The Sins on Their Bones review

4/5 stars
Recommended if you like: fantasy, historical fantasy, LGBTQ+ characters, political intrigue, Russian Revolution

Big thanks to Netgalley, Random House, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

TW rape/SA, spousal abuse

This definitely seems to be a book that you absolutely love or that you struggle with. I obviously thought this book deserved 4 stars, but I did struggle immensely with getting through the book. The pacing is very slow and it takes a while for the plot and the characters to really warm up. I do feel like a good portion of the first 50% could be cut without damaging the story.

Without a doubt this is a story about suffering and about healing. Dimitri, one of the MCs and narrators, is in terrible amounts of pain after what occurred with his husband and the revolution. He’s the one we see suffering the most, but the book does follow his journey as he begins to heal and discover who he is on the other side of those things. Vasily, another one of the narrators, has pain in his past that is alluded to over the course of the novel. He’s at a different stage of the healing process than Dimitri, but that pain and healing is still there.

I think part of the problem with the book’s pacing is that Samotin strives to show a realistic journey of pain, depression, and healing, and that path is not a quick one. Dimitri does not recover over night or in the span of a chapter. He first needs to recognize that he can heal and then he continually needs to make that choice. I do think it’s a realistic depiction, and I applaud Samotin for showing that. However, I think time jumps could have, and probably should have, been used.

Setting aside the pacing, I was fascinated by the setting of this book. It takes place in a fantasy, Jewish-majority version of Russia circa the Russian Revolution. The setting is rich with architecture and clothing and traditions. I liked the interplay of the different sects of religion in the novel and how that was used to create tension between characters who followed Ludyazist mysticism vs. those who followed the (not-so) Holy Science. I also thought it was interesting to read a book where a fantasy version of Judaism is the predominant religion instead of having it be a fantasy version of Christianity.

Dimitri is the main character, imo, even though there are three narrators. As mentioned above, this is very much a healing story, and Dimitri has a lot to heal from. He was the Tzar of Novo-Svitsevo prior to the revolution and he desperately loves his country. He also desperately loves his husband, who overthrew him and is just generally a not great (read: abusive) dude. Dimitri is grappling with the consequences of war and the feeling he let his country down, as well as the guilt associated with helping place his husband, Alexey, in a place to do that in the first place. But he’s also recovering from the abuse Alexey put him through and coming to terms with the fact that it wasn’t his fault. Beyond all of these things, Dimitri is extremely loyal and it’s clear he loves his friends dearly.

Vasily might be my favorite narrating character. He’s Dimitri’s spymaster and fled with him into hiding after the end of the war. He blends humor and seriousness well and is able to stabilize situations fairly well. I liked seeing him work, I always think it’s fascinating to see a character become someone else as a spying/manipulation tactic. He has his own past trauma that gets revealed a bit throughout the book, though he’s further along on his healing journey than Dimitri is.

Alexey is the last narrating character and he was Dimitri’s husband. Through experimentation with the Holy Science, Alexey has become immortal and is impossible to kill. He was already tempestuous and abusive, but post-immortality and post-war, he’s only become more volatile. He strives to create and control an army of demons in order to make Novo-Svitsevo the strongest country in the world. But despite his delusions of grandeur, most of his court is terrified of him and he has little patience for what it means to run a country. Alexey is not portrayed as the good guy in any way, but his POV is one of an abuser, so keep that in mind.

I enjoyed the side characters on Dimitri’s side of things. Other than Vasily, there are three other members of his court who fled with him and they are Annika, his general; Ladushka, his strategist; and Mischa, his physician. They each felt like well-rounded characters with their own pasts and idiosyncrasies. I would’ve liked to know a bit more about them but the pacing of the book makes that difficult.

Overall I think this book had a lot of potential. The pacing definitely got in the way of the plot and I think a good portion of the beginning of the book probably could’ve been cut. I liked the side characters more than the main characters as well, so that could’ve contributed as well. That being said, the characters have a lot of depth to them and the setting + magic system were interesting.