This debut psychological thriller has it all - small town USA with its politics, racism, relationships and all the other undercurrents that occur in a stifling town.
Seventeen year old Abi went missing after her friend Emma leaves her out at Tall Bones, having promised that she would get home ok. Someone knows what happened to Abi, but no one is saying anything.
The strong cast of characters, from Abi’s younger brother Jude to her cruel father Samuel, and her best friend Emma and her friend Rat, have all been so well written that the book just flows, and is easy to read - so much so that it’s difficult to put down. I really enjoyed this book.

Emma and Abi are best friends and have been for years. While at a party one night, Emma chooses to go home early, leaving Abi behind at her request, never guessing for a second that she is kickstarting a devastating sequence of events that she’ll be trying to unpick for months to come. When tragedy strikes in a small town, it can serve to shine a spotlight on all its occupants, revealing their deepest, darkest secrets and showing the hidden aspects of people’s lives. Everyone knows everyone but how well can you really know anyone, and how do you know the difference between the truth and what they want you to believe?

This is a dark, atmospheric thriller and I really enjoyed it. I found it a little bit tricky to get into, but it’s a great read. I liked that the main female characters weren’t the typical perfect high school - chearleader Mary Sues, they were complex, imperfect and had hidden depths. The characters were generally all good though, intriguing and with layers to their characters, they all felt 3 dimensional. A great read, I would definitely recommend this!

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Tall Bones is an absolutely stunning debut novel. I took a lot longer reading it than I would normally need because I spent a lot of time highlighting different sections as I read, going over them several times before continuing with the rest of the story. I never usually do this, but the writing style was so beautiful, I wanted to keep a record of some of the passages.

A small-town murder mystery with a heavy emphasis on the parochial attitudes of its inhabitants - Tall Bones was a slow-burn but impossible to put down at the same time. It was atmospheric and intense, tackling difficult subjects alongside the main storyline of Abigail's disappearance. I am sure this won't be the last we hear from Anna Bailey, and I can't wait to see what she has in store for her next novel.

I do get the 'small town, everybody has a secret' scenario, but I felt this was a little over done here...virtually everybody had some links, or had perpetuated, horrible crimes...it was written well, but I guess I was looking for the light at the end of the tunnel...which unfortunately never came! Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the chance to read this ARC.

It felt like hard work reading this book a bit like running through sand. The characters were well written and it was easy an easy to follow plot apart from the heavy detail all the way through.
Certainly not a light summer read but worth ploughing through,,, I think.

'Tall Bones' is a novel about small-town life in a place where the bible is used by the church and fathers to attempt to keep their kids - and wives - in line, and yet all sorts of bad stuff is going on under their noses (sometimes perhaps UP their noses). It's a place dripping with hypocrisy, racism, homophobia where small minds get ample opportunity to perpetuate their privileges.

When a young woman - Abi - goes missing after a part out in the woods (at a place called Tall Bones), nobody can initially be sure if she's been killed or has run away in search of something better. As we get to learn more about her family - one for which the term 'dysfunctional' seems an understatement - it's not hard to see that running away might have felt like a very realistic option.

Her best friend, Emma, soon finds out she didn't really know Abi at all. Emma's got a couple of problems of her own - a drink problem and being mixed race in a very white town. Her friend Rat, the Romanian immigrant, is another outsider, but he's also not really who she thought he was and he's also very deeply tied up with Abi's family.

The book is menacing. I didn't know who did it until the 'reveal'. There seemed to be plenty of people who might have and even more who were willing to do whatever it took to cover up the evil of the town.

It's a great read. We peel away the layers of intrigue, head down the odd blind alley only to bounce back again, and there are plenty of people who are definitely not living their best lives. There's one event where a baddy gets his comeuppance where I defy you not to cheer out loud when it happens.

Highly recommended. I'd read this author again.

Emma and Abi are best friends, they’ve grown up together and are navigating being seventeen year olds in a small town side by side. They attend a party one night and when Emma wants to leave, Abi decides to stay. Emma checks she is sure that she definitely doesn’t want a lift home and when Abi insists that she is fine, Emma head off in her car. That is the last time anybody will see Abi alive.

Whistling Ridge is a small community, where everybody knows every else’s business and the church plays a large role in setting the tone for the moral compass of the town. Pastor Lewis runs the church with an iron fist and uses his power to influence and coerce his parishioners into following the word of the Lord, breeding a culture of misogyny, racism and xenophobia. This is one of those towns where everything looks perfect, but scratch beneath the surface and there are dark thoughts and dangerous deeds. They may think that they are living a Godly life, but they turn a blind eye to the events which take place in Abi’s family home and do little to welcome Rat Lăcustă, a young man from Romania who has recently moved to a trailer park on the outskirts of town.

