The Bone Season

Samantha Shannon

Book 1 of The Bone Season

Language: English

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: Jul 31, 2013

Pages: 520
ABC: 1

Description:

**A TODAY BOOK CLUB PICK!** It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing.

But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city—Oxford, erased from the map two centuries ago and now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly—as soldiers in their army.

Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.

*The Bone Season* introduces a compelling heroine—a young woman learning to harness her powers in a world where everything has been taken from her. It also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

**

### From Booklist

*Starred Review* “We are the minority the world does not accept,” Paige Mahoney tells us, referring to the struggles of clairvoyants, from soothsayers and mediums to her own high standing as a dreamwalker. In Shannon’s galvanic debut, the first in a series of seven novels, she brings us to Scion, a totalitarian state in England circa 2059, where “voyants” are designated “unnatural” and clairvoyance is outlawed. Torn from her beloved home in Ireland as a misfit girl, Paige, whose exceptional psychic powers are matched by nearly superhero physical prowess, found sanctuary in London’s criminal underworld, working for Jaxon Hall, a gang leader in the clairvoyant syndicate, until her arrest. Now she’s imprisoned in a penal colony, Sheol I, formerly the city of Oxford, a netherworld ruled by ectoplasmic beings called the Rephaim. Will Arcturus, Paige’s Rephaite keeper, prove to be as diabolical a tyrant as she fears? Not only has Shannon dynamically and shrewdly imagined every element of this spooky yet earthy world-at-war, from its unforgiving hierarchy to vile if essential herbal concoctions, encounters with monstrous predatory creatures, and the terror of “spirit combat,” she has also tapped into the timeless wellsprings of fear and prejudice, repression and resistance. The result is a dazzlingly brainy, witty, and bewitching tale of outrageous courage, heroic compassion, transcendent love, and the quest for freedom. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: An energetic, multifaceted print and online campaign, including viral teaser trailers, will launch this exciting debut, the first in a thoughtful fantasy series by a brilliant young writer. --Donna Seaman

### Review

“Truly extraordinary and thrilling.” ―*Andy Serkis*

“[The Bone Season] invokes both the political tyranny of George Orwell and the bucolic mythmaking of J.R.R. Tolkien.” ―*USA Today*

“This book is definitely your new crack, full of juicy worldbuilding and heroic weirdness.” ―*Io9.COM*

“Intelligent, inventive, dark, and engrossing enough to keep me up late to finish...There's a distinct Margaret Atwood wash to Shannon's dystopian universe, and echoes of Anthony Burgess's *Clockwork Orange* in the colorful lingo.” ―*NPR.org*

“A dark and exquisitely rendered fantasy unlike anything out there. *The Bone Season* is a must-read.” ―Kami Garcia, coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures series

“[A] dazzingly brainy, witty, and bewitching tale of outrageous courage, heroic compassion, transcendent love, and the quest for freedom...the first in a thoughtful fantasy series by a brilliant young writer.” ―*Booklist (starred review)*

“Rad” ―*Vanity Fair*