A reunion leads to tragedy, and the unravelling of dark family secrets . . .
It is the summer of 2021 and Nell has come home at her family’s insistence to celebrate an anniversary. Her father, Sir Frank Churcher, is regarded as a cult figure by many. Fifty years ago he wrote The Golden Bones. Part picture book, part treasure hunt, it was a fairy story about Elinore, a murdered woman whose skeleton was scattered all over England. Clues and puzzles in the pages of TheGolden Bones led readers to seven sites were jewels were buried – gold and precious stones, each a different part of a skeleton. One by one, the tiny golden bones were dug up until only Elinore’s pelvis remained hidden. The book was a sensation. A community of treasure hunters called the Bonehunters formed, in frenzied competition, obsessed to a dangerous degree. People sold their homes to travel to England and search for Elinore. Marriages broke down as the quest consumed people. A man died. The book made Frank a rich man. And it ruined Nell’s life.
But Sir Frank has reunited the Churchers for a very particular reason. The book is being reissued, along with a new treasure hunt and a documentary crew are charting the anniversary. Nell is appalled, and fearful. During the filming, Frank finally reveals the whereabouts of the missing golden bone. And then all hell breaks loose.
CW: Alcoholism, murder, addiction, adult/minor relationship, child abuse, drug use, abortion,
Rating
DNF @ 66%
Review
This wasn’t a book for me like at all. In fact, I’m kinda disappointed by how it turns out to be, but not to have dnfed it. Despite initially being engaged in the story, two main elements made me decide to dnfed it.
The first was the cast of characters. You follow two families with a powerful bond, so you have each member’s story. As you move with the story and its problems, you don’t see any progress or changes. The characters’ lives revolve around this mysterious book that changes their lives. Still, it takes so much place that you are fed up whenever it comes again. Their issues are redundant; I didn’t have the feeling to see them evolve, making it painful to read as they constantly come back to this book, the Bonehunters, and their problems. I wanted more about those characters; even their darkest side would have been better. They fell flat from the beginning to the end. I despise them as characters and as a person.
The second was the pacing and construction of the story. When I started the book, I thought it would have been more in the past with a little present time; then, as you read, you will have a blend between the past and the present. I also thought you would have a ton of dark secrets, an investigation done by someone from the family; I don’t know, just something to make it compelling to read! But none of that; you dive into these families with a maximum toxicity level and just follow them after an event. Sometimes, you have long chapters that could be more interesting, and then you will have short chapters that would be fast pace and gripping but will read them so fast.
I was fed up and, simultaneously exhausted by these characters, their problems, their dynamics, the pace and the construction of the book. If this book had been a hundred pages shorter, I might have finished it.
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