Title: Silent: The Bones of You
Author: Debbie Howells
Publication: June 30, 2015
Publisher: Kensington Books
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Source: Netgalley
SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
I have a gardener’s inherent belief in the natural order of things. Soft‑petalled flowers that go to seed. The resolute passage of the seasons. Swallows that fly thousands of miles to follow the eternal summer.
Children who don’t die before their parents.
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:
**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.**
Debbie Howells has dropped her thriller debut with her new release “The Bones of You”. A creepy name to start, Howells draws you in to a story that builds slowly to a surprising ending.
“The Bones of You” follows the story of Kate, a woman in a small village who cares for horses, raises her daughter, and loves her husband endlessly. Life couldn’t be more perfect. One day Rosie Anderson, the daughter of a well-to-do family, comes up missing and then found dead. Kate, having known Rosie from the time she spent with her horses, befriends Jo, Rosie’s mother, and tries to help her through her grief. Unfortunately for Kate, she finds more than she was looking for. Kate slowly gets drawn into the web of secrets that surrounds the Anderson family and finds it hard to know who to trust and who not to.
This novel is very character driven. While the story does follow the “who did it” path, it also creates characters that have so many layers. I found myself slowly peeling back the layers of each character until the very end when you finally figure out which one is bad. While the characters were well developed, I found myself a little bothered by the interjections from Rosie’s point-of-view throughout the book. The book jumps back and forth between real time and Rosie’s ghost remembering things from her past. I found these interjections were trying to point us in the direction of who the real killer was, but they seemed to purposefully steer us in the wrong direction. It wasn’t until the very end when the author quickly changed the story and gave us the real killer. After that the story ended rather abruptly. We had a very large build up to who it really was and then slammed to an ending quickly. It was almost as if those Rosie interjections were meant to drag the story out longer. The secretiveness Howell was likely going for was there, but could have been done in a shorter version or with a more intense middle to the story to keep us going.
I will say by the end I was convinced thoroughly about the level of crazy one character was hiding from the community. Some people will do just about anything it seems. I would recommend this read to anyone who enjoys thrillers or suspense that are on a more slow growing plot line rather than a lot of spikes of intensity. I prefer those spikes of intensity throughout to keep the reader on the edge of their seat, but Howells managed to hold my attention enough to want to know how it finished. Three stars for Howells.
Make sure to pick up your copy of “The Bones of You” by Debbie Howells tomorrow at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Let us know what you think! Also add it to your TO READ list on Goodreads.
