YMMV / The Bone Witch

• Captain Obvious Reveal: It's meant to be a Wham Line at the end of the novel that Tea is actually speaking of Kalen when she resurrects "the man she loves" back from the dead, but it's pretty obvious that's who she's talking about - he's the only male character her age who isn't either her brother or Prince Kance who has much focus put on him, they have more scenes and dialogue together than Tea and Prince Kance do and Tea confirms to the scribe she's only ever been in love with two men. Given we know who the first one is very early on, there really was no other option but Kalen.
• Padding: A complaint about the book is that after Lady Mykaela brings Tea to the Willows, actual important plot points are very far between, with a large chunk of the book taken up with Tea's training, what being an Asha entails, politics about countries that are only referenced in passing, lore about Heartglasses and just generally Tea wandering around the city learning how to be an Asha. A lot of bit characters are introduced as well and focus is taken from the threat of monsters and possible civil war to talk about them. Unfortunately, given a lot of stress is put on the fact that Bone Witches are rare, Lady Mykaela is growing increasingly weaker thanks to the Dark Arts and killing Daeva taking their toll on her and how important it is that Tea learn how to do so quickly (given that Mykaela's last apprentice was killed), it comes off like Tea's wasting a lot of time practising instruments and wearing pretty robes than training for her more urgent duties. By the time the first book ends, nothing much has happened in the past timeline, and the future one has an adult Tea announcing she intends to use the Daeva to attack the nearest city now that she has enough under her command to do so, but the book ends before she actually does anything. This might be explained as a Sequel Hook, but Tea's Asha training could have been condensed by at least half and the pacing of the book would not slow to such a crawl.
• Strangled by the Red String: In the first book, Tea starts crushing on Prince Kance pretty much from the moment she meets him and acts like she's in love with him from that point on, even though they only exchange a couple of conversations together after that.