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The Family Bones by Kimberly Raiser
The Family Bones by Kimberly Raiser is a debut novel by an imaginative young author. The story follows a family that has just inherited property in a tiny little town in Pennsylvania. The Weavers can't wait to check out their new place, and are hoping for a quiet, simple small town life for themselves and their young kids. The property comes complete with the requisite weird/friendly caretaker and his oddly creepy son, along with lots of mysterious tunnels, hidden rooms and things that go bump in the night. Throughout the course of the book, we discover that all isn't what it seems even within the Weaver family. There are secrets there as well........
When I first started The Family Bones, I thought I was reading a spooky horror type novel. It quickly morphed into a straight mystery, with a touch of "mysterious shadowy group" thrown in. Then it changed once more into a SciFi thriller. I guess it could be called a Horror/SciFi/Conspiracy Murder mystery. And that is really sort of the biggest problem for this reader. Ms. Raiser is an inventive storyteller, and has simply packed a lot into this slim novel. I would have really enjoyed getting to know much more about the background story of many of the characters. Interesting, peculiar and eccentric folks fill this book, and much is mentioned in passing. I hope that the author is planning on fleshing out these people further. It would make the book much longer, but be so much more satisfying to this reader.
The Family Bones has a lot of potential, the author does a superb job of setting the tone. Her descriptions of time and place are spot on, and she paints us a very good picture of the locations contained within her pages. I think if the character development is brought along, Kimberly Raiser has an interesting and productive future ahead of her.
My rating:
3 comments:
From the cover I would have guessed spooky horror type book.
Hey, I posted this as a comment on my LOST discussion, but I wanted to post it here as well! re: Charlotte being born on the island
I'm not 100% certain that Charlotte was born on the island, but I think she was. When Daniel was trying to convince her to leave on the Zodiac raft, Miles said something like "I'm surprised you're leaving so quickly when you've spent so long trying to get back here." And then later, the reason she tells Daniel she's staying is because she's been looking for the place she was born. My theory is that she thinks she was born on the Island.
I have this one in my review pile. I am so looking forward to it!
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