The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
Bookshop.org | Waterstones | WH Smith
Blurb
The year is 2059. For two centuries, the Republic of Scion has led an oppressive campaign against unnaturalness in Europe.
In London, Paige Mahoney holds a high rank in the criminal underworld. The right hand of the ruthless White Binder, Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare and formidable kind of clairvoyant. Under Scion law, she commits treason simply by breathing.
When Paige is arrested for murder, she meets the mysterious founders of Scion, who have designs on her uncommon abilities. If she is to survive and escape, Paige must use every skill at her disposal – and put her trust in someone who ought to be her enemy.
Review
I didn’t read The Bone Season when it first came out but ever since reading The Priory of the Orange Tree I have been a big fan of Shannon’s work. When Shannon rereleased The Bone Season I started to collect the rereleased books and read The Bone Season.
Once I started reading this book I could not put it down. I loved the character of Paige and instantly wanted her to succeed in whatever she did. I also loved her as the narrator of the story. Paige is brave and will do anything to protect her friends. If she had one failing it was a little overuse of sarcasm and cynicism.
My other favourite character was Arcturus. He really was not what I expected and I suspect more surprises about this character will appear in subsequent books. There were many layers to this character, sometimes he was a pure gentleman, sometimes a monster and sometimes nothing more than a teddy bear.
I will be honest that there was a lot to take in with this book. There is a huge amount of world building in a very short space of time as well as new characters and characters with abilities to work out. I was very grateful for the extra information at the end of the book to help me remember what all the abilities were. There was also some unusual words used within this book but again there was a helpful glossary at the back of the book. I also loved the use of these words as it it helped set the scene of another world.
This is definitely one of my favourite reads of 2025 so far and I can’t wait to get stuck into the next book of the series. Shannon is a fantastic world builder and this is evident in this book. Her characters are also fantastic and so varied. I give this book 5 out of 5 Dragons.
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About the author
Samantha Shannon is the New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Bone Season series. From 2010 to 2013 she studied English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. Her fourth novel, The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019), was her first outside of the series. It has sold over a million copies in English alone, and was a finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards 2020. Its standalone prequel, A Day of Fallen Night (2023), won the gold medal in the Fantasy category at the Ippy Awards 2024.
Samantha’s work has been translated into twenty-seven languages. Her most recent book is The Dark Mirror (2025), the fifth instalment in the Bone Season series.
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