The Crown of Bones

By: Rosalyn Briar

Narrated by: Aleksi Graves

Gisela knows about sacrifice all too well.

She abandoned her education, friends, and fairy tales to support her family and care for her sister.

But when she jilts a wealthy suitor, Gisela is chosen for another type of sacrifice.

As an Offering to the Goddess Bergot, Gisela and seven others are sent on a deadly quest for a mythical crown. To return home, Gisela must overcome obstacles which darkly resemble the fairy tales she once believed.

Weaving through a tapestry of friendship, romance, violence, and magic - Gisela becomes the target of an ancient evil force, while an ominous detail from the past haunts her at every turn.

To what lengths will Gisela go to save the ones she loves?

Sometimes sacrifices must be made.

Trigger Warnings: This book contains graphic violence, cursing, and sexual situations.

©2020 Rosalyn Briar (P)2020 Rosalyn Briar

Solid but Railroad-y?

A solid story with solid characters. The premise is interesting (though I would have appreciated it more, I think, if I was more intimately familiar with a wider array of Grimm's Fairy Tales).

My main complaint is that (and this is a weird thing to say about a novel) it felt like railroading? The story is structured super-linearly. There is a path, and if you walk off the path into the mist you die. You have one way to go and you must react to what is in front of you. It certainly didn't ruin the book for me, and the characters uncover their own agency and have clever solutions to the problems in front of them, but it did feel constricting as a reader.