5 Stars
Review by: Alysia
Late Night Reviewer
Up All Night w/ Books Blog

I didn't realize this was the second book in the series, but that's okay. It's a standalone. The Dark Bones by Loreth Ann White is a romantic suspense with mystery. It starts as two separate cases that are actually connected. The thing I didn't like was in the beginning. it bounced between the past and present. It was difficult to keep up. Although once everything started to click into place it was easier. 

Detective Rebecca North is called home when her father is found dead, apparent suicide, in his burned down home. He was a retired officer that continued to look into cold cases to pass the time. Rebecca doesn't believe that her father would take his own life and begins asking questions to prove it. 

She must recruit help from her high school sweetheart Ash Haugen. Although she doesn't want to spend time with him, since he broke her heart all those years ago, he was the last one to see her father alive and the last one that knows about his frame of mind. It is a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone. Rebecca and Ash must figure out the last case her father was working on, to solve what actually happened to her father. Yet, they don't know who they can trust and who they can't. 

While on the case to find her father's killer they also start to uncover clues to solve the last case her father was working on, a case of missing kids from twenty years ago. When information starts resurfacing the safety of everyone involved becomes at risk. The criminals do what ever they need to do to keep the past buried.

Received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I had a hard time getting into this book. I found it boring and not particularly interesting sadly. Had high hopes but became disappointed. I’m tired of female federal agents/cops coming to their hometown to solve something and of course there is an old flame there waiting for her, and they start they whole “will they-won’t they”. I’m tired of the main character compromising themselves and letting others make the decisions.

Amazingly good. Plenty of twists and secrets. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the first time I have read this author and she grabbed me from the very beginning. It’s difficult to describe an artists work. And that’s what I think of her writing skills. She is an artist. 

White doesn’t just type words into a paragraph. She literally paints the picture in your mind and it seems like you are right there In the midst of the icy cold trying to solve the case.

The Dark Bones throws so many emotions at you. It is a combination of suspense, thriller, second chance romance, mystery, and a damn good fiction book.

Trying to capture my feelings is difficult because they are all over the place. One thing that I do know is that this book was one of the best I have read this year and it is truly an grossing read. I could not put it down nor did I want to.

While this book is part of a series of sorts, I really did not feel I was missing anything from the previous plot(s). But I do know that I am definitely going back and grab more books from this author.

She writes in such a captivating manner, I can’t wait to get my hands on more stories from her. Run, don’t walk, to your nearest book seller and grab this book! You will love it too. I know it!

I recently read The Dark Bones by Loreth Anne White. It’s a romantic suspense, and I’ve got to say, it’s just about a perfect book.

First, the back cover blurb:

She’s come back to solve the mystery of her father’s death and confront her own dark past.

When Detective Rebecca North left her rural hometown, she vowed never to return. Her father’s apparent suicide has changed that. The official report is that retired cop Noah North shot himself, knocked over a lantern, and set his isolated cabin ablaze. But Rebecca cannot believe he killed himself.

To prove it, she needs the help of Ash Haugen, the man she left behind. But Rebecca and Ash share more than broken hearts. Something darker lies between them, and the investigation is stirring it back to life. Clues lead them to the home of Olivia West and her deeply troubled twelve-year-old daughter, Tori. The child knows more about the murder than anyone can imagine, but she’s too terrified to say a word.

And as a cold-blooded killer resurfaces from the past, Rebecca and Ash begin to fear that their own secrets may be even harder to survive.

My Review

Like I said, this is just about a perfect book. Why? First, the structure of the story maximizes tension, surprise, and keeps you wondering all the way to the end. Second, the atmosphere. It’s set in a small town in the Canadian winter. The cold seeps into you and the isolation, the dark, and the poverty and lack of resources, along with a sense of claustrophobie: that everyone knows everybody’s business and you have no privacy. Third, the characters. Rebecca’s father comes alive, even after his death. So does Whitney. All the characters are flawed, with compelling stories. Even the secondary characters feel complex and rich. Rebecca is driven, smart, and logical. She’s got a lot in her past to deal with. That’s slowly revealed through the book as she deals with her grief, guilt, and old feelings for Ash.

The relationship between Rebecca and Ash is far more complicated than she is aware of. There’s more in their past than he’s revealed to her, and those secrets continue to drive them apart and as they come to light, implicate him in her father’s murder. Ash is still in love with Rebecca, but a mistake when he was seventeen broke them up and Rebecca can’t forget his betrayal. But she learns more about the past, about a long ago murder, she starts to understand that what she thought she knew was wrong. That she’d interpreted the facts incorrectly.

