I really got sucked into "The Skeleton Key" by Erin Kelly. Having grown up looking at my best friend's parents' copy of Masquerade by Kit Williams, I totally get the whole frantic treasure hunt scene that happened. What is even more brilliant is the two very close families and mystery-thriller narrative that carries on at the same time. Both stories are excellent and combined, they make a thrilling read. Kept me enthralled for many days.

In the summer of 2021 the Churcher family gather for a television programme and a 50th anniversary relaunch of “The Golden Bones“ which is based on an old folk song telling the story of Elinore, her lover Tam and her husband who murders her, scattering her bones through the countryside. The book is a treasure hunt filled with clues and puzzles created by Sir Frank Churcher in order to identify the location of golden jewelled bones, a different part of Elinore’s “skeleton“. Six pieces are found, the final piece of the pelvis remains undiscovered. The book is the sensation, a massive hit with a hard-core and obsessive group of hunters who whip themselves into a frenzy to track the last piece down. It consumes some, it leaves one man dead and it wrecks the life of Nell, Frank and Cora Churcher’s daughter. In this new digital age there will be a new challenge via an app of clues that will lead to skeleton keys. Nell attends the launch party with massive reluctance, she tries to stay out of the film crews way and most importantly, that of the obsessive fans. During the filming Frank will reveal the resting place of the final golden bone, however, instead of the big reveal the lives of the Churcher family and that of their closest friends and neighbours the Lalleys implodes.

The book starts very dramatically and then in my opinion stalls for a while partly due to the non linear format going backtracks and forwards in time. Initially the pace is slow and the plot feels convoluted until pennies start to drop!! Things begin to click into place and from then on I’m hooked just like the obsessive fans!

Some scenes are lively and a bit mad but in the best possible way and I really enjoy their colourful nature. There are some good jaw descending with a thunk moments especially as you come to appreciate how Nell’s life has been tainted. I come to really like and admire her especially her frequent wry tone but most especially her love and loyalty to her ‘stepdaughter’ Billie who is a shining light among characters with somewhat dubious morals.

It’s a rollercoaster ride of discoveries, of duplicity and of who to dare to trust. There are rumours, speculations on revelations, threats, some heartache and a lot of destruction never mind the other mayhem! Along with sex, drugs, booze and not much rock ‘n’ roll we view dysfunction personified with the Churchers and the Lalleys which is entertaining reading. It builds to a very good crescendo and an enjoyable ending.

Finally, the social media feeds that intersperse the narrative are acutely observed with comments that come from the land of the utterly ridiculous and your question where brains are! They really add an extra dimension to the situations that unfold.

Overall, this is a good homage to Masquerade by Kit Williams which is a much loved book of the author.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Hodder and Stoughton for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

I loved the idea of this book but the reality just didn’t do it for me.

Too long, too many characters, too many sub plots and all too convoluted. I found myself rushing to the finish.

I love Erin Kelly but this one isn’t a favourite of mine unfortunately.

Wow – such a roller coaster and so many different revelations and secrets.

Those of you reading this who are of my age will remember the buzz of Kit Williams' book Masquerade from the late 1970s– a picture book containing clues to the whereabout of a golden hare that the author had hidden in somewhere in Britain. This novel takes this idea to another level. Frank Churcher's book The Golden Bones sends his 'bonehunters' out on the quest of a scattered golden skeleton, based on a a song from one of his wife, Cora's records. The bonehunters become obsessed with finding the skeleton so that they can let Elinore rise, so much so that Frank's own daughter, Nell, is attacked

The story moves on to the 50th anniversary of the book and a relaunch for the digital age. The family of the Churchers are reunited but the grand opening – the grand reveal – does not go as expected and we are thrown straight into a tale of murder. There are plots and sub-plots as we flit backwards and forwards. There are secrets and twists. There is abuse and betrayal. There is darkness. There is family and the value of family. There is the need for fame, for recognition at any cost. An excellent thriller and as for the treasure – well, you'll have to decide if the prize was worth it

Erin Kelly is an author I will always follow as they continually deliver high quality stories that always exceed my expectations and this book is one more example of this astonishing writer. It is a bewitching story that I will not forget. Bravo!

I love previous books by this author and really wanted to love this one too. However, I struggled to get into it. The first part was very confusing with a lot of characters to get to know and a lot of going back and forth. Unfortunately, it failed to grip my attention.

