Title: The Bones of You
Author: Debbie Howells
Series: N/A
Edition: Digital ARC, 320 pages
Publication Details: June 30th 2015 by Kensington
Genre(s): Thriller; Mystery
Disclosure? Yep! I received a free, advanced copy in exchange for an HONEST review!
Goodreads // Pre-order/Purchase
When Kate receives a phone call with news that Rosie Anderson is missing, she’s stunned and disturbed. Rosie is eighteen, the same age as Kate’s daughter, and a beautiful, quiet, and kind young woman. Though the locals are optimistic—girls like Rosie don’t get into real trouble—Kate’s sense of foreboding is confirmed when Rosie is found fatally beaten and stabbed.
Who would kill the perfect daughter, from the perfect family? Yet the more Kate entwines herself with the Andersons—graceful mother Jo, renowned journalist father Neal, watchful younger sister Delphine—the more she is convinced that not everything is as it seems. Anonymous notes arrive, urging Kate to unravel the tangled threads of Rosie’s life and death, though she has no idea where they will lead.
Weaving flashbacks from Rosie’s perspective into a tautly plotted narrative, The Bones of You is a gripping, haunting novel of sacrifices and lies, desperation and love.
Review
I was totally hooked on The Bones of You from page one. Kate is a down-to-earth woman (literally – she’s a gardener), wife, and mother who is shocked and saddened at the disappearance of the girl next door, Rosie.
Rosie is the same age as Kate’s daughter, and although they were not friends, quiet, little Rosie would often visit Kate and help her look after her horses. It’s only when she disappears that Kate realises that Rosie had kept it a secret about visiting Kate, and all of a sudden, Kate is involved in the chaos that is a missing teenager.
It’s not long until Rosie’s body is found, in the exact place where Kate and her horse got spooked just days before and from there things just get weirder and weirder and the perfect family become much less perfect, page by page.
There were a lot of things that shouldn’t have worked in this book: The switching of narrators, the flashbacks and fluctuating timeline and the ghost of Rosie telling her side of the story from both before and after her death, but I thought it really did work.
The pace was fast, and I was dying to know (not really, don’t kill me) who had killed Rosie even though at times it seemed obvious. I also found it really easy to read and follow despite all the previously mentioned things which usually prevent that from happening where I’m concerned.
The Bones of You is a dark, interesting mystery turned psychological thriller, which ticked lots of boxes for me.
