Sunday 25 January 2015

Review: The Mime Order (The Bone Season #2) by Samantha Shannon

Title: The Mime Order (The Bone Season #2)
Author: Samantha Shannon
Published: 27 January 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing
Source:  Bloomsbury Publishing via netgalley in return for an honest review
Reviewed: Sapphired Dragon
Rating: **** 

My Review:

I really enjoyed this novel and in fact I am enjoying this series. I actually bought book 1, The Bone Season a while back as I had heard good things but had never really gotten round to reading and given the size of my current TBR pile,if I hadn't requested and been approved for Mime Order, I may not have gotten round to reading it for some time.

However I am so glad I did. Mime order, as mentioned is the second book in the Bone Season series and takes place immediately after The Bone Season finishes. After leading the escape from Sheol I and her Rephaim captors, main character Paige aka Pale Dreamer, has finally gotten herself back to her old life that she missed but now it seems that Paige is no longer the person she was when she left her sydicate which makes fitting back into her life even harder as she starts to see all that is wrong with both her previous life and the sydicates themselves. Knowing what she knows about the Rephaim and Scion, Paige realises that if she wants things to change she is going to have to leave her old life behind despite being the most wanted person in London.

I love that this books takes us right into the underbelly of the London Unnatural underworld. We saw glimpses it The Bone season but in this book we see what life is really like for Paige and its gritty and dangerous and unpredictable. We learn more about its workings and its leaders, we meet the various and individual characters of this world and Ms Shannon's world building of this hostile and alternate future where paranormal abilities are outlawed and reviled, is so complete that you feel like you are living right inside it so you can feel the encroaching danger of Scion, the Rephaim and even the other sydicates.

There are so many threads running through this book, be it the Seven Seals, the unnatural assembly, Scion or the Rephaim but they are spun together so seamlessly the the picture we are spun is a story that will keep you enthralled until the end.

The writing is also cleverly paced with the action well balanced with the strategy and the character development and story in general. Speaking of character development, the characters Ms Shannon introduces us to are delighfully diverse, deliciously evil or colourful to the extreme. This is not a perfect world and neither are its players but what they are.

This novel has everything that makes a great story: original story, interesting characters, flawless world building and action aplenty.
 
 
I thoroughly recommend this series and give this novel 4 stars.

Sapphired Dragon xx

About The Book:





Paige Mahoney has escaped the brutal prison camp of Sheol I, but her problems have only just begun: many of the survivors are missing and she is the most wanted person in London...

As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on the dreamwalker, the mime-lords and mime-queens of the city's gangs are invited to a rare meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare to take centre stage, but there are bitter fault lines running through the clairvoyant community and dark secrets around every corner. Then the Rephaim begin crawling out from the shadows. But where is Warden? Paige must keep moving, from Seven Dials to Grub Street to the secret catacombs of Camden, until the fate of the underworld can be decided.


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