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I had really high hopes for this one. The description sounded great and I previously read and really enjoyed The Girl From the Well books by Chupeco. I wish I could say I enjoyed Wicked As You Wish but it just never really grabbed me and if I'm being completely honest it ended up feeling like a chore to finish it. This is one of those times that I wish I was more of the DNF camp because it would have saved me weeks of dragging my heels through this book.

I'm trying to think of way to adequately describe what this story felt like, and the best I can come up with is it reminded me of leftover surprise. You know that ramshackle meal you throw together when you really need to go shopping or you're feeling kinda lazy and you just grab a bunch of random ingredients that are still good and you have on hand and throw them in a pot with broth or a casserole and call it dinner. This book was like that to me. Insert a handful of fairytale characters, a dash of legends and mythology, a pinch of hot topic social issues, a sprinkle of different cultures, and a side of LGBTQ. Voila, dinner is served! All of these on their own are wonderful ingredients, brought together they can make one incredibly tasty dish, but in this case it just didn't work for me as a cohesive recipe. Nothing quite married or really brought it all together.

It ended up feeling like instead of bringing these elements together in a new exciting way pieces of them were just mashed together but never quite fit as a whole. Getting thrown into the fantasy world blind at the beginning was jarring, which could have been ok for me if I understood it more as we went on, but honestly even after the end I'm still confused by it.

When the fantasy end falls short a reader can sometimes turn to the characters to carry them through, some cool peeps to get behind, or someone to root for. When I inevitably turned there I also felt like something was lacking. None of these characters were stand out for me.

Maybe the most interesting to me was 'the Scourge of Buyan' which seemed unfortunately used more to try and make Tala somewhat interesting rather than an intriguing character on its own. Ryker maybe being a younger version of that could have been something but we really didn't see much of him, especially not much beyond the surface level of his high school crushiness that dominated the beginning.

All in all this was just not for me, as much as I wish that wasn't the case. Definitely not something I'd be interested in continuing as a series.

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I received an ARC of this book from SOURCEBOOKS FIRE via Netgalley and this is my honest review.

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This was a creepy novel with a main character that's a ghost that takes revenge on people who kill children. Unfortunately it devolved into a bunch of rituals but overall it wasn't bad. It did rely on some improbable happenings (Tarq and the smiling man) and a completely incompetent police infrastructure.

I’m finding it really hard to write this review, because although I really enjoyed The Heart Forger, I can’t tell you specifically why.

I liked that there was heaps of action on the present tense this time around, as opposed to just dropping titbits about the past tense story to keep our interest.

I liked that the gang, expanding wonderfully to now include LGBTI rep and a former nemesis turned snarky ally, travelled to other kingdoms so we could see more of the world.

I really liked the romance. I thought it was a lovely slow burn and the tension was nicely written. I really liked how Tea had such an intense crush in the first book and ended up falling in love with someone else, because it’s such a representation of what naturally happens, not only when you are a teenager but all through life as well. None of this ‘the first person I am ever attracted to/have feelings for is my forever soulmate.’ I think it helped that we saw who her love interest was in the present, and so I was eagerly listening for any hint of their developing romance in the past. It was cute, but also meaningful, because Tea and her love interest have a whole lot of respect and admiration for each other.

As for the plot, I did enjoy it, but it wasn’t completely thrilling. I liked the antagonists and the twists, and the pacing was fine. I mean, if you asked me what it was about, I’d have to say something like, ‘the gang investigate why their friend has been attacked with a sleeping spell’ which doesn’t sound all that interesting, but for some reason I really did enjoy the book.

I know a large part of my enjoyment stems from the magnificent narration provided by Emily Woo Zeller. She’s just so immensely talented that I can’t even put into words how much I enjoy it. I could ask for – and probably receive – an ARC of the third book in this series, but honestly I just want her to read it to me. She gets at the heart of every emotion, and she has a different and distinct voice for every single character, including very impressive male voices. Her delivery gives you a sense of the characters even without the text necessarily providing that.

I’m pretty keen on Book 3 and I have been well and truly sucked into this world and Tea’s adventures.

