The Mask Falling beautifully continues the epic Bone Season saga

Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season series is the sort of immersive, sprawling fantasy that’s difficult to describe and even harder to put down. The fourth installment, The Mask Falling, is no different, a propulsive story that grabs you and doesn’t let go, making sure you don’t feel any of its 500+ page count.

The thing is, at this point, reviewers aren’t going to convince anyone to start reading Shannon’s series with this book – and, honestly, you shouldn’t. Newcomers to the series at this point would be lost entirely. But, instead, I can only stress how intricately plotted and thoroughly planned out this series is – so much so that when you reach this book, the fourth of seven installments, you’ll sigh with delight at how perfectly everything fits together, and how one layer of the story seamlessly builds upon another.

The novel picks up where The Song Rising left off, with Paige Mahoney, Underqueen of the criminal London syndicate known as The Mime Order, on the run after escaping imprisonment and torture at the hands of the immortal Rephaim. She and her former Rephaim captor turned partner in revolution,  Arcturus Mesarthim, journey to the Scion Citadel of Paris to join forces with the Domino Programme.

This group is another secretive organization run by an as yet unnamed group from the “free countries,” otherwise known as those where Scion doesn’t yet have a foothold. (Though it sends an occupying force to several new locations in this novel.) Paige must use her particular clairvoyant abilities (dreamwalking, which allows her to do things like possession and what is essentially astral projection) to find out information for their new friends, in the hopes that they’ll join forces with her Mime Order and create an army capable of truly stopping Scion.

In the meantime, Paige and Arcturus settle into the underworld of Paris, decadent and rich in a way that only anything Parisian can be, in a France that has its own set of problems with Scion. (Which include the creation of another Sheol camp – the human prison meant to harvest powerful clairvoyants for the Rephaim during what they call a Bone Season.) She must not only convince the other voyants to trust her, but she must also complete a series of dangerous missions for Domino, that involves infiltrating the life of the Grand Inquisitor of France himself.

Though The Mask Falling takes us to a whole new city and introduces a raft of new characters, the impact of the previous novels – particularly The Song Rising – throughout. Paige is still struggling with the fallout from her treatment at the hands of the Rephaim, experiencing PTSD and suffering panic attacks multiple times in this story. Her physical injuries also linger and impact her abilities in this story. (In fact, she spends most of The Mask Falling quite ill.)

The impact of everything she’s gone through – her escape from Sheol I, her ongoing fight to take down Scion, her quest to stop Senshield and save her syndicate – has taken a very visible toll on her. (It’s hard to describe how rare this is in stories like this – Paige can’t just bounce back, and the story is honest about the very real cost that comes with all her heroics.

But as a result of her multiple injuries, The Mask Falling is also a much more internal book than some of its predecessors. Sure, there are still plenty of risky decisions, daring escapes, and near-death experiences, but much of this story is about Paige’s interior life – her memories, her feelings about her family and former syndicate partners, and the betrayals that have shaped who she has become.

And, of course, her feelings for Arcturus.

The sometimes forbidden, sometimes just ill-advised back and forth between them continues to deepen in this novel, and the pair is still one of the absolute slowest of slow burns on the page in fantasy right now. But there are several key conversations – admissions, really – that are sure to delight fans, as well as some big twists that will leave people desperate for the next installment.

The breadth of this story – both in terms of Scion’s plans, its history, and its willingness to crush all before it, and the still expanding world of clairvoyants and the spirits they can see and sometimes command – is truly impressive.

Part political thriller, part paranormal epic, with some dark, dystopian bite tossed on top, The Mask Falling is Samantha Shannon at the top of her game. WE can only guess at what the fifth book in this series will bring – but I know I can’t wait to find out.

The Mask Falling is available now. Are you a fan of the Bone Season series? Sound off in the comments.