Audiobook Review: 'The Heart Forger' (The Bone Witch #2) by Rin Chupeco, narr. by Emily Woo Zeller and Will Damron

Last September was my now infamous (to me) 2 weeks without WiFi, during which I raced through countless books and audiobooks. One of the latter was The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco, which I absolutely adored. Life happened, Wifi returned, and so it took me a few months to dive back into Tea's world. But I'm so glad to be back! I once again listened to the audiobook version on Audible.

Pub. Date: 3/20/2018
Publisher: Blackstone Audio

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.

Tea is a dark asha, a bone witch, intimately familiar with death and destruction and daevas. She finds herself in the middle of conflicts, of power struggles, of alliances forged and broken. But she also finds herself surrounded by friends and loved ones, fighting for what she believes is right. In The Heart Forger Chupeco expands the world we've gotten to know in The Bone Witch in a way I found fascinating. We continue to flash back and forth between Tea now, fully dark and on a course to change the world, and a younger Tea, still learning and growing. The Heart Forger brings those two timelines ever closer together and I loved the way they played on each other, revealing information crucial to each other and yet also holding surprises. I also loved getting to see new locations and finding out more about the characters around Tea. The whole cast really grows on you in this book, as more details are revealed about each. I also liked the way in which love, in all its complex and diverse forms, was a red thread throughout the book. Love can be a major boon but it can also be dangerous. I continue to also enjoy the action scenes Chupeco writes. In a recent review for another series I complained about how the action scenes were just confusing, detail upon detail crowding in and yet the stakes vague. The complete opposite is true in The Heart Forger. My heart (ha!) was in my throat at times, but I never lost oversight of who was doing what, who was where, and why this fight was happening, which is a rather impressive feat. While I'm remaining vague on the real plot, I can say that The Heart Forger draws you a lot deeper into Tea's world and I couldn't be happier about it.

I continue to really enjoy Rin Chupeco's writing. She has a great eye for detail and none of the details are ever wasted. The characterisation, as I said above, is also deepened and I find myself rooting for Tea even more than I did before. I find her determined path towards what seems destruction in the latter timeline absolutely fascinating and I am absolutely desperate to find out how she got there and what she is going to do. In The Bone Witch I occasionally struggled with the back and forth, but it really came into its own for me in The Heart Forger. I did have a few minor quibbles with the narration, which truly aren't a major issue. Emily Woo Zeller does a brilliant job narrating Tea's POV, so when we switch to the "future" and to Will Damron's narration of the bard, it sometimes felt weird to hear his version of Tea. Not really a problem, but it did kick me out of the "vibe" once or twice. Will Damron's narration for the rest is excellent however, and I continue to enjoy the way the bard's POV adds to the complexity of the story. I can't wait to dig into the final book next, even though I know it will probably break my heart.

I give this book...

4 Universes!

I was engrossed by The Heart Forger and fell deeper and deeper into the world Rin Chupeco is creating. This is a true sequel in that it fully expands upon what the reader has learned in the first book. Everything goes further, characterisation, world-building, plot and action, and yet nothing felt over the top or desperate to me. Can't wait to get into The Shadow Glass!