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The Bone Orchard cover art

The Bone Orchard

By: Sara A. Mueller
Narrated by: Ell Potter
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Summary

Sara A. Mueller's Bone Orchard is a fascinating whodunit set in a lush gothic world of secrets and magic - where a dying emperor charges his favorite concubine with solving his own murder, and preventing the culprit, which undoubtedly is one of his three terrible sons, from taking control of an empire.

Charm is a witch, and she is alone. The last of a line of conquered necromantic workers, now confined within the yard of regrown bone trees at Orchard House, and the secrets of their marrow.

Charm is a prisoner, and a survivor. Charm tends the trees and their clattering fruit for the sake of her children, painstakingly grown and regrown with its fruit: Shame, Justice, Desire, Pride, and Pain.    

Charm is a whore, and a madam. The wealthy and powerful of Borenguard come to her house to buy time with the girls who aren't real.

Except on Tuesdays, which is when the Emperor himself lays claim to his mistress, Charm herself.

But now - Charm is also the only person who can keep an empire together, as the Emperor summons her to his deathbed, and charges her with choosing which of his awful, faithless sons will carry on the empire - by discovering which one is responsible for his own murder.

If she does this last thing, she will finally have what has been denied her since the fall of Inshil - her freedom. But if she does, she will also be betraying the ghosts past and present that live on within her heart.

Charm must choose. Her dead Emperor’s will or the whispers of her own ghosts. Justice for the empire or her own revenge.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

©2022 Sara A. Mueller (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

What listeners say about The Bone Orchard

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So much exposition

Enjoyable but often quite confusing. Too many characters to easily keep track of and a tonne of exposition all through. But as a first novel, if it is, it’s very impressive. A good editor and a smidge explanation rather than offstage exposition of politics events would make the whole thing so much easier to follow. Great world building tho

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Already Miss This Book

This book made me rethink fantasy and horror, world building and magic systems, and how many fully-fleshed out characters you can fit into one book. Absolutely gorgeous writing, incredible world building, and characters I’m going to genuinely miss. Delicate subject matter was consistently dealt with in a frank but empathetic way, and queer characters were treated as any other character. This’ll be in my top five reads ever until something better pushes it out, and I think it’ll be a while before that happens.

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Loved it

Absolutely love this! It was original and unusual. I’m still quite unsure about how exactly the main characters work (I’m trying not to give women) at least the technology involved works, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest. I just went with the flow and hoped it would be revealed later on. Great story, great narration and really original

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  • 06-05-22

Absolutely amazing

The story had me absolutely hooked from beginning to end. The narration was perfect. Cannot recommend it enough.

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