A barn storming fantasy epic adventure that is the beginning of a new must read fantasy saga. And can we talk about that last line??

Thank you so much for Hachette Children's Group, Quercus Children's Books and Netgalley for the advanced e-galley! All opinion are my own.

I knew this book is going to be amazing becouse the exciting premise but what I did not anticipate was the totally mind-blowing twist towards the end, the cliff-hanger, the LAST SENTENCE!! Alexandra Bracken is a master of spinning stories, hiding details in every page that will make sense chapters later, her characters are faulty, scarred, sometimes impossibly annoying, loveable, quirky and smart. The dynamics between the characters are so easy to follow and feel like you are part of their journey, current struggles, their inside jokes.

The use of the Arthurian legend as a setting is truly unique ( I am long time fan of any version of the tale of King Arthur and the knights, Lady of the Lake and the lost magic)!

We follow Tamsin, a Hollower who does not have any special ability or magic, but who is determined to save her brother from a life-long curse, and also trying to find Nash who went missing years ago - doing this, a powerful sorceress acquires her to find a lost relic which sets her on the journey of impossible tasks, discovering herself, her heritage, her past, more of the lost Avalon.

She is accompanied by her brother, a sassy and soft-hearted sorceress, an her rival-enemy-nemesis to this strange world of Avalon, that exists for hundreds years, separatedly set in time, in a different world. Silver in the Bone mixes the Arthurian legend and modern world so well with magic, curses, alternate timelines. The story was fast-paced, the world-building brilliant and every little memento had its purpose.

I loved Tamsin's character arc: she is very guarded, hard to convince, loyal to her brother, very dubious towards others and she makes bad decisions. Like all the time. But she learns how to open up, how a past cannot define the future and how she can be loved, and accept that kind of love. She is stubborn to the bone, very realistic and straightforward which in my opinion makes the perfect ground for her sarcastic banter with Emrys (the said Hollower rival) and all the giggles for me!

Cannot recommend reading Silver in the Bone enough: dark and twisted tale of the Arthurian legend, slow burn romance, enemies to lovers to enemies, found family, secrets, magic and curses, the right amount of laughter and the complexitiy of the characters make this book even more worth reading!

I cannot wait for book 2 - I am sure it will take my breath-away and make me scream with excitement. Until then, I will just keep on talking about Silver in the Bone!

Flo is sick of Tokyo. Suffering from a crisis in confidence, she is stuck in a rut, her translation work has dried up and she's in a relationship that's run its course. That's until she stumbles upon a mysterious book left by a fellow passenger on the Tokyo Subway. From the very first page, Flo is transformed and immediately feels compelled to translate this forgotten novel, a decision which sets her on a path that will change her life...

It is a story about Ayako, a fierce and strict old woman who runs a coffee shop in the small town of Onomichi, where she has just taken guardianship of her grandson, Kyo. Haunted by long-buried family tragedy, both have suffered extreme loss and feel unable to open up to each other. As Flo follows the characters across a year in rural Japan, through the ups and downs of the pair's burgeoning relationship, she quickly realises that she needs to venture outside the pages of the book to track down its elusive author. And, as her two protagonists reveal themselves to have more in common with her life than first meets the eye, the lines between text and translator converge. The journey is just beginning.

I really struggled to get into this one, the start was slow and overly descriptive rather than giving the plot depth

What a brilliant read! Bracken's latest series follows the myth of Arthurian legend, such as Avalon, reimagined into a mixture of the modern world and mythical lands, forged together by rifts and magic. The first book in the series, Silver in the Bone, follows the main character, Tamsin, and her group as they explore how time has changed these worlds through curses and strange magical happenings.

I absolutely flew through this book - once I got about 20% of the way in, it became impossible to put it down. The action was fast-paced and Bracken has a real talent for weaving incredible world-building into the story without it feeling bulky and misplaced. The world was so well built and vivid that I often felt as if I could already imagine a movie made of it in my mind.

