Given that I really enjoyed The Red Palace by June Hur, I made sure to borrow The Silence of Bones when I passed by a library that had it. The Silence of Bones was actually the June Hur book I originally intended to read, since CamilleaRead’s review of it intrigued me so much!

Set a few years after The Red Palace, The Silence of Bones is another murder mystery set in 18th-century Korea. Sixteen-year-old Seol is indentured to the police bureau, working as a pair of hands to touch the corpses of women and to do the tasks that the officers can’t. When Inspector Han promises her the gift of returning home in exchange for her help, Seol’s drawn into the murder of Lady O, a noblewoman with secrets of her own and her natural curiosity leads her into dangerous territory.

Firstly, I just have to say that I loved the historical setting that Hur chose! I didn’t know about the Catholic persecution in Korea and it’s not something that I’ve seen in other books/kdramas so the time period itself was fascinating for me. I’m welcoming all nonfiction recommendations on this time period now! The book is clearly grounded in these particular few years and I love it!

Seol was also a very interesting character. On the surface, she seems rather straightforward: indentured but curious and impulsive, which I think is a pretty common trope/character for YA heroines. But as she investigates the murder of Lady O, we get to learn about her life story and she became a complex character to me. Seol has to wrestle with her inner demons and she faces very real physical hardships (at one point, she can count her ribs) and I could see how her determination helped her to carry on. I think that Seol’s personal growth is at the heart of the book and I really enjoyed that.

Another thing I enjoyed were the relationships between the characters. This is a book centred around family, about both the positive and negative relationships that can exist between them. Perhaps because of this, we don’t have a romance subplot coming out of nowhere, and that also makes sense because Seol’s current goals and situations don’t exactly welcome a romance and I like that one wasn’t shoehorned in.

Honestly, I think I love this book more than The Red Palace, which I already thought was a very solid read. June Hur combines an exciting mystery with an interesting, well-research setting and adds in a heroine that I found myself rooting for. Then she ties it all together with the theme of family, making it an amazing read that was hard to put down.