Spirits don’t stop haunting just because the world fell under new management.
In a city carved up by vampire clans—where mortals tithe blood for protection and try their best to pretend that’s normal—Nariah Boyd walks a very different path. She’s a Bone Witch: part spiritual medium, part bone-collector, part stubborn woman who refuses to let the dead be used as weapons in anyone else’s war.
Most folks cross the street to avoid her. Spirits cross the veil to seek her out.
Between troublesome ghosts, restless bones, a grim who keeps showing up at exactly the wrong moment, and a mother knee-deep in vampire rebellion politics, Nariah’s peace and quiet doesn’t stand a chance. But she never wanted glory. She just wanted to help—one spirit, one mystery, one near-disaster at a time.
Step into Nariah’s world of bone charms, meddling spirits, and supernatural girl’s-night. The Rise of the Bone Witch is a collection of ten stories that pack a spiritual punch. It’s a new world, but Nariah refuses to give up on compassion—no matter how dark her city gets.
The Rise of the Bone Witch is a 10-story urban fantasy collection featuring found-family dynamics, ghost dogs, and bone magic with a Black, aro/ace heroine.
Titles included:
- The Call of the Grim
- How Not to Raise the Dead
- Taco’s Tuesday
- Playground Monitor
- Summoning Trouble
- Blind Date With a Hellhound
- Spirits at Liberty
- The Werewolf Curse
- Someone Else’s Luck
- The Weight of a Spirit
Tatiana –
This was a really fun read!
Things I loved:
– Cool world building, I like that I was never overwhelmed by loads of details but the natural way things got spoken about made it easy to visualise and understand this world.
– Cute animal ghosts, with some personality. Loved Sin in particular.
– An Aro-Ace protagonist that still has relationships and doesn’t just go “am robot”? Worth the 5 stars alone!
Things that tripped me up a little bit:
– Love the fact they’re 10 vaguely interconnected stories but would’ve liked more connection between them. I really wanted to stay and know more about some of them and sometimes I felt they just… Ended.
*I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
Rhonda Boone –
ARC Review
A collection of short stories in The Bone Witch universe. This follows the MC Nariah and friends as they track down paranormal beings. It does read as an YA novel with Witcy vibes to me. Good world building, witty banter, entertaining dialogue, delightful characters, this book was such an enchanting read right before the Halloween season!!. Grab this today or add to your TBR…
Hymeh –
I’m going to give this book 4.5 stars. It was great!
“The Rise of the Bone Witch” is a collection of 10 short urban fantasy stories about Nariah, a woman who can see spirits in a world full of vampires, werewolves, kelpies and even dragons(!!!).
It was a really fun read, this whole short stories format was such a positive surprise.
For a collection of 10 stories the world building is really good, the characters surprisingly well developed. The ghostly doggo and other critters were so cute too!
Honestly, after hearing it’s an urban fantasy set in a world ruled by vampires I thought the stories would be kind of dark and gory but to my surprise most of them was really wholesome and hopefull, with a good amount of great humor and banter.
I would love to someday read more about Nariah or her companions and I would definitely love to read more about this world and it’s lore.
PalenMisha –
The collected short story format of this book works quite nicely for this particular read. It reminded me of a TV show where the first episode sets up the world building for you, but after that you can dive in anywhere you like and just enjoy a short view into the world with an adventure that resolves by the end of the episode.
It was clear these short stories were originally written/published with a span of time between them as some review of key concepts/events happened at the start of each one. I noticed this more when I was reading the last few stories as I didn’t stop between vs the first few I was reading one and then doing other things before getting to the next one.
Every adventure had a definite ending so each short story could be read on its own. There were some recurring characters so it was nice to start a new story and see a familiar face, but there were also events hinted at that did not have a story (some of which I would definitely be interested in learning more about). There were never time skips in the stories themselves, but there was quite a bit of time between each one which gave us a pretty good snap shot of Nariah’s life (and Nariah is a very interesting person so it was neat to see how she developed over the years). Also, the spirit friends that are in most of the stories are very neat supporting characters that I was always happy to see again.
There were some random typos here and there which I am attributing to this being an ARC, but none of them pulled me out of the story and the writing style itself was lovely.
Definitely worth checking out if you want something with interesting world building, characters that feel realistic and a setup that allows you to read the story in bite sized chunks.
It’s been my pleasure to provide a review in exchange for a copy of this ARC.
Shandie –
Received from Author. This is a collection of short stories that follow Nariah as they navigate life as a bone witch in a world where vampires are at the top of the world order. I think that this format really works for all the different stories told. The jump in time from the first story to the second was a little jarring but I was able to quickly move past that and enjoy the rest of the story/book. Overall I really loved this book and the different short stories. I cannot wait to read more from this author.