[Book Review] Bone Weaver by Aden Polydoros & Raven’s Brew Double Dead Coffee

Title: Bone Weaver
Series: Standalone
Author: Aden Polydoros
Publication date: September 20th 2022
Page Count: 448 pages
Age Range: YA (off-page murder & dismemberment, violence, death)
How I got my hot little hands on it: Received a review copy
Publisher’s page: Bone Weaver

From the author of The City Beautiful comes a haunting fantasy following Toma, adopted daughter of the benevolent undead, making her way across a civil war-torn continent to save her younger sister as she discovers she might possess magical powers herself.

The Kosa empire roils in tension, on the verge of being torn apart by a proletarian revolution between magic-endowed elites and the superstitious lower class, but seventeen-year-old Toma lives blissfully disconnected from the conflict in the empire with her adoptive family of benevolent undead.

When she meets Vanya, a charming commoner branded as a witch by his own neighbors, and the dethroned Tsar Mikhail himself, the unlikely trio bonds over trying to restore Mikhail’s magic and protect the empire from the revolutionary leader, Koschei, whose forces have stolen the castle. Vanya has his magic, and Mikhail has his title, but if Toma can’t dig deep and find her power in time, all of their lives will be at Koschei’s mercy.

My Review

Bone Weaver is set in a richly detailed world of magic and monsters inspired by Imperial Russia and Slavic folklore, and centered in Kosa, a land in the middle of a civil war between the bogatyr, the magically endowed ruling elite, and the Fraktsiya, revolutionary fractions rising up against the bogatyr rule.

Having lived in the wilds with her adoptive family of upyri (living undead) for the past 10 years, 17-year-old Toma doesn’t remember much of her past and lives detached from the land of the living and the war. That all changes when the young Tsar Mikhail, powerless and ousted by the leader of the Fraktsiya, crashes near her home with soldiers in pursuit. While he’s able to evade them, Toma’s eternally 7-year-old upyr sister does not, and she’s kidnapped to be experimented on.

As the unlikely pair set out for the long journey to the capital, Mikhail to regain his magic and his throne and Toma her sister, they met Vanya, a charming Strannik craftsman. Vanya has strong magic of his own, but since he is Strannik, a minority group seen as lesser, he is marked as koldun, a witch whose powers come from the Unclean Force. Vanya is sick of the way his people are treated, both as Strannik and a commoner who dares to wield magic, and he joins the group determined to make a difference in any way he can.

The first 1/3 of the book is mostly setting up the story and worldbuilding. Names of groups, objects, monsters, and people, while weaving together a rich tapestry immersing the reader in the world being built around them, can be confusing and briefly bring the reader out of the story (luckily there’s a glossary in the back, which I referenced more than a few times in the early pages). By around the halfway point the pacing really picks up and by the end of the book, I found myself staying up until 4 am to finish. That’s how good the build-up is and how well the author is able to organically draw the reader in.

The story is told through Toma’s perspective and voice. She’s half naive and half feral and she makes for such an interesting character with an interesting viewpoint. The vastly different backgrounds of the three main characters make for a great dynamic and provide very different viewpoints of the conflict around them. Especially Vanya and Mikhail, as they come from such extreme opposite backgrounds, Vanya coming from a history of oppression and prosecution and Mikhail raised with extreme privilege and elitism. The three form deep connections, and while there’s some romantic subtext, there’s no jealousy and no love triangle – Vanya is flirty with both Toma and Mikhail at times, and even though Toma is romantically interested in Vanya, she is unbothered by the prospect of Mikhail being interested in him too, teasing Mikhail about like liking Vanya.

Dealing with themes of identity, feeling like an outsider, and religious & ethnic persecution, Bone Weaver is rich in worldbuilding, storytelling, and compelling characters with important stories to tell. The story, setting, and characters have a lot of potential and I was extremely surprised to learn this isn’t the start of a series. There’s more to explore here and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about a movie or show in development in the future and maybe (hopefully) a continuation of a series. Polydoros is truly a gifted storyteller and an amazing worldbuilder and I Iook forward to reading more from him in the future.

In the world of Bone Weaver, the dead have a habit of not staying dead and coming back as something other. Raven’s Brew Double Dead Coffee could probably do some resurrecting of its own – the bittersweet chocolatey dark roast contains double the caffeine of a regular dark roast and is not for the faint (or weak) of heart.