Review: A River of Golden Bones by A.K. Mulford (ARC)
From the publisher:
Twins Calla and Briar have spent their entire lives hiding from the powerful sorceress who destroyed their kingdom...and from the humans who don't know they are Wolves. Each twin has their own purpose in life: Briar's is to marry the prince of an ally pack and save the Golden Court. Calla's purpose is to remain a secret, her twin's shadow . . . the backup plan.
No one knows who Calla truly is except for her childhood friend--and sister's betrothed--the distractingly handsome Prince Grae. But when Calla and Briar journey out of hiding for Briar's wedding, all of their well-made plans go awry. The evil sorceress is back with another sleeping curse for the last heir to the Golden Court.
Calla must step out of the shadows to save their sister, their kingdom, and their own legacy. Continuing to hide as a human and denying who she truly is, Calla embarks on a quest across the realm, discovering a whole world she never knew existed. Outside the confines of rigid Wolf society, Calla begins to wonder: who could she be if she dared to try?
Full of adventure, love, gender exploration, and self-discovery, A River of Golden Bones follows Calla's journey through treacherous Wolf kingdoms, monster-filled realms, and the depths of their own heart in this thrilling romantic fantasy.
Review:
This review contains spoilers.
Thank you to NetGalley for the e-arc of this book.
I love A.K. Mulford, I love everything they have written and I have ARC read for other releases and gushed over them and recommended them to everyone I know, and it greatly saddened me that I disliked this book so much.
Reading this felt like reading a first draft. The story could've been amazing, but it was convoluted and disjointed. Nothing flowed, the characters were underdeveloped and the plot felt forced at times.
The story starts out with a huge info dump. Calla and Briar are twin princesses born to the King and Queen of the Gold wolves. The night they were born, the evil sorceress Sawyn murdered their father and due to the fated mate bond, their mother died immediately, and also while giving birth. Their mother's dying wish to keep her daughter safe until she was 20 and of marrying age was spoken to a faery and basically supercharged her magic. The twins have been raised in a glamoured manor in the woods and no one (save Briar's betrothed Prince Grae and his father) knows of Calla's existence--they were hidden and lived in Briar's shadow serving as her guard. Calla immediately comes off as immature and naive. They're constantly comparing themself to their sister and does not stop talking about how Briar is the beautiful and willowy one with curves in all the right places and Calla is just short, chunky and mousy, even though they are constantly working out and training to be a soldier. Briar is perfect in every way and always knows how to dress and what to say and Calla, well they literally threw a tantrum because their faery godmother wanted them to wear a dress to dinner with the prince. They should wear pants because they're a wArRiOr. I seriously thought they was 14 throughout the first five or so chapters because of how bratty they acted.
The story takes a pretty predictable turn with the sorcerer discovering that Briar is alive and basically turning her into Sleeping Beauty, followed by Calla on a mission to save their sister. We also have Calla running from Grae, because he wouldn't stand up to his father and them running into a traveling group of musicians that have the weirdest wagon that I honestly could not visualize for the life of me so I pictured it like the castle from Howl's Moving Castle but on wheels? Ora is the best part of this whole traveling musician plot. They are probably the most fleshed out of all the side characters, but still severely lacking. Ora helps Calla come to terms with their non-binary identity. Which is cool, but half the book felt like we were forgetting the main point of the journey to save Briar... especially when Grae and Calla make up and start their sex spree.
However, the most ridiculous part came at the end, when Calla confronts Sawyn and is giving a whole monologue about how she has failed the kingdom she stole from Calla's father and suddenly it becomes about Calla's gender identity. Sawyn completely turns the climax into "ohoho you haven't told your mate you're an enby! LET'S TELL HIM NOW AND WATCH AS HE REJECTS YOU!" and obviously he didn't? But it was just so weird that in this huge confrontational scene, Calla's gender identity takes front and center and not all of the atrocities that have been committed by Sawyn. Calla brings them up, but all you can say is "HAHAHA YOU'RE NOT BOY OR GIRL!". Especially when Sawyn is literally the only person who has found out and cared one way or another. Now, having a story about gender identity in a fantasy setting is not the issue, the issue is how the entire story of the evil sorceress murdering the twins family and abusing the people of the kingdom (along with the discovery of the systematic human oppression by the werewolf rulers) and not making that the MAIN issue.
The ending was actually done really well, and I did get teary eyed, but I will not be continuing with this series. It could have done well with at least one more editing pass and maybe some fleshing out to streamline and give the characters some depth. Briar was a huge part of the story and I think she spoke maybe ten lines in the entire book.
2.5/5 Stars
A River of Golden Bones will be released on December 5, 2023