The disappearance of Abi brings the darkness hidden behind closed doors firmly into the light. Everybody knows that Abi’s family is odd, that her dad, Samuel is not a man to be crossed. They see the bruises on the face of Abi’s mother Dolly, they haven’t questioned why the eldest son, Noah didn’t go to University as planned and nobody has thought to ask why Jude, Abi’s younger brother walks with a stick. The Blake house is not a happy place at all, yet rather than helping they turn a blind eye. Bailey writes about this family with immense sensitivity and compassion. There are moments which are difficult and upsetting to read, but they provide background and add further layers to the feeling of menace permeating throughout the town.

Emma’s grief and guilt at the loss of Abi consumes her, causing her to find solace in alcohol and in a friendship with Rat. Emma is written so beautifully. She has so many feelings that she doesn’t know how to express and finds herself eaten away by her hand in Abi’s disappearance. Her relationship with Rat is the only thing keeping her from disaster and their burgeoning friendship leaps from the pages.

Using a dual timeline of both the present and the past, the events which lead up to Abi’s disappearance are laid bare for us. Dual timelines can be a difficult narrative structure to handle but Bailey writes this with a deft touch. Astonishingly this is a debut novel but it reads like a book written by a novelist with a number of books under her belt. It draws the reader in so vividly that Whistling Ridge felt like a real place. It is oppressive, atmospheric and exceptionally plotted with characters who leap from the pages and a book that should absolutely be on your radar.

A staggering debut that is compelling, thought-provoking and memorable...

Tall Bones is so much more than a story about a missing girl. It’s a story of abuse, patriarchy, power, racism, love, friendship, bigotry, religion and community. This is a powerful story that is so intricately layered I cannot believe that it’s Bailey’s debut. This is an unsettling read in an all too real way - there are truly harrowing and haunting moments - but there is also tenderness, redemption, hope and positive strength. It’s devastatingly affecting in its gripping exploration of small-town mindedness, which breeds a mob mentality and has affects that will permanently scar. This novel is so rich in masterfully developed themes that I will be ruminating on it for a long time. Needless to say, because of this, it will stay with me forever too.

The mystery of Abi’s disappearance definitely propels the narrative forward. There are some extremely tense and exhilarating moments, particularly as Emma (and later Hunter) try and determine just what has happened to Abi. Normally these sequences would keep me turning pages, but with Tall Bones it was the gradual peeling away of the layers encasing the towns’ secrets that kept me reading. There is plenty of suspense generated from multiple angles within the storyline, but it is the touchingly human aspects of the plot - including ingrained homophobia, racism, fear of the “other”, religion used to justify one’s actions, domestic abuse and substance abuse - that really get under the reader’s skin and keep you turning the pages. I couldn’t consume this novel quickly enough and it pained me every time I had to pop my bookmark between the pages. This is compulsive and addictive reading.

A cacophony of perfectly drawn characters, rich and deep and entirely absorbing. A lyrical and beautiful style to the prose (some of the descriptions are literally poetry). A fearless tackling of difficult subjects, realised with compassion, depth and humanity. A striking story of identity and above all things, finding the strength to be you in the face of adversity. These are all things that make Tall Bones a 2021 must read. Don’t be surprised to find this topping lots of “best of” lists this year. It’s up there with Abigail Dean’s Girl A, with it’s similarly raw and consuming power. Don’t miss this marvellous book and then, like me, eagerly await Bailey’s next offering!

Tall Bones is a superbly written debut by Anna Bailey and is probably the best book I have read so far in 2021.

Tall Bones is atmospheric from the outset and the author gives you a real feel for the place.

“The roar of the bonfire is hard to distinguish from the sounds of the trailer-park boys and the schoolgirls who holler and dance in the shadow of the Tall Bones. It is a small-town sort of night – the last that Whistling Ridge will see for many years to come. Although nobody knows this yet – in this kind of town where coyotes chew on cigarette butts and packs of boys go howling at the moon.”

The last Emma Alvarez saw of her best friend Abigail Blake she was heading into the woods with ‘the vague shape of a boy.’

“Abigail Blake is seventeen and like all girls her age, she believes she’s going to live for ever. Deep down, Emma believes it too, and that is why she leaves her friend there.”

That night Abi fails to return home and Emma is forced to endure people at school whispering that it was her fault for leaving her in the first place.

The Blakes all feel Abi’s absence like a wound although whispers around the town suggest that she may have just run away.

“No wonder the daughter’s gone, they say, in a house like that. No wonder the daughter’s dead.”