I’m amazed some other reviewers found this hard to get into—I was hooked from the start and literally couldn’t put it down for three days. I’m yet to finish an Erin Kelly book where I haven’t had to go back to certain parts and re-read them, to see how she did it, and The Skeleton Key was no exception.

It’s such an enticing premise but if anything the finished product is even better than you think it’s going to be. The very final twist is a subtle one but changes everything, especially the dynamic between certain characters.

Well written with a compelling storyline and well developed characters. A rare book in that it starts of slow and yet still had me gripped right from the very start and slowly increased in pacing as tension increased. I loved it.

‘The Skeleton Key’ is likely to attract readers, not least through its beautiful cover illustration. Add to this the knowledge that Erin Kelly is well known for conjuring complex psychological thrillers and it would seem that this novel cannot fail to fly off the shelves.
However, as someone who very has much enjoyed her previous tales, I was surprised at how long it took me to become even slightly engaged in the puzzle of ‘The Golden Bones’, Elinore and her jewelled bones and the cliched verse that accompanied it. Part of the plot reflects an actual treasure hunt storybook, ‘Masquerade’ by Kit Williams (1979), in which clues allowed readers to search for a jewelled hare. I wasn’t a fan at the time so perhaps that partly explains my ambivalence now.
Unusually for Kelly, the first third of this novel drags as the reader is taken back and forth over the previous fifty years or so detailing when Frank Churcher published the book, and its effects on his family. Most of the characters appear to be slightly alterative, arty types, narcissistic and privileged. Whilst Kelly‘s focus on manipulation, the misuse of power and toxic family ties is certainly as relevant now as it ever was, the characters just did not come to life for me.
My thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

Oh my goodness. Erin Kelly gets better and better. Her last book was so hood I thought she couldn’t top it. But she really has. One of the best books I’ve read this year. This is a strong 5/5. I’d give more if I could. Read this over the weekend and now I’m sad it’s finished. I am worried nothing can anything be as good as this stunner of a book.

I was actually very disappointed when I finished this book. I found the writing quite tacky and impossible to warm up to and the characters were far beyond unrealistic and slightly immoral to me. I was devastated when I found out that the premise had promised a fantastic story but failed to give the readers even a crumb. Personally, this book wasn't for me and I have to unfortunately add that I cannot rate anything beyond 1 star for this book.

I really found this difficult to review, as for me, the start was slow and somewhat complicated. I didn’t really engage with the story or the characters until about 30% in. I liked the idea of a treasure hunt based on clues from a book which then developed into a mystery, often macabre in places, and the family dynamics and subsequent secrets were interesting. I did finish the book but never really engaged and found the plot rather messy.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the e- advance review copy.

The thing about Erin Kelly is that she takes a really weird, obscure concept/thing I know nothing about and she incorporates it so well in the thriller premise I end it up half-convinced she is expert on the matter and now, so am I.
I jest, but whether it's a total solar eclipses from He Said/She Said or psychological dichotomy of Swan Lake from Watch Her Fall, she does make her stories totally unique because of this.
The Skeleton Key introduces us to the incredible culture of armchair treasure hunt. In simple terms, it refers to the regular people solving puzzles that will lead them to a real treasure that's hidden somewhere in the world. Per this article:

A typical armchair treasure hunt usually begins with a book. “Masquarade was really the first one,” says Kile. Masquarade is a short, 32-page picture book by the author and illustrator Kit Williams, released in 1979. The book tells the story of a rabbit, Jack Hare, who loses his treasure, and at the end, the reader is encouraged to try and find it. The trick with Masquarade was that the treasure was real. As part of the release of the book, Williams buried an 18-carat gold rabbit pendant in a particular spot in England, and let it be known that the location could be found within the text and images of Masquarade.

The entire life of main character of this novel, Eleanor Churcher, is determined by one such treasure hunt. The book that inspired it is The Golden Bones, the author is Nell's father Sir Frank Churcher and the prize is a golden pelvis bone that will complete the girl skeleton and according to legend, Elinor will rise again. Similarity of their names and her age and looks made some of the most obsessed fans of the book, Bonehunters, fixate on Nell and it ruined her completely.
On the 50th anniversary of the release, book will be reissued with a new treasure hunt, and Bonehunters are in frenzy, because entire family gathered at Churcher estate with documentary crew and the rumour is that Frank will finally reveal the hiding place of pelvis bone. But it doesn't go according to plan.

