The Bone Orchard

The Bone Orchard is Sara A. Mueller's debut novel, published by Tor in March 2022. It is a gothic secondary-world fantasy — part murder mystery, part political intrigue, part interrogation of what a person is.

The Emperor of Boren took Charm as a prize from Inshil after the Rebellion, put a mindlock in her head to guarantee her obedience, and installed her at Orchard House, which under her management has become the most sought-after gentlemen's club in the capital. Members come for the food, the card tables, and the company of Charm's boneghosts — Pride, Pain, Justice, Desire and Shame, women she grew from bone and can push out of her own mind into bodies of their own.

When the Emperor is murdered, Charm is charged with finding out who did it, with her freedom as the price of an answer. His sons are exactly as terrible as he feared, factions are forming around each of them, and Charm's investigation runs straight through a court that would rather she stayed a possession.

The book is slow, dense and interior, and it withholds a great deal early on — Mueller expects the reader to assemble Charm's history alongside the murder.