Waves Take Your Bones (Children of the Sea and Sky, Book 1)
Athena Giles
Space Wizard Science Fantasy, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-960247-43-8
Ebook, 307 ppg.
I selected this book to read as research for an article, but even after I got the information I needed, I was hooked.
Waves Take Your Bones by Athena Giles is the first book in the NA fantasy adventure series, Children of the Sea and Sky. This is a story about Tallis and Finn, best friends who plan to join the naval fleet and fight the monstrous Shriekers (what we know of as zombies). Before they can enlist, the Shriekers attack their village, killing almost all of their families. They manage to escape, Tallis with two siblings, but they are split up from the retreating villagers. Tallis and Finn must find a way to escape from their village, and that is only the beginning of their many adventures.
I absolutely LOVED this story! I don’t read a lot of New Adult fiction, but this story really pulled me in! Tallis and Finn are brave, compassionate characters and their friendship is endearing.
The Shriekers may have been zombies, but they are not like zombies as we know them. These types of zombies cannot really function too well in daylight, and they are known for their shrieking screams — thus why they are called “Shriekers.” They are definitely scary creatures and apparently capable fighters, as they overtake many people they encounter. They also somehow manage to figure out how to sail ships, which puts Tallis and Finn into more danger later on in the story.
The scene with the Nightmare Bridge was really creepy! No wonder people feared crossing it. I thought it was just a bridge, but it certainly is not! It is the stuff of nightmares, and appropriately named! The visions which both of the characters see while crossing this bridge haunts them in the rest of the story and readers are left guessing if all of those visions just might be prophetic.
While Tallis and Finn have a good friendship and maybe they have romantic feelings for each other, they are opposites. Tallis is independent and ambitious, while Finn is clingy and has a hard time moving away from the past. Granted, Tallis is stronger and braver than Finn, but he has a hard time being able to adjust to change. I was irritated with how, when Tallis gets a promotion, Finn tries to talk her out of it and hold her back. It’s like he feels threatened by her moving on with her life. She reminds him she has no home and no village to go back to, and that this could be a good thing in creating a new life for herself and her siblings, but Finn is moody about it, sulks and pulls away from her.
But it would seem that change was on the horizon for both of them. In all that they go through in this story, it changes them and makes them stronger. It makes their friendship stronger too. I was pleased to see that their friendship survives a lot of hurdles, even distance, and that they are able to move past squabbles and issues they’ve had to deal with before.
This whole story was quite a read! The book was hard to put down and each new chapter kept me guessing about what was going to happen next. The ending was really sad but also beautiful.
Waves Take Your Bones is a high-seas adventure story of humans fighting zombies. With intense fight scenes, nautical dangers and terrifying enemies, it’s a story fans of adventures and zombie stories are sure to love. Well-written and craftily plotted, this novel offers a seafaring twist on the zombie story where the fight for survival takes place on the roaring waves of the sea.
Five stars
Disclaimer: I downloaded this story to read as part of my Kindle Unlimited subscription and this review is entirely voluntary.
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