What I like is that she doesn’t start doubting herself as a cop. She keeps investigating and looking for the truth. She grows and changes, as do many of the other characters.

The addition of Ricky and Tori adds depth and highlights the tension, the atmosphere, and motivations. White weaves all these elements into a complex story that is hard to put down. I highly recommend this book and plan to pick up more of White’s books.

A well-written, intriguing mystery, with a heartwarming love story intertwined, set in a small, remote town in British Columbia.  

Rebecca grew up in this town, left as soon as possible, and didn’t look back when she moved to the city and began a career as a detective of white collar crimes. 
She rarely returned to visit her father and friends, but after 20 years, a family tragedy, and an unsolved crime call her and she reluctantly goes back to take care of family business and ends up solving a cold case that involves her friends and loved ones; one that has been unsolved since she lived there as a teenager.  

Secrets and lies have caused mistrust and fear, and after learning more, she is able to reevaluate her feelings about this place and people she used to know so well.  She reconnects with friends she grew up with, and rekindles a romantic relationship that had seemed to be dead. This heartwarming love story permeates the events of the story and adds to the enjoyment.  

I enjoyed this and recommend it to you as well.  

Note:  I received an advance copy of the ebook in return for an honest review.

Set in British Columbia, <i>The Dark Bones</i> is the story of Detective Rebecca North, who returns home when she receives news that her father, a retired Mountie, has been found dead of an apparent suicide.  But this conclusion just doesn’t sit right with Rebecca especially in light of a recent phone conversation with her father in which he said he had uncovered some important information about a cold case involving two teenagers who had disappeared twenty years ago.  There are a number of twists and turns as Rebecca revisits her past as she puts together the pieces of a murder that someone ruthlessly tries to keep buried.

Suspenseful and gritty, <i>The Dark Bones</i> accurately captures the extremes and dangers of this cold wilderness as well as life in a small rural town. This is the second in the Dark Lure series, but it also worked well as a stand-alone.  This book was my introduction to Loreth Anne White and I look forward to reading more.

 
FYI - I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Avid Reader – ☆☆☆☆
M/F Thriller
Triggers: Murder, Stalking, Alcoholism, hints at abuse

Rebecca is a mounted Canadian police officer who was heartbroken by her childhood sweetheart. When she left behind her small town to pursue bigger career aspirations, she always thought that she would have time to return and that her dad would always be there for her. When she receives a cryptic call from her dad, Rebecca isn’t quite sure what to make of it. However, when her dad winds up dead under strange circumstances, Rebecca has to return to her hometown to figure out what happened to her dad.

Ash tried so hard to get out of his hometown. But even though he tried everything he could think of, he became stuck. When Rebecca left, he understood, but it didn’t hurt any less. He tried to keep an eye on her dad over the years. He felt like his dad too since Ash’s own parents were less than stellar. Secrets have a way of making their way to the surface and when his secrets start to come to light, Ash has to decide if it’s worth keeping those secrets hidden.

This story has a lot of setup. You read the past and the present together and while it’s not confusing to know which you’re reading, it does take up a lot of the first half of the book. However, after the first 50%, the story really takes on a life of its own. And while it’s not a cliffhanger, White leaves enough of a hint that there could be books and a story after this one, which I hope there is.


Veronica – ☆☆☆☆
The Dark Bones is an excellent murder mystery. Rebecca North returns to her hometown after years away due to her father’s apparent suicide. Because the story is told from various points of view, we know that Rebecca’s father’s death was not a suicide and that there is much more going on in this little town and it appears to all link back to the disappearance of two teenagers 20 years prior. Glimpses of the past in this story give us just enough information to suck us in and have us asking questions and in my case, coming up with different theories about what happened then and what is happening in the here and now.

Loreth Anne White does such wonderful job laying out of the different strands of the story and pulling them together, including a love story between Rebecca and her high school boyfriend, Ash, which is playing out in the middle of the murder investigation. The author is also great at setting the atmosphere of the freezing Canadian winter – I was cold reading this book.

I loved The Dark Bones. It is the second book in the series, but it can be read as a standalone. I have not read the first book in this series, but I’ll be adding it to my To-Be-Read list. If you are a fan of romantic suspense stories, The Dark Bones is well worth reading.