In terms of the characters, the storytelling is brilliant. Tamsin's personality is perfect for how she goes about doing everything: whether it be the decisions she makes, the people she trusts (or more accurately, not) or even just her thought process, it felt clear, and true to her character. Her relationships with other people, including Cabell (her brother), and Emrys were so complex and tangled that I loved to read on to see where she'd end up next. The depictions of the trauma that Tamsin has experienced felt so real and deeply explored throughout the novel, allowing us as the reader a much deeper insight into who she truly is. Emrys as a character was incredible and I loved the dynamic between him and Tamsin throughout the book, almost like a rollercoaster!

The plot gave the perfect amount of setting up a new world, resolving one element that was important to this book but still giving the reader far more to expect in the rest of the series. I'm going to need a second book release as soon as possible because I am absolutely desperate to read it! I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick-paced fantasy read where you want to entirely invest yourself in a world and characters intensely.

Thanks to Hachette UK, Team BKMRK and NetGalley for early access to this book!

4.5*
I received an arc from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Silver in the Bone is about Tamsin, who is a hollower (a sort of bounty hunter for magic treasure), her squad of hollower/sorceress friends/enemies, and a fast paced adventure based on Arthurian legend to find a powerful, magical artifact. The book starts out as urban fantasy, which reminded me a lot of The Mortal Instruments (if you like one you'd like the other!), or possibly Carry On, with a very classic YA vibe. From then on, it gets exponentially more intense; as soon as the plot picked up I was very curious about where it was going, and the latter half of the book is super thrilling. The ending was my favorite part, buck fucking wild, with whiplash-inducing plot twists, and a lot more death and darkness than I was expecting. No clue what's going on but I NEED the sequel.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the romance. It was really sweet at times, but I'm guessing it's meant to be enemies to lovers, and I think that's where it fails; the enemy in question is not half bad, and a lot of times I found him to be way more nice and pleasant than Tamsin, the main character, who is aggressively rude to everyone at all times (because she "doesn't want to get close to people", I don't know why that entails actively insulting people before they've even opened their mouths). We also don't really have any background to why they hate each other so much. As for Tamsin, she is unlikeable, but she's also a really entertaining main character and I definitely warmed up to her throughout the story. Something I also really liked was the focus on the characters learning to communicate properly and becoming better people, a little cheesy but generally quite nice. Maybe the real Ring of Dispel was the friends we made along the way.

Silver in the Bone is pretty much everything I want from a YA fantasy, it's fast paced, funny (cut to me dying over the teenage sorceress having her magic wand in a fanny pack), and sometimes a bit emotional, and you can definitely tell that the author knows what she's doing. It just has a bit of oomph to it. I immensely enjoyed this book, and I'd highly recommend it!

Silver in the Bone is a story about Tamsin Lark, a mortal with no magic abilities but whose life is rooted in a world of sorceresses and the Cunningfolk. As a Hollower, Tamsin is hired to raid secret places such as crypts for treasures. When a ring linked to King Arthur becomes Tamsin's latest quest, she must work with a former enemy to find it before the many other people chasing it and its powers get to it.

This is my first Alexandra Bracken book and I did enjoy the story. As with many first books in a fantasy series, it takes a while to get your head around the world the author has created and get used to the different terminology. I found it an interesting world, however. Contemporary but with 'doors' that can transport you to other places. I liked the different magical elements and the plot of the story. I know a lot of people have commented that there wasn't enough about King Arthur but I didn't find this at all. I thought the links were there and enough of the story had Arthurian myth/legend and characters. I did find the beginning quite slow but again, as the first book in a series, there had to be a lot of time spent on getting to know the characters and the world they inhabit. I liked and was more invested in the friendships more than for the sibling relationship or the romantic one. In the case of the latter, it went from hate to like in a very disjointed odd way. There was also a very random moment with Emrys (the male) and his 'morning glory', which didn't really seem to fit with anything in the book, either prior or after it. It wasn't offensive or inappropriate but just seemed odd!

