The Song Rising

The Bone Season, Book 3

By: Samantha Shannon

Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins

Bloomsbury presents The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon, read by Alana Kerr Collins.

A stunning new edition of the third novel in the bestselling Bone Season series with gorgeous new cover artwork and updated text, by the bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree.

Following a fierce battle for the Rose Crown, Paige Mahoney has risen to the dangerous position of Underqueen, ruling over the clairvoyant syndicate of London. But with vengeful enemies still at large, the task of stabilising the fractured underworld has never seemed so challenging.

As Paige rallies her army of criminals, she continues to meet in secret with her former enemy, Arcturus Mesarthim. Should they be discovered, the fragile alliance with the Ranthen will fail.

But all bets are off when Scion introduces Senshield, a deadly technology that spells doom for clairvoyants. Now Paige must race against the clock to stop her reign from ending in blood.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2017, 2024 Samantha Shannon (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Current day implications

It's hard to listen to this book and not think of Israel’s authoritarian reign over Gaza and the West Bank, straight down to the Scarlett letter identification, the rolling in of tanks, the kidnapping of residents under the auspices of law enforcement, and, of course, the tunnels.

The issuing of martial law “for our own good” is too close to the current Trump administration’s military takeover of Washington to be comfortable.

Sadly, no matter how much history or dystopian fiction we read, humans are racist at their core, addicted to power, and are willing to use any amount of violence to achieve our goals. We build ourselves up by condemning others as beneath us. Once we obtain any amount of power over another, we will do whatever it takes to maintain and grow that power, and we’d rather stick our heads in the sand and ignore than face facts and potentially endanger ourselves.

Many points in this book are so close to the political reality in our world (minus the giants—it's just humans here on earth, but humans are far worse than aliens or giants).

The book is well written and can be entertaining if you can get past the crunch-worthy connections to current reality. As readers, we often project what we would do onto the characters—we can do that here as well—but that forces you to ask yourself what you are doing to stop these horrors in real life.

Perfection

I don’t have anything additional to add that I didn’t already say in my review of Dark Mirror. Perfection

Amazing narration

I’ll be adding this narrator to my favorites list! And I am loving this series! I’m getting entirely too invested!

Series keeps getting better

Great story again from SS and performance from AKC. So glad for this author's preferred text edition allowing it to be re-recorded.

Amazing Narrator

This Narrator is SO good! She brings the story to life in a way you can’t get just reading it. She does so many different accents and voices so well. I have listened to hundreds of audiobooks through Audible and this series is probably THE best performed!