Bone Weaver
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"A heart-pounding adventure. Magic and monsters lurk in every corner as a headstrong trio search for their place in Aden Polydoros's haunting world." ––Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights
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.
Praise for The City Beautiful
"An achingly rendered exploration of queer desire, grief, and the inexorable scars of the past."
—Katy Rose Pool, author of There Will Come A Darkness
"Chillingly sinister, warmly familiar, and breathtakingly transportive, The City Beautiful is the haunting, queer Jewish historical thriller of my darkest dreams." —Dahlia Adler, creator of LGBTQreads and editor of That Way Madness Lies
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Polydoros (The City Beautiful) constructs a rich, Slavic-folklore-influenced world in this spirited adventure with emotional heft. Toma lives in the hinterlands of the Kosa Empire with her adoptive family of living dead beings called upyri. Despite not having met another living person in many years, she one day rescues airship crash survivor Mikhail and heals his wounds using magical embroidery techniques her birth mother taught her. A shaken Mikhail confesses he is the empire's tsar, ousted by evil witch Koschei, who stole his magical powers and is spearheading a revolution against nobility. When the men hunting him instead take Toma's younger sister, Galina, to appease Koschei's fascination with the upyri, Toma and Mikhail follow the kidnappers to a small town. There, they meet prickly Vanya, part of a persecuted religious minority who can make plants grow rapidly, even from dead wood, and together the trio work to rescue Galina and return Mikhail to the throne—whether or not he wants to be there. Toma's rapidly expanding worldview and joyful exploration of society beyond the hinterlands, after spending years in relative isolation with only her undead family for company, is captivating. Polydoros capably delivers an enchanting fantasy adventure, brimming with civil war allegiances, encounters with monsters, innovative magic systems, and fantastical new technology. Ages 13–up.