I did enjoy lots in the story and mostly thanks to the big ending, I am looking forward to reading book 2 when it is realised. 4 stars rounded up from a 3.5.

This was not an immediate love of mine. I flip flopped for a while between liking it and wishing for more of the Arthurian Legend promised to me. But the last quarter of this book really delivers. It grabbed me by the throat and would not let me go until I admitted that I really liked these characters.

Silver in the Bone has so many things I could want, it has enemies to lovers, it has complicated and non-traditional siblings, it has so many friendships of varying kinds, it borrows from Arthurian legend which is quintessential to my British upbringing.

I have never read anything by Bracken before, but I have had a copy of Lore for some time now just drifting around my physical TBR but it is safe to say that after having a taste of her writing it may move up the list.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Hachette for this ARC.

Thank you Hachette Children’s Group and NetGalley for the arc of Silver in the Bone by Alexandra Bracken in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

I’ve only read one other book by Alexandra Bracken - Lore, in which she brought Greek Mythology to life in the modern world, so of course I was intrigued to read an Arthurian themed tale of a treasure hunter. Who wouldn’t be?

Tamsin Lark is a ‘Hollower’, a mystical treasure hunter but, unlike other Hollowers, she doesn’t hold a shred of magic in her body. Abandoned by her family as a very young child into the care of a nefarious Hollower, Nash, the only family she knows is her found brother Cabell. She and Cabell are now alone in the world after Nash mysteriously disappeared 6 years previously, and now Tamsin’s only goal is to break the curse her brother is under. Just when all options appear closed a sorceress offers her a job that may just give her the cure she’s looking for.

The world building in this book is beautifully delivered, cleaving closely to Arthurian legend closely enough to be familiar and understood but, with a degree of adjustment applicable to the plot. The magic system is also interesting, maintaining the elements of gods and goddesses, alignment with Mother Nature and the elements.

I must say, I really enjoyed this book, one those books you don’t want to stop reading. The story itself is totally action-packed, the characters who truly well-shaped and I absolutely adored Flea. At no point at all did this book seem to drag or slow the pace but, it also didn’t feel rushed and frenetic. The pace, the darkness, the friendships, the magic, the plot, and the excellent use of tropes blend seamlessly to create an engrossing, deliciously interesting story with just the right level of complexity, entanglement, including a slow burn romance, sheer adventure and excitement to captivate from start until that killer of a cliff hanger ending.

Rating - 4.75 stars

It has been quite a lot of years since I read a book by Alexandra Bracken. So I didn't really know what to expect before reading this book. But I was very much pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this book.

To elaborate on how much I enjoyed it, it was to the point where I had to physically wrench myself away from my phone to stop myself from reading because I needed to study and every time I told myself "I'll just finish this chapter" I accidentally ended up reading a few more chapters without me realising because I was THAT hooked to the story. In the end, I ended up finishing this book within 4 days which I consider as very quick for me.

The story was so much fun, action-packed and fast-paced that there was barely any dull moments that felt like the story was dragging or made me bored.

I feel like ever since The Darkest Legacy (the last book I read by her), Alexandra Bracken's writing has improved so much and I think this book helped her writing skills shine even more. I loved the creepiness and atmosphere of the book and it was a lot darker and gruesome than I expected and I absolutely loved every bit of it.

I also loved the complexity of all the characters and I even loved the slow burn romance too. It was the perfect amount of slow burn and subtlety for me that had me blushing, giggling and kicking my feet. The friendships and found family aspect were very heart warming and I think Alexandra Bracken has always been brilliant at writing found family tropes ever since The Darkest Minds series.

The events at the end of the book and the cliff-hanger in the very last line is making me very excited for the next book to come out because I need answers!!

Overall, I'm so glad I read this and I'm so excited for Silver in the Bone to release in April and hope it gets a lot of love and a lot of hype that it deserves!