The Bone Spindle (Review)

Information:

• Author: Leslie Vedder
• Genre: Fantasy
• Page Count: 413
• Year Published: 2022

Read This if You Like:

• Sleeping Beauty Retellings (with some other fairy tales mixed in)
• Queer representation
• Strong female friendships
• Romantic X Skeptic trope (Not the official trope name as far as I know)
• Starts of Trilogies
• Cliffhanger endings
• Multi POV, third person
• Ancient tombs
• Girls who carry around battleaxes

Spoiler-Free Summary:

Hundreds of years ago, a curse was placed by the malicious Spindle Witch onto the kingdom of Andar, putting the young prince, Briar Rose, into an eternal sleep that will only be broken with (you guessed it) a true love’s kiss. In the present, Fi is a treasure hunter and bookish girl carrying around a deadly curse and a strong dislike to romance, while Shane is a warrior lesbian whose goal is to cause chaos and follow her own path. Fi and Shane unite simply to explore an ancient ruin, but things soon take a turn when Fi pricks her finger on an ancient spindle, leading her to become the one destined to save Andar- and she’s also stuck with the spirit of the annoying (but handsome) Briar Rose. As Fi and Shane set out to save Briar- and the whole kingdom, they encounter many obstacles, including ancient tombs, dangerous magic, evil Witch Hunters (as well as a mysterious witch girl that Shane may or may not be attracted to), and the fact that despite Fi’s initial goals, she may be falling in love with the prince.

Review/Opinions:

(I feel like I’ve definitely been writing more than usual lately, so I apologize for the long length of this review.)

Confession Time: I am never able to finish any book series. Unless I preorder the sequels if they are not out yet or purchase a box set, I have trouble making it past the first book in any series. I never even finished Harry Potter (but I got halfway through the last book.) So, I was proud that I managed to finish all 3 books in the Bone Spindle trilogy, and while none of them are in my top 10 favorite books, this is among the best fairytale retellings I’ve read, mostly because of how it uses the original story it’s adapting while adding in a bunch of stunning original ideas. Plus, the characters are just awesome. (I’ll only be reviewing the first book in depth to avoid major spoilers, but I will also bring up elements that appear in all 3 books.)

The best part of the book is the fantasy world it creates. The story is primarily a Sleeping Beauty retelling with the whole spindle and “waking up the prince” thing, but it also has lots of original ideas beyond just being a genderswapped retelling (like we actually get to see the prince interact with characters!). And since this is a trilogy, the other 2 books completely invent a new story for the characters to continue their journey, since this book ends exactly how you’d expect for a Sleeping Beauty retelling (but with a larger cliffhanger.) And there’s also little elements of other fairy tales thrown in. I’m not revealing any of them because the ones I’ve noticed may reveal spoilers, but see how many you can find. But the best part was the original ideas- there’s a lot of really cool backstory relating to the kingdoms, including things involving magical witches and tombs and artifacts and other awesome fantasy stuff. A lot of this backstory becomes really developed throughout the story, both through flashbacks and events in the present.

In terms of what actually goes on the story, like I said, it’s one of the most original fantasy stories I read. One thing I liked was that it took a larger focus on adventure scenes than in other fantasy books. One of the comparisons for the book is “Sleeping Beauty meets Indiana Jones“, and while those stories are very different from each other, it actually makes sense. There’s a lot more action and adventure than actual fantasy elements such as magic in the story. A huge focus of the world is that there’s a bunch of ancient tombs where mysterious artifacts are stored, and the characters spend a lot of time exploring them. These often are the most exciting scenes in the book, because so much goes on in them. In general, there’s a lot of unexpected twists and obstacles the characters need to navigate, and they are really fun to read through.

Another huge part of the story is the romances. There are two main ones, one of which is male-female (Fi and Briar) and the other which is sapphic (Shane and Red, the mysterious witch girl I mentioned.) I’ll start by discussing Shane’s romance, as I absolutely loved her love interest, Red, as a character. I am always a fan of a mysterious woman who is clearly hiding something. And Red has a lot of backstory and development. She has a lot of internal conflict over her allies throughout the series, and it’s beautiful to see how she handles that and decides who her allies are. Plus, her and Shane just make a perfect couple. Fi and Briar’s romance was also cute, but I didn’t like it as much as Shane and Red’s for one reason (and I promise it’s not because it’s a straight romance): Fi being a character that does not want to fall in love. It just made Briar look a bit obsessive over Fi (the first chapter in his POV is literally just romantic musings toward Fi), and it annoyed me a bit since Fi was so opposed to romance (and she has reasons for that.) But their romance ended up being cute, and the annoying parts of it go away later in the series.

On the non-romantic side, Fi and Shane have a really strong friendship throughout the books. Although it seems like they bicker quite often due to their contrasting personality (with Fi being the bookish nerd and Shane just wanting to smash stuff), they end up working well together in many scenes and ultimately connect well with each other. There’s also some great side characters, including the Paper Witch, a spellcaster who frequently helps out throughout the series, but there’s also some unlikable ones, such as an ally-turned-enemy of Fi who I just wanted to punch since he was so unlikable.

As mentioned, this is a trilogy, and both books 1 and 2 end in cliffhangers. Luckily, both sequels, titled The Severed Thread and The Cursed Rose respectively, are available now. I do believe that the first book is the best one in the series, mostly because the pacing slows down a bit in the other 2 books. But none of the books are bad- both contain the parts that I liked in the first book and have plenty of entertaining scenes to expand on the character’s story.

Overall, this is one of the few full series that I will recommend in its entirety. The world and story is perfectly original even for a fairytale retelling, and it pairs well with the really developed characters. The author’s next book, releasing in 2025, will be her Middle Grade debut so it may take some time before she returns to the YA space, but I’m excited to see what they write next!