Book: Drown The Bones by Alexandra Kennington
Reviewed by Desi Disassociates
Rating: 5/5
Merridan and Von are twin siblings that may have grown up in the same palace, but they've lived very different lives under the same roof. Where Von is the prodigal son, set to take over and become King of Roth, Merridan was very much the spare. While she was trained to become one of the Divine, she was forced to wait to take her vows until Von married and had an heir of his own. But when he's murdered the night of their 18th birthday party, Merridan's life as she knew it was shattered into a million pieces.
Determined to find out what who murdered her brother, she decides to practice forbidden magic and raise his soul in order to speak to him. But when something goes wrong, she ends up summoning the soul of the rival country, Nova's, crown prince, Phoenix, who Rothians believed killed Von, but was also murdered the same night.
Merridan agrees to work with Phoenix in order to properly summon her brother, even though she hates him and everything he stands for. The more they talk in their adventures, the more Merridan realizes that her life before Von's murder may actually have been even more sheltered than she believed, and she struggles to determine where the truth lies between the two nations about to go to war.
Drown the Bones was one of my favorite books this year! Though the characters are young (this is a new adult romance), I absolutely loved the writing in this book. There was also SO much minority representation in this book (LGBTQIA+, plus size FMC, etc) which I LOVE to see in books. I think there was just a lot of intrigue and tension that built with Phoenix being a ghost and them not being able to touch each other even if they wanted to, so the slow burn just hit SO hard. It had me not wanting to put the book down. I sacrificed sleep and prime lunch time to read two days in a row and absolutely ate this one up. Highly recommend and can't wait for my shelf trophy to get here.
This was also yet another banger from Berkley XO, Berkley's new imprint and I am now 2 for 2 on loving the books and can't wait to see what else comes out of this imprint. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of Drown the Bones (thank you!!!) but all thoughts and opinions are always my own.