I loved getting closer to the truth of the Bone Season world throughout this instalment. 4 books deep and there are still a lot of mysteries to unravel and I enjoyed inching closer with every chapter. I love it when novellas are very important and add to the story and that is exactly what that one did. I also think it was brilliant that the hardest, rawest, and more triggering part of the healing process was handled in a separate work, so if that is uncomfortable or triggering for you you can just skip it and you will not really miss anything. Egan, Elisabeth. "First Fiction 2013: Welcome To the Future - Samantha Shannon". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved 21 August 2013.

Shannon began writing The Bone Season while working for book agent David Godwin and attending St Anne's College, Oxford. [7] She had started working for Godwin when he offered her an internship after he declined her earlier novel Aurora. [1] After some time looking over manuscripts and gaining experience in the book business, Shannon came up with the premise for The Bone Season. [1] Shannon imagined "a girl, having the exact same day at work that I was, but she happened to be clairvoyant" and began planning the novel while on her lunch break. [8] She began using the environment of St Anne's College and the overall University of Oxford architecture and landscaping as an inspiration for the novel's Sheol I penal colony setting. An interviewer noted that Oxford has many "impossibly neat, manicured lawns and well-tended buildings that act as a kind of tree-ring-dating window onto Britain's architectural past (and present)." [1] Shannon came up with the idea of a shanty town in between the colleges as a way of "juxtaposing the squalor the humans were forced to live in and the grand colleges where The Rephaim live on either side." [9] Reception [ edit ]It was the sweetest most perfect crescendo and resolution of a tightly coiled story ever. I swear, it's one of my favorite developed love stories because is so incredibly careful in the slow progression of it and the incredibly believable build-up of trust and closeness. The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by locating human minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, the rarest type of clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.

The growing love story between Warden and Paige is extremely enjoyable, it is subtle and doesn't totally overshadow the actual storyline, and is well paced. You never think it unbelievable or too rushed, but just enjoy the ride. It isn't a big romantic story, which it may grow to be, but the very start of what could develop into an epic love.In this prequel, we are shown the origins of Paige's alias, her special talent, and how she assisted in Anne Naylor's case which is intriguing and a bit macabre! I enjoyed the writing style; however, I am a bit confused with the Victorian “feel” of the language used in a world set in the future - to me, it’s quite jarring and I can’t fully meld the two things together.

Samantha Shannon has been far more prolific than most authors (especially considering her books are huge) and has had a pretty damn impressive run so far. I've been waiting for a new Arthur Golden book for more than a decade and you don't see my ass online bullying him. (I'm aware this book is never coming - he got that sweet, sweet Memoirs of a Geisha money and BOUNCED, and good for him.)

That ending... I'll need forever to get over that ending. Honestly, a book ending hadn't chilled me so since Lord of Shadows.