*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of Netgalley arc Fire and Bone – Book 1 of the Otherborn series by Rachel A. Marks

I liked the sound of the premise…

“Gossip Girl meets Percy Jackson in the glitz and grit of L.A….”
In Hollywood’s underworld of demigods, druids, and ancient bonds, one girl has a dangerous future.

Sage is eighteen, down on her luck, and struggling to survive on the streets of Los Angeles. Everything changes the night she’s invited to a party—one that turns out to be a trap. Thrust into a magical world hidden within the City of Angels, Sage discovers that she’s the daughter of a Celtic goddess, with powers that are only in their infancy. Now that she is of age, she’s asked to pledge her service to one of the five deities, all keen on winning her favor by any means possible. She has to admit that she’s tempted—especially when this new life comes with spells, Hollywood glam, and a bodyguard with secrets of his own. Not to mention a prince whose proposal could boost her rank in the Otherworld.

I haven’t seen Gossip Girl but have read snippets of the Percy Jackson series and have thoroughly enjoyed the world, so this one intrigued me. However, it wasn’t quite what I had envisaged. For starters, the romance features more than I had expected from reading the blurb – and as the story wore on, I realised there was the dreaded love triangle. I am not a fan of this dynamic, but I will say that Marks manages to make it seem a lot less sleazy than is often the case, as the extra character’s involvement is far more to do with what happened in the distant past.

It did take me a while to fully bond with Sage as she is continually plagued with visions and dreams which have the effect of swamping her rather chippy character, after she works through the clueless phase when she is struggling to work out exactly what is happening to her. There is a dark, tragic underbelly to this story that the blurb hasn’t highlighted and it isn’t our hapless protagonist navigating the social shark-tank of demi-god high society that I had envisaged – but the desperate story of a maddened Celtic queen who slays her king that eventually snagged me.

Given I was expecting something quite different – was what I got sufficiently engrossing to hook me anyway? Oh yes. There are some surprising plot twists in this story, particularly towards the end where the pace picks up and the stakes become a lot higher which had me reading into the early hours to discover what happened.

Be warned though – while a couple of the story elements are sorted out, this book ends on an almighty cliff-hanger. I’m hoping, therefore, that the second book is due to be released without too much delay as I would really like to know what happens next to Sage.
8/10