Did I expect to become utterly obsessed with a book which completely bewildered me for the first few chapters? A book that has been out for years and already has three sequels but has never really caught my eye? No I absolutely didn’t but I did!

A note on the edition: I received the 10th Anniversary fully revised edition from Bloomsbury, which is said to contain new scenes and altered scenes. I can’t compare how much it differs from the original text so my review will solely be based on this edition. 

“’Scion left me alive thirteen years ago, to bear witness. To spread fear,’ I said quietly. ‘I want to remind them that if you leave one spark aglow, it can still burn everything down.’ My face hardened. ‘Let’s give them a day to remember, like they did for us in Ireland. I’lI help you get your vengeance. You help me

get mine.’”

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon is a novel which truly dazzles with its complex worldbuilding, enigmatic characters and a twisty fast paced rollercoaster of a plot.

Enter Scion London, a place in some ways much like our own and simultaneously far different. In the district of Seven Dials, Paige Mahoney walks in the shadows as part of an underground criminal syndicate run by the notorious Jaxon Hall. Yet this is no ordinary criminal gang, this is a syndicate made up of powerful Clairvoyants, and Paige has one of the rarest abilities, she’s a dreamwalker. Although Paige doesn’t quite know the full range of her clairvoyance abilities yet, she can sense other Clairvoyants, she can determine the strength of their powers, she can enter people’s minds and gather information. Is it any wonder why the Government does all they can to hunt and eradicate Clairvoyants throughout Scion? After years of avoiding the Vigils’ gaze one mistake sees Paige drugged and kidnapped, but instead of facing execution she is transported to Oxford, a city believed to have been destroyed over two hundred years ago. Yet that is not the only secret to be uncovered, for within Oxford resides the Rephaim race. Here we meet Warden, a Rephaite charged with keeping Paige in line, molding her to become useful to their race. Paige however, won’t be kept prisoner and she’ll not become subservient, she will fight for her freedom. 

Right from the first chapter Shannon throws her readers into the deep end and I definitely felt the struggle to stay afloat. We are presented with this world where a myriad of clairvoyants exist, each with their own set of skills, their own coloured aura and their own range of power. The world is filled with ghosts, poltergeists and angels that can either be bound to a clairvoyant or summoned by one. Then there are the government’s several factions hired to hunt them, some of whom are clairvoyants and some  amaurotics—humans. There is a lot of fictional terminology and idioms to get our heads around and even with the added glossary and the order of clairvoyance guide, it’s a lot to take in to say the least. However as the chapters progressed, Shannon’s compelling narrative pulled me in, her world began to fall into place as more and more was unveiled and Paige’s story was something I couldn’t put down. The sheer magnitude of detailed worldbuilding completely won me over, the magic system was something which I kept learning new things about, it is ever evolving, just like when reading a Brandon Sanderson novel.

Paige Mahoney is a character who falls into the ‘chosen one’ trope, but this was by no means a bad thing for me as it’s one of my favourite tropes. However, she isn’t perfect nor does her dreamwalker clairvoyancy make her all powerful. The Paige we first meet could be rather guarded, stubborn and petulant, she would let her anger and smart mouth get the better of her which sees her put through a lot of suffering. Her dreamwalking is also a double edged sword as although it gives her an extremely powerful advantage, should she leave her body to dreamwalk for a long period she could die. Paige also has a rather sad backstory with her facing much prejudice for being Irish and witnessing an awful event when she was just six years old. Throughout the novel we see Paige grow into a more practical character, one who tries to make sense of the memories of her past, and eventually one who begins to care deeply for others. In the dismal streets of Oxford where fellow prisoners Liss and Julian befriend Paige we see the beginnings of a found family form and each person whether a human or clairvoyant began to touch Paige’s life in a way that made her not just strive for her own freedom but for theirs too. I absolutely love this kind of narrative drive and Shannon did an exceptional job with it here.

“’For three years, you have lived in the shadow of the White Binder. Here, that shadow cannot touch you. When you arrived in this city, I did not meet the Pale Dreamer. I met Paige Mahoney – and I think that she is a force to be reckoned with:’”

So who are the Rephaim and why are they holding clairvoyant and human prisoners? Well you’ll just have to read to find out because although this book has been out for ten years I’d luckily managed to escape reading any spoilers about this part and so when I did discover what they were and what their purpose was I was deeply captivated. What I will say though is the Rephaim are a powerful and cruel race but there are those hidden among them who have the capacity for empathy for those captured. Whether Warden, a Rephaite who covets secret after secret, was one of those few was something that again was so compelling to find out. 

Though this novel is set in the future with Scion holding advanced technology and specific technology to detect clairvoyants, Oxford felt like a step back in time. Much was in ruins and the conditions were more primitive, yet the two places did have one thing in common. In fact Scion and Oxford were essentially one in the same, both different types of prisons. In Scion Clairvoyants were called ‘unnaturals’—viewed as dangerous monsters which society needed to eradicate, the only place to hold a measure of  freedom was within the syndicate, especially amongst Jaxon’s Seven Seals, but that made you a criminal and still meant you had to hide. In Oxford Clairvoyants may roam out in the open, their abilities were not hidden but the Reph’s treated them no better than lowly servants, and they were still not permitted to leave. Shannon shows us here that people like Paige will never truly find freedom… or at least not easily.

The Bone Season is an impressive first instalment, one that made me want to delve even deeper into the shady world of Scion and its network of Clairvoyants. Though technically I could as the next three books are already published it has been advised that if you read this revised edition, it’s better to then wait and read the revised editions of the sequels as they are released in 2024, so that’s what I’ll do. I guess Shannon will just have me pondering about Paige’s journey until then.

“I stood alone in the slush of the citadel, tears chilling my cheeks, wondering where I would tell the driver to take me – the girl with no home, dancing upon

nothing.”

ARC provided by Ben at Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the copy! The Bone Season is out now!