From the first page, the eerie atmosphere and moody plot drew me in.  Rebecca is a well-drawn character and the reader can feel her guilt and trepidation as she investigates the demise of her father.  His death leaves her with a lot of questions as there are many loose ends that don't add up.   I look forward to looking up more of Ms. White's writings.

Thanks to the author, Montlake Romance and Netgalley.com for the opportunity to read and honestly review this book.

If you enjoyed “Girl on A Train,” then “The Dark Bones” is a book for you. A police procedural, this mystery/thriller will grab your attention from the first page to the last. There so many twists and turns that you will bite your nails while turning the page as fast as you can to know what happens next. 

Detective Rebecca North went home to her rural hometown to bury her father. But she cannot accept that her dad committed suicide. To figure out what really happened she needed the help of the whole town in general and Ash Haugen, her high school sweetheart, in particular.

In this tight-knit community, Rebecca felt like an outsider for being away for so long. As she began to second guess herself, clues kept on coming up that referred to an incident that happened a decade ago, the day that her heart broke. 

To add insult to injury, the only person she can trust seems to be the epicenter of everything. Rebecca only have to credible witnesses and both are children who are refusing to talk. 

In an era of Criminal Minds and CSI, setting a police procedural in a rural town with only one law enforcement officer seem like a contradiction in terms. Yet author Loreth Anne White pulled if off splendidly, proving that she knows her craft. 

Everything is believable and relatable. There was nothing in the storyline that will make you ask, “where did that come from?” Rather, you say, “wow, I knew that part was important… now I know why.”

Like fine wine, “The Dark Bones” should be enjoyed. Set aside a lazy afternoon or better yet, make this a read for your book club. There are so many points to discuss, it will surely be a lively discussion.

“The Dark Bones” is Rated T for Teens for thematic violence.

Readers of Loreth Anne White’s other books will recognize the setting of The Dark Bones, as she returns to previous characters from A Dark Lure.  Though they are the hook in, Olivia and her daughter Tori are minor characters and this can be easily read as a standalone.  Rebecca North is front and center as she returns home after the death of her father to unspool events of twenty-years ago.  I am a huge White fan and couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.  

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this novel.

"The Dark Bones" is an impressive and intense romantic suspense novel with large helpings of mystery and the fast-paced action of a great thriller. There's something for everyone in this extraordinarily good novel!

Even though it is book two in a series, it worked very well as a self-contained read. Captivating from the start, I loved the character development from Loreth Anne White, which made them very convincing. The short chapters helped to make this an easy read.

I will be reading the first book 'A Dark Lure' as soon as I am able to. This book is very highly recommended and worth every one of the five stars.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel at my own request from the publisher via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

This was my first book by this author. I am still not sure what I think about it. The story was there but I believe it was the pacing of the story that I didn’t like.I kept finding that it was easy for me to put down and I wasn’t always wanting to pick it back up. The story started interesting enough but then seemed to slow down and bounce back and forth between past and present. The ending had some twists that I didn’t figure so that was really good but the overall feeling of the book wasn’t “good”. ItThe unexpected twists we’re not enough for this to be a book I would tell my friends.


 Thank you netgalley for the arc!

Loreth Anne White is a new author to me, and I am impressed, I admit that. Her writing is beautiful, smooth, and descriptive, I called it in my mind  Women's Lit meets Cozy Mystery meets Thriller meets Romantic Suspense. 
Of course, if you are looking for a fast-paced action thriller, then you might get anxious after the intensely frightening beginning as the stage is set for the twenty-year-old crimes to be solved and connected to the current ones. The investigation is interesting and engaging but it does take time to get all the information together. Yet the author abundantly awards the readers, as the action and tension increases after half of the book are read.  
Everything in the story is intense, not just the investigation. The small town, the weather, the people, the connections, the climate, the past that is playing such an important role in the present, everything is an intricate part of the plot as the story unfolds, and as the solution started to be at hand, the book was impossible to put down until the end. 
Detective Rebecca North is a strong female lead. She knows her job, she is talented, detail oriented and dedicated. She has her issues from the past and her unresolved relationship with Ash Haugen, both ending up as the center of the investigation at hand. 
Ash is a broken hero, with his faults and failures. There are third person issues, there are youthful mistakes, there are terrible secrets and heartbreaking destinies. Even though it took me a long time to feel an emotional connection with Rebecca and Ash, when it finally came, it hit hard and directly to my heart. The road for them is not easy, the obstacles they face are unimaginable. The author does not take easy short cuts in their relationship but gives lifelike, believable solutions that were acceptable.
I have not read the book one in the series and was actually surprised to see that this is the book two - the two stories are separate tales, even though after reading the blurb to the book one realized that the main characters do visit this story as well. 
Tragic human destinies and devastating, horrifying secrets unravel as Rebecca starts to question the apparent suicide of her father. Mix in small-town Canada up in the prairie in the middle of the winter, with protagonists facing their past mistakes and currently churning emotions, teenagers getting into trouble, and the state police stepping in to run the investigation and you get a potent, ardent tale of the fragility of life, love, and human destinies.
~ Four Spoons

