The Bone Orchard: A Book Response

The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller

I picked this book up on a whim -- or rather, downloaded it from Libby on a whim. I was attracted first by the cover and then by the blurb: psychics, necromancy, magic and alchemy, an Empire on the brink of civil war, and a murder-mystery all in one! Colour me intrigued!

I was even more surprised to find that the book is set in a vaguely Victorian-esque? Regency-esque? era rather than a pseudo-medieval one, although definitely in its own world rather than ours!

As ever, spoilers ahead!

This is a dark book, and rather slow paced until we get closer to the end, when several things happen in quick succession. It deals with trauma, rape, pedophilia, murder, torture, oppression, mental health issues, enslavement, body horror, human experimentation, free will, imperialism, and more...but none of it felt grim for the sake of grimness.

I was deeply drawn into Charm and her boneghosts' lives, their personalities and idiosyncrasies and complexities, their pains and their loves. When I realized that the women of the Orchard House where all facets of one person given form, I was blown away. What a fascinating depiction of dissociative identity disorder! What a heart-breaking coping method! What a cruel, and yet merciful, way to manage, survive, and heal from harrowing suffering!

I especially loved the boneghosts Pride and Pain and their distinct personalities and ways of interacting with the world. Pain-turned-Mercy was a deft conclusion to her story and growth, a beautiful semi-sanctification of a character whose pain only made her kind. It doesn't erase or invalidate or make acceptable her suffering, but it does allow something beautiful to flourish from all that misery. I ached so much for Desire and young Justice. Shame being the first of them to die -- in fact, being introduced to us  as she's dying -- was very clever writing and characterization. And Charm herself was ruthlessly, understandably pragmatic. Her goal was always and ever to survive long enough to be free.

I was also captivated by Charm's relationship with her Emperor - the man who enslaved her but also saved her on some level. The man who promised to give her her freedom and agency, which he'd always had the ability to give back to her and no right to steal from her, in exchange for one last life-threatening task. I wanted to loathe him. On some level I did. And yet Charm thinks fondly of him, and we read from Charm's point-of-view, and it's baffling that she's fond of him, horrifying that she is, but understandable too. It's not just Stockholm syndrome, or rather if it is, it's not only that.

On simpler terms, I adored the Emperor's (latest) wife and the Firedrinkers; they stole my heart and kept it. They are trapped in different ways politically and literally, and they do the best they can with the agency they are permitted to have, and their dignity was profound. The villains were awful and awfully sympathetic, the sundry minor characters felt real and tragic and ultimately human. My only gripe is that some characters -- Major Nathair in particular -- were presented as though they would be pivotal to the plot and then...vanished until the last few pages; the weight of their introduction to the story thus felt unfulfilled.

The only character who irritated me deeply was Lady; she was so cringing, so cowardly, so moralistic! But oh, she was meant to be. I liked Charm so much better than her, and the idea that she was who Charm really was was insupportable, but I was supposed to feel that way. And that was a brilliant stroke of characterization; a wonderful red-herring.

Plot-wise...this book was, as I mentioned, slow going. I wouldn't have minded, as it seemed to me this was a book about the characters more than the events, but certain plot twists were telegraphed pretty early so I got impatient for the reveals, while other plot twists were slipped in so subtly I had to reread some chapters or even lines to make sure I'd caught the implication of a few words.

The courtly intrigues also felt a bit...murky? They were there, but they seemed less complex and more...muddy. As though they wanted to be more layered and fine-drawn, but instead just became a bit muddled and confusing. I powered through, and things became clearer eventually, but that seems like a lot of effort for a reader to be taking. (Even though I'm definitely not one for spelling things out for the reader either).

Finally, the resolution was a bit of a letdown in some ways. While some characters' arcs were concluded in a deeply satisfactory way, others' were -- as I mentioned -- anticipated early on, so I didn't feel that fulfilled by them. But that may have been largely because I wanted...more. More out of this world that offered such fascinating glimpses into it, more out of this horrible empire, more out of the implications of the empire's awfulness and psychic powers and empathy fluid and the bone tree.

​Still, that's beyond the scope of the book which was, in the end, really about Charm healing through the vehicle of her task and gaining her freedom to make her choices.