The Bone Season is Samantha Shannon's debut novel.
You probably haven't heard of her. Yet. I didn't, until I picked up my monthly Forbes magazine and saw a feature article written about her.
"Rumored as the next J.K. Rowling"--a pretentious idea, considering J.K. Rowling is still very much alive, is nevertheless a headline you'll look at twice.
Samantha Shannon wrote her first novel when she was 15. By the time she was ready to send it in to agents, a terrifyingly similar novel hit the Young Adult bestseller shelves. And by comparison, hers just wasn't publishable material. She was rejected. And rejected. And rejected again. Until, billowed by defeat, she locked herself in her room and drowned in rejection slips (Figuratively speaking).
If you don't know the feeling of having your book rejected, imagine, instead, professing your love to a crush you've had for years. All that damn daisy petal plucking and scribbling sonnets that sweat with torrential longing. All those nights tossing and turning and downing glass after glass of water, because nothing can quench the thirst.
And her only response is....indifference.
Bitch.
Anyway. This story only matters if you didn't end up a homeless hobo who wanders about telling everyone you bump into 'About that girl'.
Samantha went on to study English in Oxford (Which turns out to be a sumptuously Gothic setting in the book) where she simultaneously wrote and planned The Bone Season. During an internship she presented her manuscript and ended up with a six figure deal with Bloomsbury Publishing.
What is this book about: A paranormal dystopian set in the year 2059. Nineteen year old Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underground network of 'Scion' London as a Dreamwalker. Her job is to gather information by breaking into people's minds. In a realm of spirits, auras, and warring dimensional creatures, your gift is your crime.
After committing murder on a subway, Paige is arrested and sent to a mysterious voyant prison.
Her captors, the Rephaim, are a powerful otherworldly race who were supposedly wiped off the map hundreds of years ago. Now they seek out people like Paige to fight for them, against a force threatening to destroy humanity.
What I think about this book: Samantha has been praised for her ambition and "teeming imagination". She writes from a plush descriptive voice, vastly imaginative, carefully sewing together a meticulous plot.
Paige is clever, Irishly defiant, and has a fortress for a mind. The romance element of master/captive is bolder than you will find in the typical YA book.
The layers and levels of 'spiritrinomics' along with the writing style is fairly complex for the casual teen, or even adult, reader. You'll have to refer to a map and a page of unusually named hierarchies. It does, however, have huge potential for a cult following. And the fact that this is only the first book in a to-be seven part series does sound promising.
Who should read this book: The curious, escapist-fiction fans, and the dreamers.
Watch here for the book trailer
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