This is one of those books that I knew I wanted to read the second that I saw the cover. It look haunting but beautiful. Atmospheric in a way that may make my skin crawl, but would also draw me fully into the story. Thank you so much to Toppling Stacks Tours for allowing me to take part in this tour for The Bone Brides.
About The Book:
Author:
Marley Rose-Teter
Pub.Date:
September 29, 2026
Find it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound
Hayao Miyazaki meets Guillermo del Toro in this Sapphic YA portal fantasy in which a girl must save her changeling girlfriend from a terrifying faery realm.
Nola James can handle it. She can handle that her father is dead. She can handle that her friends, bored with her grief, left her behind. Nola James has to handle it because Lumi—the love of her life and a faery changeling—is in danger. Not only is Lumi's human mother trying to kill her, but she’s being hunted by veiled monsters that want to return her to the fae. Hiding out in an abandoned cabin with only a skeleton-rabbit for company is hard, but Nola can handle it. And she does.
Until Lumi is abducted.
In order to save her, Nola must enter the faery realm: a boggy world in which eyeless horses
parade as brides, ghost-bees produce transformative honey, and skeletons dance in skin-
colored cloaks. Aided by a witch-girl with uncertain motives, Nola uncovers the realm’s terrifying
power over changelings. If Nola can’t outplay an abyssal faery queen and find the courage to let
the world see her own pain, Lumi will be trapped—not only in faeryland but in a skin that’s not
her own
Review:
I got to read this book at a time when I wanted to be fully drawn into a story. I wanted to feel entirely immersed in a different world. This book was a perfect fit. Marley Rose-Teter does a fantastic job at making the world feel alive. Lush and creepy and beautiful. Atmospheric in a way that drew me into the story.
Nola is a fantastic character. She's been through a lot in her life and it deeply effects who she is as a person. She's not her trauma, not entirely, but she is shaped by it. It can get heavy at times, it doesn't exactly start off light, so please be gentle with yourself. Check the trigger and content warnings and put the book down if you need to.
The relationship between Nola and Lumi is nice, but I didn't feel as attached to it as I had expected. At no point did I question Nola's love for Lumi, but it was hard to feel attached when they spent so much of the book apart. The romance is a driving force, but I don't think I'd consider it a main genre. It's a fantasy driven by romance, but the romance isn't necessarily the main focus.
The plot was really interesting and I loved watching Nola have to navigate this new, strange world. It was confusing at times, but that was mainly because Nola herself is confused. Eventually things start clearing up and making more sense, but not until Nola is learning more about this world and its inhabitants. It wasn't confusing enough to put me off of the story, but it was a bit distracting.
Favorite Quotes:
-"Nola, meet Jeffrey. Jeffrey, Nola."
-...using something actually magic as its guide.
-"The dance will either spit you out or swallow you down."
-"You have to feel your sadness sometimes."
-"Allow me now...to pull a rabbit from my hat."
About Marley Rose-Teter:
Marley Rose-Teter lives in the Santa Cruz mountains with her partner, child, any number of house-rabbit friends, and a garage full of Halloween decorations. She has performed on Shakespeare’s Globe stage in London, worked in a maid café in Tokyo, and been told on a first date that she uses an absurd amount of subordinate clauses when she speaks. When not writing, she can be found directing local theatre or speaking at anime conventions. She goes at everything she does with her whole heart and strives always to be a bride married to amazement. The Bone Brides is her debut novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment