Hi everyone, welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. Today I am reviewing The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco. This is the second book of The Bone Witch trilogy, and it continues the story of Tea and her journey as an antihero. My review for the first book of this trilogy The Bone Witch is found here. Visit the author’s website here. I will review the third installment of this trilogy, The Shadowglass, at a later date. This review has minor spoilers.
The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco continues Tea’s story as a bone witch and her quest for revenge. This second installment begins right after the first book ends and we see Tea, commanding all seven daeva now, leave her self-imposed exile to wage war against those who wronged her. This book too has two storylines, one in the present and another in the past; in the present, Tea is still telling her story to the Bard as she and her companions—including Kalen, now as her familiar—travel to Daanoris to find the old heart forger and defeat the Faceless One ruling there, whilst the story in the past is still told through flashbacks; this second story also starts right after the story in the past in the first book ends. Aenah is now imprisoned, and Tea is trying to save Mykaela’s life by resurrecting King Vanor again, the man whom Mykaela gave her heartsglass to. This structure, once again, can lead to some confusion as neither storyline converges with the other in this second book (as in the first one), and it may seem as if they are both different and divergent stories, each one of them showing us a different version of Tea. However, the story in the past is still used as a means of world-building and setting up the background for the story in the present to make sense. Though convoluted and not perfect, this structure serves a purpose and once you understand its circularity, that the third book will end where the first one began, in reverse, it gets easier to digest.
“I suppose the trouble began again when I tried raising a king from the dead.”
The Heart Forger is a re-read for me, and I enjoyed it just as much this second time around as the first. It is a story full of political intrigue, dark magic, epic battles, and revenge—trigger warning for death, torture, imprisonment, war, the death, torture, and imprisonment of mythical creatures, such as the three-headed dragon aazi, and the loss of loved ones. There is also romance, and not only does the author go further and develop Tea and Kalen’s relationship but she also makes us fall in love with the budding relationships of Fox and Inessa, Zoya and Shadi, Khalad and Likh, and my particular favorite Mykaela and King Vanor despite the fact that the king has been dead for many years already, and we never actually get to see them together. However, the backstory between these two characters and the importance of their relationship to the plot of the story is revealed and explained in this second installment, and I really liked how it all fit together. In addition, all of the characters go through a significant amount of character development in this book, particularly Tea, who grows into her own and is a full-fledged asha who risks her own life to avenge her loved ones, specifically Polaire and Kalen, and I really enjoyed watching them all grow. Tea’s relationship with her brother Fox is also as strong as ever in this book, and it is still one of the best things about this trilogy.
The plot of the story also advances in this second book, and Tea is tasked with finding the old heart forger, who has disappeared, after Prince Kance falls ill and is the latest victim of a sleeping sickness, a disease that Khalad’s master has been studying for some time now and is probably the only person in the Eight Kingdoms who can find a cure. The Heart Forger is where the action in the present timeline really begins, and we note that the first book primarily focused on introducing the characters and to build the world of the Eight Kingdoms, a world heavily influenced by Asian culture and folklore.
“The dead do not rest,“ she told me, “only the living believe the grave can bring you peace.”
This book has a lot of things I like going for it, the magic system, necromancy, Asian inspiration, romance, and likable characters. Despite the fact that the book is centered on dark magic and an impending war, the characters themselves manage to shed some light into the dark background through humor and, more specifically, their interactions with one another. I gave this book an I Really Liked It And Will Probably Read It Again rating. I will be reading the third installment very soon.