Isle of Blood and Stone is about a slightly disreputable royal mapmaker, and that was all I needed to bring the book home! Elias is a great character: he's skilled with maps and navigation and loves his job, but he has no fear of the seedy side of town and doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. But he still tries to live up to the legacy of his father, who disappeared many years ago when two princes were kidnapped. A mystery arrives in the form of two maps with deliberate inaccuracies that are obviously clues—and the maps appear to be drawn by Elias's father. Elias and his childhood friends, who happen to be the young king and his cousin Mercedes, a girl with her own unusual skills, have to decide if they will follow the clues and dig up the truth about an old tragedy that might be best left buried.
The world-building is lovely: an island kingdom with a distinctly Mediterranean feel and the kind of fantastical elements you might find on an old map; sea serpents are a real danger here. I was immersed in the setting, but it was the characters and their relationships that drew me into the story. Eliot, Mercedes and King Ulises are navigating the way their friendship must change as they fill their adult roles in the kingdom, and the tensions and loyalties among them are nuanced and real. I loved watching their interactions. There are a fairly large number of supporting characters, all of whom felt rounded and rich, helping the world feel full and interesting. I particularly liked Elias's family, and Reyna, the girl who wants to be mapmaker but whose future is limited because she's a girl.
The mystery is interesting enough, with adventure and suspense, and the resolution is one of those it-was-obvious-all-along-but-we-just-didn't-see-it solutions that are so satisfying. I wasn't particularly convinced by the bad guys, but it didn't really matter, since their motivations aren't what I was concerned about. I like that the ending isn't all tied up in a bow for us, and that it is true to each character.
The companion novel, Song of the Abyss, is about Reyna when she grows up, and I can't wait to read it!
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