Wow! What a book. 

This book will keep you guessing until the absolute final arrest, that I didn’t really see coming. 

You get a suspense filled mystery with a love triangle and more lies and omissions of truth than you could possibly ever want, all presented in a small town where gossip spreads like a wild fire.. 

In the end, justice prevails and the truth will allow old hurts to be forgiven.

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!

4.5 stars--THE DARK BONES is the second instalment in Loreth Anne White’s contemporary, adult, A DARK LURE psychological thriller series. This is RCMP  commercial crimes Detective Sergeant Rebecca North, and Ash Haugen’s story line. THE DARK BONES can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous instalment is revealed where necessary. 

Told from several third person perspectives including Ash and Rebecca, following several intersecting paths, using present day and memories from the past,  THE DARK BONES follows in the wake of the death of Rebecca’s father, retired Cariboo Country cop Noah North. Having never expected to return to Cariboo Country, Rebecca North struggles with the evidence of her father’s demise. A man determined to solve a twenty-year old missing persons case, Noah North had apparently disturbed the dead, having opened up too many wounds, that were long thought buried and forgotten. Rebecca, desperate to prove her father’s death was a homicide, our heroine battles demons from the past, the memories of what was and what will never be, and a close-knit town of reluctant witnesses, dark secrets, and painful regrets. Reconnecting with Ash Haugen, the man she once loved, meant reconnecting with the heart break of betrayal and loss. What ensues is the rekindling relationship between Ash and Rebecca as our couple separately begin n investigation of their own into Noah North’s death, and the possible connection to Ash Haugen’s past.

THE DARK BONES is an intense, psychological thriller that looks at the angry,  small-town mentality of protecting their own. From the secrets long buried with the dead, to the habitual town gossips, THE DARK BONES slowly reveals a complicated past, dangerous present and potential future when Noah North reopened a twenty-year old missing persons case that sets into motion a series of events that resulted in his death. Loreth Anne White pulls the reader into a suspense filled, strong and dramatic story of secrets and lies; of betrayal and vengeance; of lost love and forgotten time. 

Copy supplied by Netgalley

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When I picked up Loreth Anne White’s The Dark Bones for review, I wasn’t aware that it was linked to one of her earlier books, A Dark Lure, in which a young woman who was abducted and repeatedly assaulted is making a new life for herself in rural Canada only to have to face the prospect that her abductor may still be at large.  But never fear; it’s perfectly possible to read The Dark Bones as a standalone as the author brings new readers quickly up to speed, and the plots in both books are self-contained, so there’s no real overlap.

When Rebecca North left her small Canadian home town, she moved to Ottawa, where she has built herself a successful career in the white-collar crimes unit with the RCMP.  She hasn’t been home in years and doesn’t have plans to do so, until her father, a retired police officer – calls her out of the blue to tell her that he knows she was lying about an event that happened twenty years earlier, and that he needs to talk to her urgently.  He’s clearly drunk – he’s rarely been sober since the death of his wife – and Rebecca’s about to go into court, so she puts him off, promising she’ll  call him soon… but she can’t put his words out of her mind.  Her father is referring to the day she’d found the man she loved stumbling along a country road, bruised and bloody, a long gash down one side of his face he’d attributed to a riding accident – but why is he asking about it now?

