Instead the background is woven smoothly and naturally into the story - a fine example of how this should be done.

Revolution, justice, identity, love, and family are some of the main themes in this book, and Stewart executed these themes magnificently through her wonderful cast of diverse characters. I have said a similar thing about the magic system in Foundryside and I did get the same vibes from both novels but each in its unique way! there was nothing wrong with it and like I mentioned, the characters were likable, and even the story was interesting.As a note though, this book is being comp'd to THE POPPY WAR/for fans of TPW and beyond them both being under the umbrella of Asian fantasy, I just want to put out there that if you are reading them because of this . Lin learns that her father created Bayan (he’s been growing people…), and he plans to put his consciousness into him. She gradually comes to believe her father is unjustifiably harming the people of his empire, and is determined to gain the power to change things. Ranami is also involved in a group planning a rebellion against Palue’s father, so that creates some issues in their couple too. There is Lin, the daughter of the emperor, trying to figure out why she has no memories of her past and trying to learn everything about bone-shard magic without her father knowing.

He rescues a young boy from the tithing ceremony along the way, and once upon the water, brings onto his boat a creature he mistakes for a kitten, whom the boy names Mephi.

The openly and transparently gay element is handled with welcome subtlety; some characters are gay; many of the soldiers are women, though, crucially, this is never offered as an overriding issue. The bone shard magic actually reminded me of scriving—inserting commands to inanimate objects—from another series I loved: The Founders Trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett. Sand’s is brooding as she tries to recover her memories and unravel the mysteries of an island she shares with several others who are equally lost. There certainly should be quite a few interesting moral dilemmas in the sequels, based on the direction this one took.