Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.  For my latest Waiting on Wednesday I check out one of the most anticipated fantasy novels of 2020, Call of the Bone Ships from fantasy phenomenon R. J. Barker.

Barker is an incredibly talented fantasy author who burst onto the scene in 2017 with the amazing and dark The Wounded Kingdom trilogy, made up of the three excellent fantasy novels, Age of Assassins, Blood of Assassins and King of Assassins, each of which was better than the last.  Barker followed up this fantastic debut trilogy with the incredible first book in The Tide Child series, The Bone Ships.

The Bone Ships was an epic and captivating novel that followed a group of condemned sailors in another brutal fantasy world as they attempted to hunt down and protect the last dragon, whose bones make the ships that fight in a deadly war.  The Bone Ships contained so many amazing elements, including great characters, realistic nautical adventures and some extremely gripping action sequences.  This was an outstanding book that I consider to be one of the best novels (and best audiobooks) of 2019, and which got an easy five-star rating from me.  I absolutely fell in love with this awesome book and I have been eagerly waiting for a sequel since last year.

This long-awaited sequel is Call of the Bone Ships, which will be the second book in The Tide Child series.  Call of the Bone Ships is one the books I have been most looking forward to checking out this year and is currently set for release on 24 November 2020.  So far not a lot of detail about this upcoming novel has been released, apart from a brief plot synopsis (see below) and another very impressive cover.  However, this book looks set to continue the amazing story started in The Bone Ships, and I am more than sure that Barker is going to present another gripping and clever narrative.

Goodreads Synopsis:

A brilliantly imagined saga of honour, glory and warfare, Call of the Bone Ships is the captivating epic fantasy sequel to RJ Barker’s The Bone Ships.

Dragons have returned to the Hundred Isles. But their return heralds only war and destruction. When a horde of dying slaves are discovered in the bowels of a ship, Shipwife Meas and the crew of the Tide Child find themselves drawn into a vicious plot that will leave them questioning their loyalties and fighting for their lives.

The above synopsis is not too much to go on, but I kind of like the suspense of not having an idea of how the plot will unfold and it should make for a nice surprise.  Honestly, though, based on how good Barker’s writing is and how incredible The Bone Ships was, I already know that I am going to love this book.  I have absolutely no doubt that Call of the Bone Ships will also get a full five stars from me when I get a chance to read it and I am expecting amazing things from this upcoming book.