The next day, Noah North is found dead in his home, all the evidence pointing to his having set fire to his remote cabin and then shot himself.  The police are convinced it’s suicide, and the coroner’s report seems to bear that out, but Rebecca isn’t satisfied.  Her father may have been overly fond of drink, but she doesn’t believe he was suicidal, especially given what he’d said the last time they’d spoken; that he’d found new evidence in an old case he’d worked – and that he thought he was being watched.  She decides to do a bit of investigating of her own, and in the process discovers that her father was looking into the disappearance, twenty years earlier, of an old schoolmate of hers.  Evidence given at the time said that Whitney Gagnon and her boyfriend were seen getting onto the bus heading out of town – but it seems that evidence was false, and Noah was convinced that the young couple were killed before they could leave.  If that’s true – who murdered them and why?  And could someone have killed Noah because he was getting too close to the truth?

This cold case stirs up a myriad of long-buried feelings for Rebecca, not least of which is guilt over the fact she didn’t visit her father often because she couldn’t bear to run into her former boyfriend Ash Haugen, the man she loved, and the man who broke her heart twenty years earlier.  Now she’s back, and meeting Ash is unavoidable – but more than that, it seems that every investigative road leads to him. He was the last person to have seen Noah North alive – and some witnesses suggest they were arguing – and she can’t ignore Noah’s words during that final call “he lied – you both lied”. Because while Rebecca’s lie backed up Ash’s about the riding accident, he never told her the truth about the injury to his face – which was sustained the very same day Whitney and her boyfriend were seen getting ready to leave town.

I was completely engrossed by the storyline of The Dark Bones and by the way the author so skilfully juxtaposes past and present events, giving us glimpses – in flashback – of the events of twenty years before, and linking them to the current investigation into Noah North’s death.  Her descriptions of the landscape of this area of rural Canada are incredibly vivid, enabling the reader to easily picture the locations she describes, and her portrait of small town life – where everyone knows everyone else and one only has to sneeze to have three people on the doorstep proffering hot soup and Lemsip within the hour – is simultaneously charming, menacing and claustrophobic.  I liked Rebecca and Ash, although I never felt I got to know them deeply; Rebecca fled when Ash broke her heart but never really got over him, while Ash was forced to give up on his dreams because of a single mistake that changed the course of his life.  The strong undercurrent of deep longing and hurt running between them is palpable from the moment they see each other again; and while I’m often sceptical of stories in which romantic feelings endure for years even when the couple in question doesn’t see each other throughout their separation, the strength of the connection between Rebecca and Ash practically leaps off the page and helped me to get past my usual side-eye of the trope.   In fact my main criticism of the book stems from the fact that I’d have liked a little more exploration of their relationship in the now, especially in the light of what we learn about Ash’s difficult past.

The pacing in the first part of the novel is perhaps a little slow, but I didn’t find that to be a problem at all; in fact, I really appreciated the time spent on setting up the situations and introducing the secondary cast (some of whom were central to A Dark Lure, which I intend to pick up as soon as I can).  The Dark Bones is a wonderfully atmospheric, multi-layered and well-constructed mystery from a real master of her craft; it will draw you in and keep you intrigued from first page to last.

Grade: B+/4.5 stars

I think that I have found another cracking author! 
I picked this ARC as the cover then the description drew me in. When I realised that it is the 2nd in the series I listened to the other. Really good so I was eager to read this one. 
The prologue just got me and then I was hooked.
I loved it! 
The writing is snappy, clear, descriptive and just flows perfectly. 
The plot is clever with twists, some emotional just kept coming. 
I saw the sunrise whilst reading it as I couldn't bear to put it down.

Thanks to NetGalley, Loreth Ann White and Montlake Romance for the opportunity to read and review this BRILLIANT book.

This can be read as a standalone, however I highly recommend reading the predecessor A Dark Lure. Though this book centers around a new lead heroine, characters from Book 1 also appear. 
Rebecca North has returned to her childhood home, upon her father's death. His death has been ruled a suicide, but Rebecca's heart and instincts as a detective with the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) tell her otherwise. The book seethes with tension, long held secrets, betrayal and death, as Rebecca seeks to unravel the threads of mystery and murder.  A Complex blend of character and plot. I definitely enjoyed reading this book. I look forward to reading more from the author.

Omg! I love this author so much! She really writes romantic suspense really well. The chilling details of the killers attacks. I get goosies. Although the Angie Pallorino series are my number 1 favs in this category by her, Loreth delivers in this spin-off book from A Dark Lure and features some of those characters as it’s in and around same city. She has a gift for painting a picture of details. Check this #1 suspense author out for yourself.