Book Review: Your Blood and Bones by J. Patricia Anderson

Genre(s): Fantasy / Dark Fantasy

Book Synopsis:

Kill the monsters when they’re found.

No matter who they used to be.

The girl with secret feathers in her skin and strange bones jutting out beneath her clothes is resigned to her fate. Her deformities mark her a monster and the stories say monsters must die.

When her family finds out and turns on her, a village boy saves her and leads her on a frantic escape. The girl believes her death has merely been delayed—until he mentions a cure.

With the world against them and the monstrous change progressing, they must cross water, forest, and field to chase the rumor that fuels their desperate hope. But is hope enough to keep them going?

Review:

I have a soft spot for stories about monsters that aren’t monstrous at heart, and tales featuring misunderstood people coping with impossible situations. This was a natural fit.

The girl and the boy are both afflicted with a malady that they’re told will lead to their transformation into monsters, but even as their inexplicable changes continue, they’re still themselves at heart. They want to live, to love, to experience the world, and the promise of a cure gives them hope.

They’re never named in the story, nor are any of the characters they encounter. Typically, I find stories written that way feel emotionally distant, but this one wasn’t. It was beautifully and poignantly painful, but that undercurrent of hope never disappeared—even when things were at their darkest.

I really enjoyed this one, and as a novella, it was a quick read.

Author website: rootoftheworldpublishing.com