Bone Driven

My ARC didn’t have a ‘previously on Foundling’ introduction and I really wish it had, because sooo much happened and I had forgotten so many of the plot twists. Anyhoo, Luce Boudreau lives in Canton Town, Mississippi. She was found in the swamp 15 years ago as a child, with no recollection of how she got there or her name. In the first book – spoiler alert – she found out that she was actually Conquest, a Charon from another dimension, one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse but her breaking through the dimension somehow affected her memory. After 15 years of living in Mississippi Luce feels human, albeit she struggles to allow others to touch her and she fails to recognise her own face in the mirror. She has an old rotary phone in her bedroom and once a year, on her birthday, a mysterious man called Ezra calls her. At the end of the first book there is an epic showdown with her sister War, who has also broken through the dimension, in which Luce’s human father witnesses more than he should and has his mind wiped, her BFF Maggie is mortally wounded and Luce makes the decision to ask a skin-walker to merge with Maggie to save her life, Luce finds she ‘owns’ a coterie of Charon with various shape-shifting abilities who all loathe Conquest for enslaving them and killing their friends/ family etc but are starting to like Luce a little bit. Luce also has a soft spot for one of her coterie, Cole, a dragon-like shape-shifter, unfortunately Conquest has treated him as little more than a sex slave and he is conflicted as far as Luce is concerned. Oh, and a shadowy subset of the FBI, called the NSB, has recruited Luce to hunt Charon and sterilise them. This book opens shortly after the last book ended, Luce has two weeks before she needs to leave the Canton Town PD and join the NSB, her father is still in a zombie-like state, her BFF has gone missing to bond with the Charon who now shares her body, her coterie are still conflicted and War is on the loose. All she can do is watch and wait for Famine and Death to make an appearance and try to either neutralise them or persuade them not to colonise/ enslave the Earth. In her dual role as Charon hunter and police officer Luce is simultaneously investigating a series of horrific murder/ suicides by fire and a Charon who is killing and mummifying small household pets, whilst also looking after her father, rebuilding their home which was destroyed in the battle with War, and looking for Famine. Oh, and she needs to break the news to her old partner and get used to her new NSB partner, Adam Wu, who is also not what he seems. This is a great book which solidifies the world-building from the first book, Luce is still blundering about in the dark with regards to Conquest’s abilities which she cannot control/ use but she is starting to draw her own personal lines in the sand, her mantra, her code of ethics which sets her apart from most Charon. It’s clever, intriguing, confusing, grisly, scary, sexy and gross all at once and all the time. It was so good I want to go back and reread both books again just so I can spot the clever clues hidden in plain sight! I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.