Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto

Book Review

Sarah Deeming

In the Dominion, when someone dies, that is not the end. Thanks to the magic leaking from the Breach, ghosts and other dead creatures walk the earth attacking the living unless a bonesmith severs the link between them. Wren is a bonesmith and the granddaughter of the head of the House of Bone. All she needs is to pass her final test, and then she will be a Valkyr and sent on missions to protect the Dominion from the dead. But treachery during her final exam sees Wren fail and be banished to the Borderwall, where nothing ever happens, and she will have no chance of redemption. A  visit by a prince of the House of Gold, Leo, gives her a chance, someone of power on her side, but he is kidnapped and taken beyond the wall where the dead roam free. If Wren can get Leo back, then she can return to her family in a blaze of glory, but to save the prince, Wren has to form a pact with the sworn enemy of the bonesmiths, an ironsmith, Julian, a member of a rival family whose mining for ore caused the Breach and the intensifying of the dead. Can they put aside their differences to save Leo, or will Wren be betrayed again?

Bonesmith is the first in a new YA duology called House of the Dead, focusing on the relationship between three young people, potential heirs to their respective houses, and their parents/carers. From the offset, we realise that Wren’s relationship with her family is strained; her grandmother can’t stand her, and she is looking for an excuse to get rid of Wren. Her father can’t defend her from her grandmother, so when Wren is banished, he has no choice but to go along with it. Leo and Julian are in similar situations where the people they should be able to trust have betrayed them and find more support in their found families than their blood ones. 

This book stood out for me because of the world-building. There are different houses that can control certain elements, so goldsmiths can manipulate gold, silversmiths, silver, and so on. As a bonesmith, Wren can fight ghosts and use bones against them, and Julian can manipulate iron, creating perfectly fitted armour and altering his weapon from a sword to a whip. There were also ghostsmiths, necromancers who could control ghosts, but these were all destroyed in a war that happened before Wren was born.

The war started when the ironsmiths mined too deeply and opened the Breach, an outpouring of ghosts and death magic which threatened the world. The Borderwall was created to protect the Dominion, but the ironsmiths stayed on their side of the wall. When the ironsmiths didn’t get the help they needed from the rest of the Dominion, they tried to take it by force, but the bonesmiths led a final attack and killed them all. Although this war happened twenty years before the events of this story, the world is still affected by this war. There is a whole lot of mistrust between the houses as well as within them.

I really engaged with Wren as a character. In the beginning, she is most definitely the reason for her downfall, as she is arrogant and overly confident. However, she is also a fast learner, so she quickly adapts to her situation, understands when her actions have caused her current situation, and rarely makes the same mistake twice. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t make mistakes throughout the books, just different ones as she grows. She is decisive and action-based, though she is also capable of sneaking and planning when the situation requires.

I really enjoyed Bonesmith. I liked the characters, I thoroughly enjoyed the dark aesthetic of the world, and the story unravels at a decent pace, giving us answers and creating new questions to carry on into the second book, Ghostsmith.