The police investigation into her disappearance is lacklustre to say the least and it seems to Emma that she is the only one who cares to discover the truth.

Tall Bones is essentially about outsiders in a small-town community. It covers a whole host of issues and does so phenomenally.

I didn’t for one minute feel bored reading this book or wish it to end, and I loved learning about all the different characters. I even enjoyed learning about Pastor Lewis even if I did want to punch him.

There is ‘Rat’ who lives at the trailer park. A Romanian with a slightly dodgy reputation and a knack for drawing attention to himself.

“The truth is that, just for a moment, everyone has forgotten about the Blake family. At least the Blakes are of the town, of the church, of the faith. Rat – with his tight jeans and the smooth dark laterals of his unfamiliar accent – is a stranger. He is a bullet that has entered the town and not yet left an exit wound.”

I cannot recommend this book enough.

This book had such an intense feel to it, and from the beginning I was completely immersed into the surrounding pages. Claustraphobic is a perfect way of describing it - as I felt like I couldn't leave its pages until I had read it all.

I think I’m probably in the minority here but this book wasn’t massively for me. THAT BEING SAID – it’s one of those books that will make you massively uncomfortable to read because this shit still goes on. On that note, I’d be an ass if I didn’t pop out a few trigger warnings for Tall Bones. In this book you’ll find:

Alcoholism & drug abuse
Homophobia oozing out every pore
Incest
Racism
Abuse (child, domestic and everything in between)
This is a dark, claustrophobic and utterly depressing story of a Whistling Ridge – a small town (with an even smaller town mentality) where religion comes first. Here’s what you’re in for:

✨ One girl who disappeared during a party
✨ Her BFF trying everything within her power to figure out what happened to her
✨ A family torn apart and living in fear of their father/husband
✨ A small town laced with secrets and whispers around every corner

I grew up in a small town. Nothing (and I mean N O T H I N G) was ever a secret. Perhaps that’s why I wanted to grab this one in the first place to see how other places fared when it came to gossip and insanity? Who knows. What I do know is that this is a book you have to concentrate on as it flips from past to present. This and the fact there’s a LOT going on, meant my poor brain went into meltdown.


Enough waffle.

Abigail Blake is a typical small-town gal (livin’ in a lonely worlddddd) – rebellious and looking for adventure outside of their home which is slowly killing them. In an attempt to have a bit of a normal life, Abi and Emma head to a party in the shadow of the Tall Bones; only one of them makes it back home.

Abi’s disappearance not only tore apart Emma’s life but also shone a massive spotlight on the Blake family and the number of bruises that littered Noah and Jude’s bodies. You’d perhaps think that that would make them the centre point for an investigation but a bigoted town’s gotta bigot and before long, Rat (a Romanian immigrant teenager who lived alone in a trailer) became the focal point of the town’s manic anger.

I liked this book. I didn’t love it but I liked it. It’s a slow read so, if you’re anything like me and desires intense shit from the get-go, then you might struggle with this. If anything, it should be mandatory reading for anyone who lives in a small town in the hopes that it helps them realise what goes on behind closed doors.

Challenge racism, misogyny and homophobia, please.

A town ruled by fanatics.

Abigail Blake (aged 17) disappears after a party held near the Tall Bones – a series of stones near the small town of Whistling Wood. Her disappearance is going to show not just the cracks in her family but most of the residents of the town.

This is a harrowing story following the party where Abigail disappeared. There’s Emma her best friend who sinks into a state of depression and drinking because she left Abi at the party. Abi’s mother Dolly who receives beatings regularly from her husband. Noah, Abi’s eldest brother who is gay but shunned by his father and the church, led by a fanatic. Jude, Abi’s younger brother, broken in body and soul by events that led up to the night of her disappearance. And then there’s Rat, a Romanian, who seems to be the only friend to most of the town’s teenagers.

Anna Bailey’s writing is beautiful and even though there are some scenes of absolute horror, I had to follow the story until I knew if there would be any justice not just Abi, but Noah, Jude, Dolly and Abi’s friend, Emma.

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review.

I read this and enjoyed it immensely. Read over a week, I binged this and couldn't put it down.

It tells the story of a backward little community who are dealing with the disappearance of one of their own.

The characters in this one are so horrible and not at all modern. They have no place in today's world, and yet the community are so tightly weaved they have little to no hope of getting out.

Noah was a stand out character for me. And the secrets and lies that are uncovered throughout this book will keep your jaw on the floor as you try to work out what happened to Abi.

I can't really say much else without spoilers so I'll leave it there.

Recommended absolutely.

