The Bone Shard Daughter

What a surprise! I'd heard good things about this book but wasn't expecting to enjoy it just as much as I did.

We follow Lin, the emperor's daughter, unraveling the truth of her lost memories. This empire is one of islands, and the emperor creates constructs (think Frankenstein's monster but with more animal parts) powered by bone shards collected from citizens. While it took a while for me to get into the swing of things with her storyline, I immediately loved Jovis, a smuggler searching for his lost wife, and Mephi, his.... cat-otter-frog thing companion, and would be perfectly happy to read a whole book of their (mis?)adventures. Other POV characters include Phalue, a governor's daughter, and Sand, a woman on an island with no recollection of how she got there. I was less interested in these plot lines but they took up less time and certainly have implications going forward.

Overall, very impressed at this debut and will be looking forward to the next instalment!