The Bone Witch
#5243.93 in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 3 books Status Complete 2017–2019 Reading commitment Medium Rin Chupeco Last reviewed 2026-08-25
Overview
A young-adult dark fantasy by Rin Chupeco following Tea, a girl who discovers she can raise the dead and is taken in to train as one of the rare, feared bone witches, told across two interwoven timelines: one following her apprenticeship among a sisterhood of necromancers, the other, years later, showing an older Tea surrounded by the dead and clearly heading toward some catastrophic reckoning the earlier timeline has not yet reached. The completed trilogy, The Bone Witch (2017), The Heart Forger (2018) and The Shadowglass (2019), builds an elaborate court-and-caste society around its necromancers, who are simultaneously essential to their kingdoms and feared as monstrous. Chupeco, a Filipino-Canadian author, drew on Filipino folklore and imagery for parts of the worldbuilding, distinguishing the series from more conventional Western witch narratives common in YA fantasy of the same period.
Dark fantasy · For YA
Core Canon: Reading Order (3 works) counts toward ranking
The Bone Witch Trilogy Rin Chupeco
| Work | Year | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | The Bone Witch | 2017 | core | 3.67 (52,141 ratings) |
 | The Heart Forger | 2018 | core | 4.20 (24,296 ratings) |
 | The Shadowglass | 2019 | core | 4.27 (19,219 ratings) |
A complete three-novel young-adult dark fantasy trilogy.
Quick answers
- How many books are in The Bone Witch? The Bone Witch's Core Canon is 3 books.
- What is the reading order for The Bone Witch? Publication order, starting with The Bone Witch. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is The Bone Witch finished? Complete (2017–2019).
- How much reading does The Bone Witch take? Medium reading commitment (estimated from 3 Core Canon books · ~952 pages).
- How is The Bone Witch ranked? #524 in this site's official ranking, based on 95,656 reader ratings across 3 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #524?
Ranked #524 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.93 across 3 core books.
- A smaller readership (95,656 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Uneven reception: its books range from 3.67 to 4.27.
- Less than 0.01 behind #523, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Rated · 3 books · Complete · 96k ratings · Ranks #524 overall
Good choice if you want a moderate-length dark fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (3 Core Canon books)
- The Bone Witch (2017)
- The Heart Forger (2018)
- The Shadowglass (2019)
Awards (verified)
- No confirmed major juried award win found after a genuine search.
You might also like
Suggestions computed from what The Bone Witch and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.
- Monster Blood Tattoo Dark fantasy / Epic fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.07
- The Power of Five Dark fantasy / Urban fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.01
- Kingdom of the Wicked Dark fantasy / Romantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 3.92
- Reckless Dark fantasy / Fairy-tale retelling · Ongoing · Medium commitment · 3.90
Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.93 across 95,656 ratings on 3 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: The Bone Witch admitted (Rin Chupeco) accepted 2026-08-25
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-08-25
Rule: Core Canon = the complete three-novel trilogy: The Bone Witch (2017), The Heart Forger (2018), and The Shadowglass (2019).