"By the end of the week, Abigail's face will grin emptily from a hundred flyers tacked to telephone poles and church billboards, flapping in the Rocky Mountain breeze"

Where do you start with Tall Bones without giving too much away? At its heart, it is a missing persons story. But it is SO much more than that. Seventeen year old Abigail Blake goes missing after attending a party in the woods one night. We then spend the next few weeks trying to figure out what happened to her. Did she run away or did something more sinister occur?

Set in Whistling Ridge, Colorado, this is very much a god fearing town with a pack mentality, while turning a blind eye to the real sinners. The small mindedness and ignorance of people is infuriating at times. It's like a throwback to the 50's, only Americans are welcome, no outsiders and homosexuals don't exist. There are so many characters to hate once you realize how wicked and toxic they are. And then there are other troubled characters who soften throughout the book and you just want to save them.

This had so many ingredients to make my perfect book. Short, snappy chapters. Fast pace. Dual timelines. Small town America. Satisfying ending. I LOVED this book. The way it is written, there is something to savour on every page.

This is a well written, atmospheric mystery about a young girl who goes missing in a small American town.

I found it to be quite a slog at times and there are lots of different characters and storylines to maintain. It does pick up in the second part of the book and overall I found it to be a 3* Good Read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview.

An interesting book to read, very dark and deeply disturbing at times. not a light fluffy read but a powerful storyline. Found it hard to engage with some of the characters initially.

Tall Bones is set in an insular, claustrophobic and remote town in Colorado and when a teenaged girl disappears, all of the community’s most devastating secrets come to light in this stunningly atmospheric and slow-burning literary suspense debut. When 17-year-old Abigail Blake goes missing, her best friend Emma Alvarez, compelled by the guilt of leaving her all alone at a Tall Bones party in the woods one night, sets out to discover the truth about what happened to her. The police initially believe Abi ran away, but Emma doesn't believe that her friend would leave without her, and when officers find disturbing evidence in the nearby woods, the festering secrets and longstanding resentment of both Abigail’s family and the people of Whistling Ridge, Colorado begin to surface with devastating consequences. Among those secrets are the ones harboured by members of Abi’s family: Abi's older brother Noah’s passionate, unworldly yet horrifyingly dangerous love for the handsome Rat, a recently arrived Romanian immigrant who has recently made his home in the trailer park in town; her 12-year-old brother Jude's feeling that he knows information he should tell the police, if only he could put it into words. Jude is filled with a shining goodness yet walks with a stick because his father threw him down the stairs while their mother Dolly turned away; and, Dolly, who married the bible-bashing Samuel on a whim, and now, with a frozen heart, watches her children unravel.

Then there are Abi's father's mercurial, unpredictable rages and her mother's silence. And not forgetting the rest of Whistling Ridge, where a charismatic preacher advocates for God's love in language that mirrors violence, under the sway of the powerful businessman who rules the town. But Abi had secrets, too, and the closer Emma grows to unraveling the past, the farther she feels from her friend. And in a tinder box of small-town rage, and all it will take is just one spark—the truth of what really happened that night—to change their community forever. Tall Bones is a truly riveting exploration of small-town anxiety, fractured relationships and the impact of a shocking crime on those in the vicinity of Whistling Ridge, and despite being based in stunning Colorado the stiflingly claustrophobic atmosphere reminded me very much of Jane Harper's novels. There are secrets and lies in abundance as the townsfolk try to keep their skeletons firmly in their closets. It's a dark, simmering pot of resentment, jealousy, betrayal and now that Abi has vanished the town views anyone as different or an outsider as instantly suspicious and untrustworthy. It's visceral, oppressive and quite uncomfortable to read but ultimately scintillating with a deeply sinister and unjust version of small-town mentality and a bigoted and regressive attitude. A gritty, haunting and intricately woven, explosive firecracker of a thriller set in an intensely suffocating town. Highly recommended.

Heartbreaking story of a missing girl. Tall Bones made me so angry! The small town patriarchal, religious mentality: gun owning, opposed to outsiders, fuels the lynch mob against race, sex and sexual orientation. A violent man stunted by an abused childhood, further damaged by war and senseless killing tortures his wife and children in the name of God. When his daughter goes missing the younger generation, disenfranchised by the bonds of their parents seek to find the truth. Their friendship and loyalty to Abi and to each other shames their parents. An emotional rollercoaster.

I found this very atmospheric and menacing. It's more a psychological thriller and an exploration of the dark secrets of a tight community than a crime novel, with a distinct feel that reminded me a bit of Twin Peaks without the surrealism. Scenes writhe uncomfortably in the reader's head after some chapters.

DNF at 33%

Tall Bones is dark and claustrophobic, with lots of characters experiencing homophobia, racism, abuse of all sorts. Too oppressive for me I’m afraid.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.