle just standing and writing on bone shards. there's also a scene where someone's running up to lin to attack her and she somehow found the time to take out a bone shard and write on it while that's happening - kind of silly to me.

overall, despite my issues, i like the general direction of the plot and i'll definitely be picking up the bone shard war - albeit with tempered expectations.

The Bone Shard Emperor was a bit of a struggle for me. I went into this wanting to enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the first book, so I’d find myself trying to muster up more enthusiasm than I really felt as I progressed. Unfortunately, I finally had to confront the fact that I just wasn’t having the same experience with this as I did with Bone Shard Daughter. The events for most of the book felt a little overly drawn out or less impactful than they could have been and it wasn’t until the near the end when things began to get truly exciting.

This isn’t to say it was a bad sequel. It just personally felt a little underwhelming. A developing high stakes conflict emerges from the construct army lead by Nisong, but much of it occurs off-screen while the characters meander in less tense environments. This made the threat always seem distant and underutilized so it was difficult to feel the full force of it. Instead, much of the time the characters would be repeatedly expressing the same grievances and doubts with little character or plot development until closer to the end.

Lin and Jovis in particular were always having the same iteration of an argument over and over again. The romance plotline that’s introduced felt forced and only superficially fleshed out, while some of the more fascinating parts of the dynamic are glossed over. Then there were the scenes that I thought would contain some political intrigue – an element I was looking forward to most – that didn’t really have much intrigue at all. The current issue faced on each island Lin visits in her quest for allies were always short-lived, not very complex, and then wrapped up far too suddenly. Oftentimes it just felt like there wasn’t much happening.

What I did find interesting is how all our returning main characters seem to be at odds with one another in various ways. Lin is attempting to keep control over the Endless Sea islands under her reign as the next Sukai emperor is met with mounting resistance. Jovis is trying to balance his official role as the emperor’s captain of the guard while still spying on her for the Shardless Few. Phalue and Ranami are trying to govern the island of Nephilanu more equitably but remain deeply skeptical of the emperor and the Shardless Few both. And last but certainly not least there’s Nisong, who simply wants revenge against an empire that considers her and the rest of her fellow constructs to be abominations – and will wage war against them all until she is satisfied. The idea of these conflicting loyalties and agendas did make for a strong set up.

On top of that, the return of the Alanga comes to the forefront and it turns out they may be more inexorably linked to bone shard magic and the characters themselves than they could ever predict. I found some of the history and reveals we learn about the Alanga in this book to be some of the most compelling sections of all. Not to mention there is related information that emerges about Mephi and Thrana that explains their mysterious bond with Jovis and Lin respectively.

I do have to add that Mephi and Thrana are still the most delightful of animal companions. They continue to steal the show whenever they appear, and made many scenes that would have dragged for me much pleasanter than I think I would have found them otherwise. You’ll never hear a single bad word about them from me!

Overall, I do wish I had a better time with this book in general aside from a strong ending and personal favourites, but there is still enough to like in the series as a whole that I will definitely be picking up the sequel without question.

Thank you to NetGalley, Orbit Books and Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing the free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this but I didn’t find it as good as the first, but that’s not a major criticism as I thought the first was absolutely unbeatable and amazing, this is the sequel and The Bone Shard Emperor is still a great read. The Bone Shard Emperor is a compelling book although sometimes it seemed like it was trying to do too much, however the twists at the end were fantastic, overall I do think this suffers a bit from second book syndrome, but I know I want to read the third asap, as like most trilogies in the book world , the best is yet to come.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Yes! This is what I was waiting for, no more of that daughter rubbish - she an emperor through and through.

I loved this book, there were some unexpected moments that made me grouchy, and some lovely moments that made me feel so warm, if that doesn't make it worth picking up I don't know what is!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“The Emperor is Dead. Long live the Emperor.

Lin Sukai finally sits on the throne she won at so much cost, but her struggles are only just beginning.”

I was really excited to be given an ARC of The Bone Shard Emperor after I devoured The Bond Shard Daughter. TBSE is told from different POV - but predominantly from Lin and Jovis. We learn more about the history of the Empire and Bond Shard magic which really adds to the world building. We also have a slow burn romance thrown in to satisfy the romantics! 

The pace is a lot slower than the first instalment, however, the last third really makes up for it! My mind is still whirling! Mephi is still the greatest character ever created.

Did I mention the ending?! Gio, Shark, Mephi?! The cliffhanger!! Not sure how I’m going to wait until September 2022!!

Here for the betrayal and the revenge. 

If you’re a Sci-Fi + Fantasy fan this is must read.

Thank you to @netgalley and #littlebrownbookgroup for providing me with an ARC.