My Sister's Bones: A Novel by Nuala Ellwood

(Thank you to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for providing me with a copy of this book!)

about book:

“Rivals The Girl on the Train as a compulsive read (and beats it for style). — Observer (UK)

In the vein of Fiona Barton’s The Widow and Renée Knight’s Disclaimer, a psychological thriller about a war reporter who returns to her childhood home after her mother’s death but becomes convinced that all is not well in the house next door—but is what she’s seeing real or a symptom of the trauma she suffered in Syria?

The One Person You Should Trust Is Lying to You…

Kate has spent fifteen years bringing global injustice home: as a decorated war reporter, she’s always in a place of conflict, writing about ordinary people in unimaginable situations. When her mother dies, Kate returns home from Syria for the funeral. But an incident with a young Syrian boy haunts her dreams, and when Kate sees a boy in the garden of the house next door—a house inhabited by an Iraqi refugee who claims her husband is away and she has no children—Kate becomes convinced that something is very wrong.

As she struggles to separate her memories of Syria from the quiet town in which she grew up—and also to reconcile her memories of a traumatic childhood with her sister’s insistence that all was not as Kate remembers—she begins to wonder what is actually true…and what is just in her mind.

In this gripping, timely debut, Nuala Ellwood brings us an unforgettable damaged character, a haunting , humanizing look at the Syrian conflict, and a deeply harrowing psychological thriller that readers won’t be able to put down.

my thoughts:

Wow! Talk about a psychological thriller at its best! I absolutely LOVED My Sister's Bones. This book was on fire! It had top notch writing, chock full of mystery and suspense which all made for quite a thrilling and exciting read. And the characters were crazy good - they had me questioning everything!  Oh, and the flashbacks mixed in with present day were terrific - they really made you get a better understanding of Kate's past.  Or did they? Hmm...

So, who is Kate?  Well, she's a war reporter who has just returned from Syria to her childhood home for her mother's funeral.  However, once she's back in familiar territory her life seems to take a turn for the worse.  We find out about her abusive childhood, her terrible father, and her alcoholic sister.  We see Kate become convinced that something sinister is happening to the kid next door.  And we find ourselves wondering just how mentally competent Kate really is - how hard has her job impacted her life?  The horrors she grew up with combined with the war torn countries she travels to must have affected her psyche in some way or another - right?  Or is something else happening to Kate?  What is making her see what's not there? Hmm...let me just say, you will have quite a time figuring it out.  All the horrors, the family drama, and the hallucinations - Whoa, Nelly! Talk about storytelling at its best! 

I would happily recommend Nuala Ellwood's debut novel, My Sister's Bones to fans of psychological thrillers - you will get a kick out of this one!

Here's the link to the TLC Book Tour schedule for: My Sister's Bones

Thank you to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for providing me with a copy of this book!