Hills of Heather and Bone is our finalist for Round One of this year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) and will be joining nine other books in the final round. To follow it and check out its competition you can visit the official SPFBO website. You can see the full list of our Round One Semi-Finalists here. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can get more information here.
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“You can’t fight prejudice with weapons. It’s only defeated by the truth … And truth can’t be shouted at a mob that’s been deafened by their own noise.”
The cover of this story belies the story inside. While there is a relationship in this book, that of the main character Morana and her husband Percy, it is the mature relationship of a devoted married couple, helping each other through the trials and sorrows of life, not a buddy fiery romance associated with most fantasy romance genre books. Their love is the glue that holds the story together through everything that has happened before the story starts and all the misfortune that plays out over the course of the book. As Yaniv puts it:
“The depiction of authenticity and caring relationship between Percy and Morana was incredible and we don’t see many of those portrayed in the SFF genre.”
The world they live in is magical. Percy has a bloodgift that lets him heal others and gives him knowledge of plants and growing. Morana on the other hand was blessed with a less, well liked and understood gift. She is a boneweaver. Her gift lets her hear the voices of the dead and even raise them from their graves. This ability makes her a target, feared and distrusted by most, even though what she uses her gift for is simply writing down the stories the dead whisper to her to their memories alive.
Hidden on the fringes of their world, the couple live a peaceful life together, until a group of Failinis discover Morana. The couple is forced to flee and attempt to find a new refuge in a world that hates them.
Our judges loved this book. We are usually not a team that enjoys romance flavored stories, but this was different. Their love is old love. It’s strong and faithful, the kind that can weather even the toughest storms. They’ve had trauma in their past, but it’s something they are working through together. I won’t spoil anything here, but the way their past trauma and current situation is handled was a high point of the story.
Another high point for our judges was the disability representation. Morana has painful arthritis and Percy is shorter than average, has a visual impairment and needs glasses to see. These issues were not glossed over, or made to disappear when inconvenient to the story, instead they were a part of the characters. Their struggles with disability made them deeper and more complex, and we applaud Andrews for the fantastic representation.
The story has a lot of action and adventure. The main plot being the couple fleeing from those chasing them without a good idea of where to go. But it is not a fast paced ride from cover to cover either. Adawia explains:
“When I wanted to read quickly, it’s like the story forced me to slow down, breathe it all in, be in the moment. It demanded I read in the manner in which it was intended to be read—with care, deliberation, and my full attention.
Even the action scenes feel a little contained or controlled as opposed to chaotic—as is often the case with fight scenes. It still feels dramatic, but rather more important than exciting—though it was still pretty exciting!”
Hills is also not simply a sad story. As Julia explains:
“Hills of Heather and Bone features serious topics like loss and grief, but it also has a lot of hope, and quite some humour. For me the mix of tragedy and trauma with some rather cozy village scenes, the puns and jokes, and the adventure worked perfectly well. It felt neither shallow, nor depressing. Not fluffy, but still an easy and fast read.”
And not only is it well paced, it is also well written. As Kerry explains:
“The prose was gorgeous without being too “purple”—from the opening paragraph continuing to the end of the book I was highlighting sentences and paragraphs. Edwards’ prose was evocative, exquisite, and so descriptive. I often find it hard to visualize people and places in books, but I was there with the characters, seeing the scenery (whether in rest or flight), and caught up in their emotions.”
Overall, this is a stunning story that we hope everyone picks up and we wish K. E. Andrews the best of luck in Round Two!
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Our judges this year are Adawia Asad, Agatha Lopez, Blake Skelton, G. R. Matthews, Lana Taylor, Julia Kitvaria Sarene, Kerry Smith, Robert Max Freeman, Yaniv Rosenfeld Cohen, and Jennie Ivins (me). If you’d like to learn more about us, including our likes and dislikes, you can read about them here.
Any queries should be directed at me (Jennie Ivins), via DM (Facebook/Twitter).
Title image by Rene Böhmer.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene