As a writer myself, and an insatiable reader since the age of four, there are some authors whose prose and storytelling abilities just always makes me feel so hideously inadequate. If I live to be 200, I’ll never be able to draw the descriptive narrative pictures Loreth Anne White does so apparently effortlessly, never be able to take you into the icy wastes of rural western Canada and make you feel the bitter wind knifing through your clothes as you ride along in her characters’ heads.
The Dark Bones follows Rebecca North, a high-powered Ottawa RCMP officer who returns to the small community where she grew up after her father’s sudden death. From the moment of her arrival, Rebecca is suspicious not all is as it seems; her father might have been a depressed alcoholic, but he was in no way suicidal. That’s before she even goes to the scene and her truck is sabotaged, leaving her to freeze to death with no shelter and no way to call for help. Fortunately, an old friend comes by to check on her and saves her life… an old friend who is an old flame.
Twenty years ago, Ash made one stupid mistake that blew up his entire life and destroyed irrevocably the happy future he’d been dreaming of with Rebecca since he was twelve years old. He thought it was all over and done with, though, but somehow the past seems to be coming back around to haunt them all over again.
The tension ratchets steadily higher as Rebecca works her way closer to the truth, of what happened to her father and what happened twenty years ago, two events inextricably linked in time and space, which made Rebecca into the person she is and causes a seismic shift in the way she thinks about herself and her life going forward.
If you haven’t read any of Loreth Anne White’s books yet, this is as good a place to get stuck in as any other. Even though it’s the second in a series, it can absolutely be read alone, and it’s a chilling, thrilling, atmospherically charged read which you’ll struggle to put down. Five stars for another winner from this brilliant author!
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for review through NetGalley.