THE MIME ORDER picks up right where The Bone Season ended, as Paige Mahoney is back with the Seven Seals in London after escaping the horrors of imprisonment at Sheol I. Paige has seen the brutality of slavery and what is being done to others clairvoyants under the government of Scion and its deadly alliance with the alien beings known as the Rephaim. She wants to tell the world, but no one around her is willing to listen. Meanwhile, Scion is desperately searching for Paige and she has to remain hidden for fear someone will try to collect the bounty on her head. Will Paige trust the right people as she attempts to forge a path for freedom?

THE MIME ORDER is the second book in The Bone Season series and I would highly suggest reading the books in order as Samantha Shannon's world is quite vast. Within Samantha Shannon's complex world, clairvoyant powers have manifested in portions of the population and their powers have been met with fear by Scion (the government) and amaurotics (humans without clairvoyant powers). Unbeknownst to the vast majority of both voyants (as the clairvoyants are called) and amaurotics, there also exists another race of beings called the Rephaim who are actually controlling everything. Samantha Shannon does a marvelous job at immersing readers into the various cultures that exist within these various races while providing us a multilayered and fascinating story at the same time.

THE MIME ORDER has a much slower plot build up than The Bone Season as we are seeing Paige get acclimated back to her own world after her horrific imprisonment. At times, I was frustrated with Paige for her loyalty to Jaxon Hall, her mime lord, as his treachery and cruelty seemed so apparent to me. However, her loyalty and awakening to the hardships of others makes her likable and even admirable. By the end of the book, I was cheering right along with the other characters for her to succeed.

THE MIME ORDER is a solid sequel to The Bone Season and fans of the first book will relish the continued world and character building. Samantha Shannon's world is not static as she is willing to throw her characters and the world itself into chaos with shocking twists and turns at every corner. Samantha Shannon has hooked me completely on The Bone Season series and I can't wait to see just how the cliffhanger at the end turns out.

Book Summary

Paige Mahoney has escaped the brutal penal colony of Sheol I, but her problems have only just begun: many of the fugitives are still missing and she is the most wanted person in London.

As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on Paige, the mime-lords and mime-queens of the city’s gangs are invited to a rare meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare to take center stage, but there are bitter fault lines running through the clairvoyant community and dark secrets around every corner.

Then the Rephaim begin crawling out from the shadows. But where is Warden? Paige must keep moving, from Seven Dials to Grub Street to the secret catacombs of Camden, until the fate of the underworld can be decided. Will Paige know who to trust? The hunt for the dream walker is on.