Kathryn Purdie

Another satisfying blend of fantasy and a bit of horror, mixed nicely. Clara is desperate to be chosen at a monthly event that will allow her to cross into the Forest Grimm, so much so that she puts her name in seven times. She's attempted to enter the dark, magical woods before in a desperate hope to find her mother, but failed.
Her grandmother has tried to discourage her and that has been reinforced by the continual choosing of two frightening Tarot cards. Nothing, however, is strong enough show more to halt her efforts. When she and her friend Axel, manage entry into the woods hoping to find his intended bride and her mother, it's the beginning of a most eerie quest, one that has them encounter numerous lost villagers who have changed in unfathomable ways. This is a literary and very dark version of the old cartoon 'Fractured Fairy Tales,' and is oh, so satisfying. show less

When you've been groomed for a role that involves offing your intended in order to be worthy of assuming the role of escorting the dead to one of two eternities, you could be forgiven for coming across to others as on the bizarre side. When the boy who you think is your intended/prey, refuses to play nice because he's as interested in killing you as you are of killing him, you have a dandy beginning. Even though the attraction between Ailesse and Bastien is evident early on, that just makes show more watching it develop even more fun. Toss in his two best friends, her mother who isn't exactly being honest with anyone, especially herself, plus Ailesse's best friend who has her own struggles with her lot in life, and you have quite the cast. Then, there are the hordes of dead needing an escort across the bridge to their good, or bad reward. The moment I finished this, I ordered the sequel and am looking forward to finding out how everything gets sorted out. show less

At the fifteen percent mark of Bone Crier's Moon by Kathryn Purdie, I was all set to mark it as a DNF and move on with my life. To be fair to the author and publisher, I vowed to read until the twenty-five percent mark and see if I felt the same way. Happily, I did not. Instead, I stayed up until 2 AM to finish this cute but predictable story.

Yes, it is very predictable. This includes everything from the best friend to the mother to the love interest. Normally, the fact that there is really show more nothing that is surprising about the story would be a tremendous turnoff. Instead, you can tell that Ms. Purdie had a lot of fun writing her story, and that makes all the difference. Her delight becomes your delight as you watch this Beauty and Beast type (sort of) story unfold.

Along the way, Ms. Purdie does bring up some sticky topics for readers to ponder. These ideas include the definition of murder versus the definition of sacrifice as well as choice versus fate. She also throws in the age-old debate of whether the sacrifice of one for the good of the many is acceptable. Younger readers might not catch these philosophical points, but older readers like myself always appreciate the opportunities to reflect on such topics.

Now, the ending of Bone Crier's Moon has a certain plot development that looks like it might be headed into a very cliched and tired direction. I hope that is not Ms. Purdie's intent. For all its faults, I thoroughly enjoyed this magic-laden meet-cute masking as a fantasy novel about ferrying souls to their afterlives. I will not be happy if the second book in the series turns it into something different. show less

I was extremely misled into thinking this was a book about Charon, the Greek ferryman of the dead across the River Styx in the Underworld. This is instead a snooze-fest of over four hundred pages in which teenage girls stay exclusively on land, wail at one another, and kill animals to gain their powers. I guess that's ultimately how Bone Criers got their names. The book has multiple POVs: two Bone Criers who are apparently close friends, and a young man who's trying to avenge his father's show more murder by Bone Crier. The book flip-flopped between POVs for no real reason. It was like the author couldn't decide who the main character was, and was on an unfortunate deadline, and also mixed up the original Charon-inspired summary with another book entirely. Another, equally likely possibility is that she was so in love with her own characters and her writing that she couldn't bear not to include it all.

The chapters are ridiculously short and largely pointless to the actual plot, which is now the landlocked wailing teenagers, not Charon-inspired. The chapters do little for characterization, really. Just the characters thinking a lot, and watered-down drama. Each chapter could have easily been condensed into a paragraph. It would have made the book more readable. The action scenes were too oddly-placed to be interesting, and several times I wondered if I'd somehow missed something. The mentions and uses of bone flutes were interesting, but I've seen them used and described much better in other books. The Elders' Bones and how they were fashioned into jewelry and head-wear was fascinating, as were their choices of animals. Ooh, I hoped for a great action scene despite knowing I was going to be disappointed. The catacombs were both slightly gross and entirely lackluster. What a missed opportunity, as were the silver owl's pointless appearances.

Why, if all these women ferry the dead, can't they see the dead normally? Why do they have to kill a night-hawk to do it? Why are the dead only ferried once a month? Such foolish world-building. And the one that stunned me: one of the teenagers is shocked at just how many souls there are, on her first ferrying night. That speaks to poor training! Not one of the elders made it clear?? Wow. It's possible she wasn't paying attention in the original lesson, but still. As the book continued, I thought of how much more interesting this would have been were it about the Elders, no teens in sight. And to think, I was convinced this book would be wonderful. show less