*Spoiler Free* ARC Review: The Heart Forger (The Bone Witch #2) by Rin Chupeco

In The Bone Witch, Tea mastered resurrection―now she’s after revenge…

No one knows death like Tea. A bone witch who can resurrect the dead, she has the power to take life…and return it. And she is done with her self-imposed exile. Her heart is set on vengeance, and she now possesses all she needs to command the mighty daeva. With the help of these terrifying beasts, she can finally enact revenge against the royals who wronged her―and took the life of her one true love.

But there are those who plot against her, those who would use Tea’s dark power for their own nefarious ends. Because you can’t kill someone who can never die…

War is brewing among the kingdoms, and when dark magic is at play, no one is safe.

**** Huge thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review ****

You can read my review of “The Bone Witch” here.

After really loving the first book in this series “The Bone Witch” I was more than excited to continue on into “The Heart Forger”, however, I was a bit letdown with how slowly things developed in this book. I’m hoping to just chalk this up to “middle book syndrome” and that the next book will get back into the swing of things.

As I already briefly mentioned my biggest problem with “The Heart Forger” was the pacing, it was painfully slow at times and I really struggled to finish it in the end. I felt that nothing was really happening at all and even when the plot did take some turns it just wasn’t very exciting or shocking. I felt like everything was rushed through especially when compared to the first book.

My other problem was that this one just didn’t really have the same feel as “The Bone Witch” and felt more like every other YA Fantasy book out there, this was lacking all the uniqueness and creativity that we saw in the first book. On top of that, the world building was almost non-existent in this book. Granted a lot of it is explored in the first book and has already been established but there are still so many questions that I have about the world and none were answered in “The Heart Forger”. I also felt that I, as the reader, was much more disconnected from the characters and events during this book. I just wasn’t very invested.

On the bright side there was a lot more action and while I still felt the pacing was sluggish, I did appreciate that more things were happening in this book than in the first. As far as the plot twists went, nothing really shocked me as I already mentioned earlier in this review but they were still twists nonetheless. The twists at the ending were the ones that really got me, I didn’t see those coming at all!

I still really enjoyed the time skips and POV jumps that were present in “The Bone Witch” as Tea tells her story to a bard, they were probably my favorite bits of the book and the most interesting ones.

I’m still going to read the next book, of course, as I’m still very interested in the world Rin Chupeco has created here.

All of the same characters were present in this sequel but I didn’t feel like anyone really developed more than they did in “The Bone Witch”. Everyone just sort of stayed the same and I didn’t feel any connection with them like I did in the first book. It was nice to see these characters again but I could have used some more development with them.

There was a TON of time spent developing two romantic relationships for Tea and Fox, which I could have done without because it started to take too much away from the plot.

Overall, the azi was my favorite character honestly. Does that count? I think so. It was adorable…..

The romance in “The Bone Witch” didn’t really bother me too much and it didn’t take over the plot but sadly this wasn’t really the case with “The Heart Forger”. There is a lot of time spent, as I mentioned already, developing a romantic relationship for Tea and one for Fox. I liked the two different couples overall but I thought the characters spent too much time worrying about their love interests and that really took away from the central story for me.

What I Loved:

• More action than in “The Bone Witch”
• Great ending plot twists
• The time skip/POV jump between Tea and the bard
• The azi….because it was awesome and adorable

What I Didn’t Love:

• Slow pacing, hard to read through and finish
• World building wasn’t explored more and left me with a lot of questions
• Characters could have developed more
• Romance became a bit too focused on

Overall it was still an enjoyable book and I will most definitely be reading the next book in the series but this one was just a little too slow and felt like it was lacking some of the magic of “The Bone Witch” for me. I would still recommend checking it out though if you loved “The Bone Witch”.

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