The Bone Shard Daughter cover art

The Bone Shard Daughter

The Drowning Empire, Book 1

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The Bone Shard Daughter

By: Andrea Stewart
Narrated by: Feodor Chin, Natalie Naudus, Emily Woo Zeller
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About this listen

The Sukai Dynasty has ruled the Phoenix Empire for over a century, their mastery of bone shard magic powering the monstrous constructs that maintain law and order. But now the emperor's rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire's many islands.

Lin is the Emperor's daughter, but a mysterious illness has stolen her childhood memories and her status as heir to the empire. Trapped in a palace of locked doors and old secrets, Lin vows to reclaim her birthright by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic.

But the mysteries behind such power are dark and deep, and wielding her family's magic carries a great cost. When the revolution reaches the gates of the palace itself, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her throne - and save her people.

The Bone Shard Daughter is an unmissable fantasy debut for 2020 - a captivating tale of magic, revolution and mystery, where a young woman's sense of identity will make or break an empire.

©2020 Andrea Stewart (P)2020 Hachette Audio UK Action & Adventure Asian & Pacific Islander Creators Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Magic

Critic Reviews

"One of the best fantasy novels I've read in a long time...This book is truly special." (Sarah J. Maas)

"Epic fantasy at its most human and heartfelt...inventive, adventurous and wonderfully written." (Alix E. Harrow)

"Brilliant world-building, deep intrigue and incredible heart." (Megan E. O'Keefe)
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Such an amazing story the world building was awesome and it always kept you on your feet

Also Mephistopheles!!!

Amazing story

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Very enjoyable. Voices were wonderful, excellent to listen to. Looking forward to listening to the next!

Interesting characters

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Fantastic story, compelling and something a bit different. Well narrated and thought provoking. Gripped the entire way

loved it!

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A fascinating and absorbing story. A descent into a nightmare and a beautiful spell. Very sad and dramatic. Lots of action. Beautifully narrated by male and female narrators. Heroic characters very strong and resilient. Freaky constructs and boneshard magic, great creatures and so much sadness. An empire being overturned. Four or five different characters point of view, sometimes coming together. It was paradise but it was very sad.

Descend into the nightmare.

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In my opinion, this is a very good book, it has a ton of really likeable characters and the story is fun and very different in a good way. As far as the narrators, for the most part, they are great but i did find one or two of them a bit of a pain as i often listen to books late at night and one or two of the narrators speaks much quieter than the others which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for without warming their character would call out someone's name and do so Much louder than their otherwise very quiet speech.

The other reason i suggested a But is with regards to the story itself, firstly, it took a very long time for me to get into the story and for me to start liking the characters and become invested in their story. This is mainly because of the way the story is constructed, there are just too many characters and each has an individual path and story which collectively builds upon a whole. The author does this by switching between characters like mini chapters and this not only made it harder to become invested in individual characters becausejust as you were learning about them and understanding the character, the book will switch to another character with a separate story of their own. This caused me confusion for quite awhile.

Having said that, once you get past all that, you will find the story and characters are really great and so many are really likeable and the story is very different to others I've listened to, btw, if you are a pet or animal lover, you would enjoy this i think. I do recommend this book, just expect to have to persevere through the first part before it becomes really enjoyable. I am just about to buy the next book in the series and very much looking forward to listening. 🐮

Very good with a BUT...

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