Call of the Bone Ships

November 1, 2020
Readers return to the militaristic society in the second installment of Barker's The Tide Child series (after The Bone Ships, 2019). Meas, the shipwife of the Tide Child, is still working to establish peace in a world that thrives on war. The fact that dragons are back is common knowledge now, and it becomes clear that she needs to prevent the dragons' bones from becoming warships. Luckily, no one in the Hundred Isles can figure out how to kill them, which buys her some time. To achieve change for the people of the Hundred Isles, Meas has to act against her mother, the Queen, as well as the culture and history of her world. When Meas captures a ship filled with dead and dying people, she realizes that she needs to go back home and find out why humans are being trafficked. In a brutal world, Meas and most of her crew are fighting for a glimmer of hope and change. Sea battles, dragon songs, and political strategy abound in this continuation.

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August 10, 2020
The second ripping yarn in Barker’s Tide Child series returns to the watery world established in The Bone Ships, where metal is rare and the skeletons of arakeesian sea dragons provide the only material strong enough to build large battleships. Resourceful captain Meas Gilbryn’s obsession with ending the Hundred Isles’ futile war with the Gaunt Isles has been stalled by the reappearance of arakeesian dragons, previously believed to be extinct. Her attention is further diverted when she discovers that agents of her mother’s Hundred Isles government are abducting shiploads of people at a time for an unknown purpose, including the entire population of the rebel colony of Safeharbour. While Maes charts a rescue mission aboard her ship the Tide Child, fist mate Joron Twiner continues to struggle toward self-acceptance while working to understand his mysterious connection to the Windseer, an entity with the power to control the wind. Barker successfully develops these fascinating personal concerns while unravelling the dark purpose of the mass kidnappings. Awe-inspiring set pieces, including a gigantic sea dragon rising out of an island’s shattered fragments, will especially delight fantasy fans. Series readers will be pleased. Agent: Ed Wilson, Johnson and Alcock Literary (U.K.).