The Bone Season (book)

The Bone Season is the first book in The Bone Season series written by Samantha Shannon. It was published on August 20, 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing.

Synopsis
Welcome to Scion, no safer place.

It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing.

It is raining the day her life changes forever. But when Paige is attacked, kidnapped and drugged, she realizes she has been arrested. She is transported to a voyant prison in Oxford—a city kept secret for two centuries, now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Here, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly—as soldiers in their army.

Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite creature with dark honey skin and heavy-lidded yellow eyes. He is the single most beautiful and frightening thing she has ever laid eyes on—and he will become her keeper. He will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives. She must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.

Plot
Set in Scion-controlled London in 2059, when clairvoyance is a crime and has been proclaimed unnatural, we are introduced to Paige Mahoney, a dreamwalker working with the Seven Seals, scouting out prospect business in I Cohort, Section 4.

On the train ride to her father's home, Paige encounters another clairvoyant. They are the last two left in the train when the two Underguards of the Night Vigilance Division come aboard on rounds. Detecting that they were both voyants, the Underguards proceed to interrogate them and are unable to determine what kind of voyant Paige is. They attempt to capture them, and the encounter leads to a summoning of a guardian angel by the other voyant, William Linwood, and three poltergeists by the Underguard. The other Underguard banishes the guardian angel, allowing the 'geists to flush the spirit out of Linwood. Meanwhile, Paige loses control of her ability and, through her spirit and their dreamscape, accidentally killed one Underguard and drove the other to insanity.

Audiobook

 * The audiobook is narrated by Irish actress Alana Kerr.

Trivia

 * During the naming process, the author had considered naming the book Third Eye Blind, Flux, and, briefly, Luna Moth.
 * The chapter titles in the book are based on the poems by Dr. John Donne, the author's favourite Renaissance man.