I really knew nothing about this book before getting into it. I’d only read the blurb, which although it had interested me because HELLO NECROMANCY (I hate zombies though, I know right?) and I hadn’t read any reviews, so I didn’t know:

• That it was framed from a bard’s point of view.
• That it was sold as magical Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Name of the Wind.
• That the author was from the Philippines.
• That this was not the author’s debut novel.
• Anything about the author’s previous work.

Some people claimed there was a cliffhanger, but I would argue it’s not a cliffhanger. Cliffhangers are literally named after the device used in old TV serials where the episode would end with the hero hanging off the edge of a cliff, and ‘tune in next week!’ slapped across it. It was designed to ‘force’/’emotionally blackmail’/ ‘fear of missing out’ people into watching the next episode. Lots of soap operas also use cliffhangers. I absolutely hate when first books in a series end on cliffhangers, or chop off the end of their resolution to stick it into the next book. I think it’s a horrible, cheap way to try to force the sale of the next book when the first story could have easily been wrapped up all on its own. Although this story was unfinished in the greater thread of the narrative, this book did not have a cliffhanger. It did not have an ‘edge of the seat what happens next’ dangling enticement tacked on to the end. The Bone Witch was a complete story with all of its ends wrapped up, but with a promise and a threat that could be addressed in second novel. So I didn’t hate the ending, and it actually made me interested in reading the second book, rather than putting me off it.

I did have issues with the Bard’s part of the story. I didn’t think it actually worked and I think it would have been better if the whole narrative wasn’t framed as Tea retelling her story to the Bard. Mostly because he kept referring to her as ‘the girl’. But also because Tea kept dropping hints that her retelling would get bigger and better and more interesting if only we’d keep ‘listening’, but in the end the things she was promising us didn’t even happen in this book, and it kind of felt like a big set up for Book 2. (And in this way, I think listening to the audiobook was a really good method, because the whole story was framed as Tea verbally retelling her story to the Bard, and it just worked really well listening to it.)

Memoirs of a Geisha is one of my favourite books and I was pleased to see the influence of geisha custom had on the story (I know MOAG is fiction, but it is still largely historically accurate in the portrayal of geisha custom). I’m still a little confused as to why these women warriors were trained in the fine arts to please men when the male warriors of the same skill, called Deathseekers, were not. I mean, historically geisha were first men, then a mix of men and women, and then only women. The asha and the Deathseekers were both skilled the same magically, and women asha were required to train in combat, but it seemed like they mostly hung around the Willows entertaining people while the men went off to battle. I understand that it’s really sexist but it just seems a lot to heap on asha: they must learn music and dance, singing, the art of politics, just like geisha, but they must also train as warriors (just in case, maybe?). I’m not saying this should have been more faithful to geisha culture, I’m just saying it wasn’t really addressed. If the women were required to stay in the Willows and entertain people and only occasionally some of them ventured forth to battle, why were they also required to train in combat? And if the Deathseekers were warriors, why couldn’t they also stay in the Willows and entertain people?

I was also really confused about the concept of the heart’s glass. It just wasn’t very clear what it actually was: both an emotional mood stone and something precious you give to a romantic partner, and some of them can be remade and some of them can’t, and you need some kind of ceremony to receive one that everyone has to go through, and some people can make them and some people can’t. And does it sit on a chain around someone’s neck like a necklace? And how big is it? I was pretty confused. Nice concept, not very well executed.

I did like however that there didn’t seem, to me, to be much infodumping. I think this is because Tea was ‘retelling’ her tale to someone who already knew a lot about what she was talking about, but not everything. I liked how in the asha culture, dressmakers and magical hairdressers were really important and I loved the descriptions of all of the clothing and jewels, and it was nice seeing that these things were important in this culture and not at all frivolous. It was also nice seeing a young boy destined to become a Deathseeker choose a different path: which ties back in to my criticism on the sexism between the asha and the Deathseekers.

While I’m often reluctant to continue with book series, I’m actually enchanted enough by this world and characters that I’m happy to read book 2 and I can even imagine myself following this series long-term, which is rare for me.