The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.
It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford - a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.
The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine and also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.
About the Author
Born in 1991, Samantha Shannon was brought up in West London, where she started writing at the age of fifteen. She is currently studying for a degree in English Language and Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford.
The Bone Season is the first in a series of seven novels. It has been sold in nineteen countries and film rights have been optioned by The Imaginarium Studios, a film company led by Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings; The Hobbit) and Jonathan Cavendish (producer of Bridget Jones's Diary).
Industry Reviews
'Truly extraordinary and thrilling.' Andy Serkis
'A new breed of women authors are claiming fantasy for their own. Leading the charge is Samantha Shannon.' Harper's Bazaar
'A dark and exquisitely rendered fantasy unlike anything out there. The Bone Season is a must read.' Kami Garcia, No. 1 New York Times bestselling co-author of the Beautiful Creatures series
'Samantha Shannon has a hugely inventive talent and an imagination with seven league boots. She's hit the ground running.' Susan Hill
'A richly dramatic and unadulterated pleasure, filled with horrors, wonders and charm.' Justina Robson, author of the Quantum Gravity series
'The book invokes both the political tyranny of George O
rwell and the bucolic mythmaking of J.R.R. Tolkein.' USA Today
'A Hunger Games-esque debut.' Irish Daily Mail
'A rapid-fire wonder of a book, where clairvoyants and humans battle it out against scary monsters and super-creeps ... The Bone Season is our next Twilight.' Marie Claire
'The Bone Season is more like the novel that JK Rowling and William Gibson never teamed up to write.' Wired
'A Hunger Games vibe and a few Shades of Grey.' Vanity Fair
'The Bone Season plots out a criminal underworld in a future where clairvoyancy exists; part fantasy, part dystopia, all intrigue. It's a world of impressive scope, accompanied by Tolkienesque appendices, glossaries, maps and all Vogue It has conviction in spades ... has the kids vs dystopia kick of The Hunger Games, but while it's better written ... It's also got the star-crossed romance of Twilight.' SFX Magazine
'A dazzlingly brainy, witty and bewitching tale of outrageous courage, heroic compassion, transcendent love and the quest for freedom ... the first in a thoughtful fantasy series by a brilliant young writer.' Booklist
'Marks the arrival of an extraordinarily talented British writer set to challenge the worldwide bestseller list domination of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series and Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.' The British Fantasy Society
'The Bone Season, set in 2059, stems from Shannon's interest in works such as The Handmaid's Tale and A Clockwork Orange, which have backdrops of repressive regimes, and in John Donne's poetry.' Sunday Times
'A complex and epic dystopia.' Bookseller
'Shannon writes so well that you stay interested, intrigued by the knife-edge motivation of character's with 'six-seater lips' whose 'high-collard dresses always made her think of the gallows'. And although many of the paths walked by The Bone Season will already have been well travelled by fantasy readers, Shannon shows real skill in combining them so easily into an original and enjoyable escapist fictional world. Like so much recent young adult fiction, I suspect this series will appeal to the fearless teenager dwelling within many adults. The ending certainly gripped me to the marrow.' Daily Telegraph
'A dark, embattled, highly wrought fantasy ... Whatever the future holds, there is no doubt that Samantha is the real thing, her own sternest critic and a born storyteller.' Observer
'On the quite wonderful style and craft of words Samantha displays I really cannot heap enough praise - it is remarkably self-assured writing, most especially for a debut ... the most engrossing read I have had so far this year and frankly the most absorbing and compelling debut I've read since the superb Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Hugely recommended.' Forbidden Planet International Blog
'Shannon's world is meticulously detailed and has a strong internal logic ... Plenty of entertaining action ... The pace of The Bone Season seldom slacks off, and the strong and resourceful Paige is a memorable heroine. This is one buzz book that just might merit its hype,' BookPage
'A remarkably accomplished debut.' Jonathan Wright, SFX Magazine
'Impressively realised.' Alison Flood, Sunday Times
'The Bone Season is enough to transport even hardened sceptics of the fantasy genre into its imaginative realm.' Anita Sethi, Metro
'Frightening and well-imagined ... fascinating ... The large talent on display here suggests just how good Shannon could get in the next six books of this promising series.' Elizabeth Word Gutting, Washington Post
'Plenty for readers to get absorbed in ... With six novels to go, and an author clearly driven to go deeper and deeper into a unique world, many will surely follow her.' Tom Shippey, Wall Street Journal
'Had me gripped as if in a vice ... Samantha Shannon is a young writer with a future that looks anything but dystopian.' Stylist
'There's a great imagination at work here, and Shannon's just getting started.' Sue Corbett , People
'Dynamic and direct ... There is an exciting breadth to Shannon's world.' Evening Standard With echoes of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games and Trudi Canavan's Black Magician trilogy, this is an excellent debut that will keep the reader gripped all the way to the end - and leave them asking when book two will be released.' Irish Examiner
'Don't just suspend your disbelief - send it to the pictures and sink into this fabulous, epic fantasy thriller ... Lavish, ebullient, escapist ... Bring on the sequel.' The Times
'Fascinating ... It will be very interesting to see where Shannon goes with this.' Ned Denny, Daily Mail
'Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season is my perfect cup of tea ... My inner teenager enjoyed every last word.' Sarah Vine, Daily Mail Books of the Year
