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Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00B763BM0
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Publishing; 1st edition (20 Aug. 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 2361 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 553 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1408882523

• Best Sellers Rank: 46,471 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
  • 327 in Contemporary Fantasy Fiction
  • 1,118 in Contemporary Fantasy (Books)
  • 1,929 in Contemporary Literary Fiction

• Customer reviews:
  4.2 out of 5 stars 1,492 ratings

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About the author

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Samantha Shannon

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Samantha Shannon is the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Bone Season series. Her work has been translated into twenty-six languages. The Priory of the Orange Tree is her fourth novel and her first outside of The Bone Season series. She lives in London.

samanthashannon.co.uk / @say_shannon

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars

4.2 out of 5

1,492 global ratings

5 star		53%
4 star		27%
3 star		13%
2 star		4%
1 star		3%

How are ratings calculated?

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness.

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Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from United Kingdom

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Jamie

3.0 out of 5 stars Solid but flawed fantasy with potential for more

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 August 2017

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3.5 stars. I went into this thinking it was YA and have since discovered it’s actually classed as adult fantasy. I think in reality it’s probably a good crossover from one to the other – the protagonist is 19, so the older end of YA – there’s more complicated worldbuilding and moral grayness than a lot of YA fantasy (though I can think of YA example with both of those things as well), but the plot has a lot of familiar elements and themes a YA reader will feel comfortable with.

I really enjoyed the setting, a mix of Victoriana and futuristic elements with a seedy, gritty feel to it that portrayed the main character, Paige, and her life very well. Paige was strong and resourceful, with a confidence in herself and her abilities and a fierce vein of anger and injustice which fuelled her throughout the story. The side characters, at least the human ones, were intriguing and complex. But while the Rephaim certainly had a sense of otherness and being able to understand them too clearly would have lost that, they did often feel a bit of a stretch too far for suspension of disbelief – like pantomime monsters, at times, particularly (if I can say this without getting spoilery) the way they treated the humans in their city – it seemed counterproductive, evil for the sake of evil.

There was a lot of info-dumping in the first few chapters which really stalled my ability to get invested in the plot. Partly it’s a result of the complicated magic system – I’m sure it could have been simplified, or at least the broad shape of it fed to us with details coming where they were needed. After that things got interesting, with danger and intrigue and betrayal or the prospect of I on every side, and I was keen to see how it played out. I think the romance was unnecessary, and didn’t fit with the story or the characters – not that I can’t see them together but the way it happened. Maybe rushed would be a better word – it could work but needed a lot more development. The later books in the series might flesh it out a bit more, I suppose. Overall, it did feel very much like the first book in a series.

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Theo

3.0 out of 5 stars I sympathise with your urge to leave Oxford

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 February 2015

Verified Purchase

When it was released, The Bone Season by Samatha Shannon was marketed as being the next big thing, the new Harry Potter, despite being nothing like Harry Potter. The second in the series is freshly available at a bookshop near yourselves, so it seemed like a good time to read it. It was... okay.

Paige Mahony is a clairvoyant in a future alt-England where such powers are illegal. More specifically, she’s a dreamwalker, one of the rarest types of voyant, who can separate her spirit from her body. Paige lives in London where she works for Fagi- erm, Jaxon Hall, her Mime Lord (Gangster boss), until she accidentally kills an Underguard. She’s captured, drugged, and sent to a place she and the rest of the populous didn’t know existed: Oxford. Okay, Sheol 1. Formerly Oxford.

There she learns the things which make this book and this review such a challenge: the extensive world building. It is confusing. For a start, there are the various types of voyants. I spent my youth with an orange dot energised by Yuri Geller himself so I came to this knowing terms like ‘cartomancer’ and when I didn’t know I word I could make an educated guess. Then there’s the world of Scion, the government, and its creation in the first place (Edward VII was the first voyant, and also Jack The Ripper, and apparently still Edward VII rather than Prince Albert Edward, despite people knowing this at the time of its occurrence). Then there’s the world of Sheol where the Rephaim – a race of beings from the Netherworld, as scholars of Hebrew mythology will remember – keep voyants as slaves and mobile larders, feeding on their auras. Those who embrace their new overlords can become Red Jackets, a necessary part of the attempt to stop the Emim from overrunning the city and the rest of the world. Then there’s a whole host of other stuff, sometimes with nicknames and a light smattering of Victorian slang in addition to the books own terms, and as a result the book proceeds in fits and starts, bogged down by its own exposition, not really getting into to gear until a good half-way through. It’s intermittently interesting until then but the first 20% is quite a slog requiring more than one consultation of the book’s glossary.

Because this is YA, it’s necessary for the MC to be imprisoned in some fashion. Paige becomes the property of a Rephaim who instructs her to call him Warden, even though that’s not his name, whose job it is to train her to earn her Red Jacket. If she doesn’t [world building stuff] but if she does [world building stuff] but there’s also the fact that [character] wants to [spoiler] because [spoiler]. Did I mention this gets a tad bogged down by itself?

Some aspects of the plotting are bland and predictable – Paige does something for Warden then repeatedly asks herself why she did it. Then it happens again and she repeatedly asks herself why she did it again. Other aspects give a nice spin to that predictability, setting up threads for coming tomes in the 7 book series. Others feel like they’re ripping off another YA series entirely.

The main story is ... merely okay. As is the trend in YA books, we have a female MC who gives the illusion of being active. Paige, like Katniss Everdeen, is at the mercy of her situation and can only act within its restrictions so much of the book involves Paige hoping to get out of her situation but having to go along with it. Your enjoyment will depend on your tolerance for reading about Paige being Paige. I was fairly meh. There are some good scenes – Shannon can write action when she wants to - but the final sequence, like much of the book, could have been a lot tighter.

I read this because it was an offensively low price but I don’t think I’ll be picking up the sequel. I didn’t expect huge amounts from it and it gave me pretty much what I expected. The world building is going to be a huge plus several books down the line and this has got the potential to create internet communities in the way Harry Potter and Game of Thrones has but I, who can barely remember how to spell her own name sometimes, was left unengaged and frustrated. I suspect I may get more out of it on a reread, but right now I feel no compulsion to give it one, nor to continue with the series.

3 stars.

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