Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Shannon expands the world of her Bone Season series in this pedal-to-the-metal fifth installment (after 2021's The Mask Falling). It opens with series heroine Paige Mahoney awakening in an unfamiliar hotel somewhere outside of the Republic of Scion without any memory of the past six months. Paige, a 20-year-old with ESP, works to make her way back to her home and the struggle against the Sargas, a subgroup of the Rephaim, "immortal humanoids of the Netherworld," who traveled to Earth after a Rephaim civil war and have been attempting to control human clairvoyants. Her journey takes her through Venice, where she learns of a new Sargas plot: Operation Ventriloquist, a scheme to overtake governments "from within" by turning their leaders into puppets. The stakes are high, the pace is rapid, and Shannon's gift for evocative prose makes the shadowy streets of Venice come alive. Readers who need their memories jogged regarding both the characters' elaborate backstories and Shannon's frequent neologisms will find a comprehensive glossary at the back of the book. Series fans will be thrilled. Agent: David Godwin, David Godwin Assoc. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon's Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe. After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London's clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape--the very soul of her clairvoyance--has been altered, as if there's a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she's been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she's somehow outside of Scion's borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige's loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite--the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus' people--and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series' scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon's narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige's powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines. Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
