The Grief of Stones

Book Two of the Cemeteries of Amalo Trilogy

By: Katherine Addison

Narrated by: Liam Gerrard

Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

Locus Awards - Nominee, Short-listed

"The audiobook narrated by Liam Gerrard perfectly captures Celehar’s voice."—Buzzfeed on The Grief of Stones

In The Grief of Stones, Katherine Addison returns to the world of The Goblin Emperor with a direct sequel to The Witness For The Dead...

Celehar’s life as the Witness for the Dead of Amalo grows less isolated as his circle of friends grows larger. He has been given an apprentice to teach, and he has stumbled over a scandal of the city—the foundling girls. Orphans with no family to claim them and no funds to buy an apprenticeship. Foundling boys go to the Prelacies; foundling girls are sold into service, or worse.

At once touching and shattering, Celehar’s witnessing for one of these girls will lead him into the depths of his own losses.

The love of his friends will lead him out again.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

©2022 Katherine Addison (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Good reminders

As always with Katherine Addision, wonderful world building and characters, and a good mystery. In addition, excellent life lessons about resiliency, the nature of justice, self care, and grief are to be found!

Another Good One

this one is definitely stronger than Whitness, which while good, has some moments. This is one of those stories that I really wish would get brought to the small screen to get some more and I would love to see the world, which is even further expanded here and is simply wonderful. Can't wait for the next one.

if you enjoyed Witness for the Dead, you'll like

I'm looking forward to listening to this many times in the coming months and years. each of Katherine Addisons books only get better the more you listen. very glad I pre-ordered.

beautiful writing, performed with grace

excellent. beautiful writing, performed with grace. cathartic. bla bla bla bla bla she Doobie do.

The Witness Sleuth

You might think that a detective story would lack surprises if the dead can just tell you who murdered them. You would be wrong. Katherine Addison’s Cemeteries of Amalo once again proves that hearing the last thoughts of the dead is only the first step toward justice. A beautifully written and perfectly narrated fantasy-crime detective story for those enchanted by a steampunk world of elves, goblins, and gods who confer magical skills.

Freaking brilliant!

I admit that when I first read the prequel to this book (The Witness for the Dead) I was underwhelmed, mostly because it was nothing like The Goblin Emperor, which I loved! But I decided to give “Witness” another chance because of this new book, and I’m so glad I did!! I liked it much better the second time, and it leads directly to this book. In fact, the two can be thought of as one story.

The Grief of Stones is much like Witness, it being the story of Thara Celehar, a witness for the dead. Just as in the first book, we follow Cekehar as he goes about his duties, most of which involve solving mysteries around someone’s death. Sometimes these end up being criminal cases, but not always. But in this book we get to see more of Celehar’s thoughts and feelings, especially in the last third of the book. I found the last chapter deeply moving, personally, as I have my own grief bearing stones in my life. It was extremely touching.

Taken together, these two books are brilliant! Do not read this one without first reading Witness for the Dead!

This is a deeply moving exploration of life and grief, while also being greatly entertaining. Highly recommend!!

strongly character-focused

Like other books in this series, The Grief Of Stones is strongly focused on the emotional and spiritual journey of the protagonist, and is less concerned with trimming out scenes that are not directly related to the central plot. It thoroughly kept my attention all the way through but some aspects of the book feel like a series of short stories centered on a theme rather than a single story unit. Depending on your reading preferences, this could either be a positive or a negative for you.

That said, the main plot of the story is compelling, Addison's writing is excellent as always, the cast of characters are well-developed and complex, the narration was great, and I highly recommend this book series for folks that like character-driven plots that demonstrate fascinating world building. I do not recommend this novel to my dad, who likes action-filled plot-centric novels and doesn't care as much about the internal emotional journey of the protagonist.

kinda perfect

loved this book, beautifully crafted, sharp witted and full of compassion for the grief of stones

Thara Celehar at his best and worst!

I will read anything in the world of The Goblin Emperor and had The Grief of Stones on pre-order the day it became available. I personally enjoyed this book even moreso than The Witness for the Dead. It picks up almost exactly where Witness left off, and many of the characters from Witness come back in The Grief of Stones; if you have not recently read The Witness for the Dead, a refresher read would be very helpful. The plot for this one seemed clearer than in Witness, and the some of the "side quest" stories were very funny and lighthearted, which helped to keep the story from becoming too heavy. Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) is a master of prose, with beautiful descriptions and clever turns of phrase. Liam Gerrard is again excellent as Celehar, and his dry wit works very well with Addison's straight-man humor. His rasp as Celehar is not grating, and while not all of his voices are completely distinguished from one another vocally, his main characters at least are distinct and well-characterized. Celehar has his ups and downs (some of his downs being pretty rock bottom), but he never fails to be a truly marvelous character and diligent detective in his search for the truth. The ending is solid, though set up very well for what I hope will be a third Thara Celehar book. I know I will be eagerly anticipating it!

I could read a million of these

Magic, social justice, opera, murder, public transportation, great narration, what more can you ask for? Just as good as the last one.