The Bone Houses: Emily Lloyd-Jones

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Mark Bradley is having a tough time. He and his wife, Hillary, moved to an idyllic island in rural Door County, northern Wisconsin, from a Chicago suburb to live on their salaries as teachers and raise a happy family. Mark, however, was accused of sexual harassment when the mother of shy teenaged student, Tresa, read the torrid accounts of an inappropriate affair in Tresa's diary. Tresa insisted her writings were all fantasy, but Mark was fired anyway and has been out of a job for a year. His wife, Hillary is still a dance coach at the high school, but her reception by the locals has become increasingly chilly. Enter Ellis, the mapmaker. Kind of strange that there seems to be an entire profession devoting to traveling mapmakers, but The Bone Houses runs with it. Ellis is an orphan boy trying to find his parents, and finds himself drawn to the woods where he was found. Thus, Ryn and Ellis, along with Ryn's very faithful goat, head off deep into the heart of the mountains, where they hope to finally learn the truth behind the curse and their own lives.

I want to thank the publisher "Embla Books" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read one of their books and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone! Mark accompanies his wife and her dance students to Florida for a competition. It's supposed to be a relaxing getaway, but Mark is accosted on the beach by Tresa's younger sister, Glory. When Glory is found dead, a witness is found that saw Mark kissing Glory very late at night. He insists they didn't kiss, and that he didn't kill the girl. Hillary wants to believe him, but she's exhausted from standing by him during the ordeal of the past year. And she's not quite sure he's telling the truth. It seems that the murdered girl was a witness to a house fire that almost wiped out a family. The husband and father was accused of arson and murder. While he was being transported to jail he disappears. Is it possible that he has returned and is seeking vengance? Allegedly, due a decades-old curse, the dead in Colbren can reanimate themselves and begin to walk again amongst the living. These walking dead are known as bone houses.

Los personajes están bastante bien perfilados, sobre todo los de Door County, destaco a Delia, Félix y Peter Hofmann, también destaco a Gary Jensen, Katie y Amy de Green Bay, y aunque Cab Bolton me ha gustado, me ha faltado algo para llegar a empatizar del todo con este protagonista. i can count on one hand the amount of mainstream novels that have incorporated traditional welsh influences into their stories. welsh folklore and culture - particularly northern welsh - is rich and magical, so i am beyond happy to see a story represent it (this even mentions the legend of beddgelert, which i may have lowkey freaked out about. lol). The late Col Hesketh showed me the trapdoor, which led to a tunnel a few feet long, but it had caved in. Cab (Born In One) Bolton, the unusual detective assigned to the case, fights against his attraction to the lovely CSI analyst, Lala. Like Hillary, he doesn't know who to believe. But he's Mark's only hope. And he carries a horrific secret of his own from the past. Hundreds of dead birds falling from the sky are not something that many people in the village of Slayton would consider unusual, especially, given everything that has happened in the town recently. The Bone House is another gripping, chilling mystery in Caroline Mitchell’s Slayton series. Detective Sarah Noble is faced with another harrowing crime, when a baby’s pram, with the bones belonging to a baby inside, is recovered from a lake after the waters are dredged. It looks as though the pram has been under the water for many years. But who committed this horrific act, and is there any connection between the discovery, and a house the local residents refer to as the bone house?

In terms of the actual mythological creatures included, some were the tylwyth teg (faery folk), the pwca (shapeshifting spirits), and the afanc (lake monsters). None of these are explained to the reader though because the characters grew up with them and don’t question their existence. However, we learn what these creatures are as the characters encounter them along their journey. The story starts off in the normal village of Colbren with not-so-normal creatures in the woods and then gradually descends into a magical world with a plethora of the fantastical beings that the characters grew up hearing stories about. (now, if only that could happen to me … :P) The thing I loved most about this book was how so much of it centers around love, family, grief, and moving forward. There are so many great quotes and messages throughout this story that it seriously made me tear up, which almost never happens. I felt like this was a timely fit for my life given everything that happened in the last few months and it was so comforting to read this and hear that it's okay to move on when bad things happen to us, and more importantly that our loved ones would want us to. I loved Aderyn's family dynamics, her friendship and soft romance with Ellis, and her newfound appreciation for her sister's goat who came in clutch multiple times and saved everyone's lives. I mean really, anytime an animal is going to save the day I'm obviously here for it. and i think its these influences that i hold dear to my heart which helped me fall in love with a story about zombies. zombies are so not my thing. but this comes from a place of myth and legend, rather than something from horror, and it makes all the difference. it feels more like the opposition in a fairytale and not like something you would find in a nightmare. i really appreciate how emily lloyd-jones took that approach and told that aspect of the story from that kind of perspective. Publishers Weekly stated, "the appealing main characters are notable for their persistence—Aderyn through ever-mounting obstacles, and Ellis through his chronic pain. The story serves as a meditation on the complicated relationship between the living and the dead, combining fear, humor and enchantment in equal measure, and alloying them with humor." [3] Book Riot placed the book on its list of 16 " #OwnVoices" titles for featuring a disabled character, noting that Ellis suffers from chronic pain and is the book's secondary main character. [4] Literary Hub agreed, pointing out that the character's disability does not define him wholly but is a part of him, stating, "Ellis, a mapmaker, is an apprentice with a mysterious past, but the mystery surrounding him is never defined by his chronic pain." [5]So, on one hand, Freeman does a very good job of hooking your emotions and pulling you into a very tumultuous story line. We have a dashing high school teacher who has been accused of taking advantage of an underage girl who had befriended him and his wife. We have an insular community hiding dark secrets and feeling that The Outsider is to blame for all of their woes. The community's Little Darling - who can do no wrong - is murdered on an empty nighttime beach in Florida. It's good. Seriously good. The church grounds were very small, even up to the turn of the 20th century, and so space was at a premium. Not even in the span of 2 days, Ellis has developed “the feelings” for Ryn & wants to bare his soul to her! Trial by the ignorant public just pisses me off to no end. There was a local guy who had his name plastered into the newsfeeds when he was brought in for questioning after being accused by a 15 year old girl for having sexual relations with her. I posted that I hoped she wasn't lying because he was already convicted publicly & that they shouldn't post his info until he was convicted. The hate filled comments that generated were incredible & sad. What happened to due process & innocent until proven guilty?

The falling/death of the crows brings about a dark, deep, deadly secret. There hidden in the depths of the lake lies the body of a baby strapped in its pram. Who could have done such a thing? Why?My biggest problem lies with the pacing, which is rather slow, and the plot, which I hate to say is predictable. So many things happening, but very little that actually moves the plot forward. Like, I wanted more excitement than just our characters fighting off Bone Houses every now and then. :( All of Brian's books are also available in audiobook editions. His novels THE BONE HOUSE and SEASON OF FEAR were both finalists for Best Audiobook of the Year in Thriller/Suspense. Hilary and Mark Bradley are trapped in a web of suspicion. Last year, accusations of a torrid affair with a student cost Mark his teaching job and made the young couple into outcasts in their remote island town off the Lake Michigan coast. Now another teenage girl is found dead on a deserted beach. . . and once again, Mark faces a hostile town convinced of his guilt. This speed was aided by the fact that the whole world was immersive and enjoyable to read. Steeped in Welsh mythology, the bone houses are far from the only magical things in this world, which also has fun things like pwca (ghost/fairy/forest creature things) and sea monsters. There is a recurring line of thought about the corruption of men, the consequences of when humans stopped trusting the fair folk, and how out of touch the nobility are with the dire state of small towns like Ryn’s, all of which helped create an intoxicating blend of whimsy and darkness that filled this dark fairytale.