Book Review | The Sins on their Bones

The Sins on their Bones by Laura R. Samotin paints a dark queer fantasy that follows two estranged husbands after one usurps the other’s throne.

By far what I loved most about the story were the character dynamics. I’m a sucker for messy and tragic lovers, angst, melodrama, which this book delivered on a silver platter.

However, while I loved the premise itself, the execution and structure didn’t work for me.

In essence, this story feels like a sequel to a book we never got to read. There’s so much juicy character backstory and lead up to the events of the coup, but we only get to see snippets of it.

Honestly, I wish that this book had either included more flashbacks or had been written as a trilogy with The Sins on Their Bones being the second book in the series (because apparently there’s already going to be another book that follows the after aftermath of this one).

It strikes me as odd though that the author omitted large parts of that civil war and Alexey’s climb to power and descent into madness when that was by far the most compelling aspect of the story for me.

Hopefully someday we might get a prequel that covers those storylines, or who knows? Maybe it’ll be addressed more in the sequel.

Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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