Look, if treasure hunt was the only thing in this book... it would still be incredibly interesting premise. But Erin Kelly mixed it a complicated family dynamic, jealousy between artists and, yes, a murder.
Frank and his wife Cora met at the university and it was her interest in old folk songs that inspired Frank's idea for TGB. He and his best friend and talented illustrator Lal are inseparable, so both families are used to share everything and live door to door, and Nell's brother Dom even married Lal's daughter Rose. In light of new events it makes for some old secrets and resentments come to surface and it mashes perfectly with the whole treasure hunting craze.
The reason for taking the star off was Nell. We are in her head most of the time and her paranoia doesn't make for an easy reading, but some of her thoughts and convictions were really grating to me: it's the type noble martyrdom only privileged can afford, "true artist" lifestyle she is so proud of read so out of touch to me. By the end she was more and more challenging to like and understand (seriously, I had only one nerve left for her at the end) and I don't even know how I felt about her. It's like every other character developed and adapted by the events in the book, only Nell remained firmly in her own narrow view, completely incapable of seeing things from point of view of other people.
And I don't think I would be as bothered by her if every other character in the novel wasn't so well written. Lal with his huge heart, temper and red face, Bridget with her pragmatism, Cora with her inability to adult, Dom and, naturally, Frank on whose actions entire story hinges. They are not likeable or unlikeable- nothing in those absolutes- they are bit of both and that makes them compelling to read about.
Erin Kelly rarely disappoints, recommended.

This book has the potential to be a smash hit of 2022. Not only is this a story of mystery and mayhem, but the craft on show is that of the greats of the genre. Just superb!

I absolutely loved The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly. What a beautifully well written, interesting book. It had be hooked from the start. My favourite book so far this year

Erin Kelly’s latest is an absorbing treasure-hunt mystery that’s also a murder story, a family saga, and also significantly about ageing, particularly how it affects men and women differently. Nell is the semi-estranged daughter of artist Frank Churcher, whose masterpiece The Golden Bones – a picture book containing clues to the location of, yes, bones made of solid gold – became a worldwide phenomenon in the 1970s. Now, on the 50th anniversary of its publication, a revival is planned, but the ‘big reveal’ goes drastically wrong and soon the entire Churcher family is embroiled in a murder investigation. The Skeleton Key is a sprawling story with subplots galore and a smart perspective switch somewhere in the middle. With so much happening, it doesn’t quite keep the same momentum throughout (I found a few of the aforementioned subplots a bit tiresome, and found myself furiously disagreeing with Nell’s moral standpoint towards the end!), but it’s good at being a story about a lot of things. For me it was most effective in its portrayal of a monstrous, powerful figure casting a shadow across far too many people; I suspect it’s one of those books in which different readers will find different meanings.

I can always rely on Erin Kelly to come up with something original, intriguing and interesting. This amazing plot is similar to a fairytale treasure hunt, resulting in murder and lies. It's one heck of a thriller and I loved the quirky characters.

I absolutely loved this book. I couldn't sleep because I wanted to keep reading kinda good. Its a very clever story about a treasure hunt type book and the effects it had on the family that created it, invested in it, tried to solve it and others that fell into its path.
The main protagonist is Nell, the daughter of the author of this gripping bok - The Golden Bones. Nell struggles to trust others and lives a life in the shadows as she fears those that hunt the 'bones'. This makes it sound like its a horror, which I can assure you it is not. It's a pure thriller.

4+

I love a dysfunctional family, and this feels like a 2-4-1 deal.
I also love a book within a book, so already winning here.
The obsessiveness of some people with a treasure hunt is really quite a thing, but totally believable.
This book has many surprises, and I may have uttered "what?" outloud more than once.
It twists and turns places I never even imagined, and it just kept me turning the pages faster.
So much to like in this book. So much.

#TheSkeletonKey #NetGalley
Wowsome.
Summer, 2021. Nell has come home at her family's insistence to celebrate an anniversary. Fifty years ago, her father wrote The Golden Bones. Part picture book, part treasure hunt, Sir Frank Churcher created a fairy story about Elinore, a murdered woman whose skeleton was scattered all over England. Clues and puzzles in the pages of The Golden Bones led readers to seven sites where 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. Stalked by fans who could not tell fantasy from reality, his daughter, Nell, became a recluse. But now the Churchers must be reunited. The book is being reissued along with a new treasure hunt and a documentary crew are charting everything that follows. Nell is appalled, and terrified. During the filming, Frank finally reveals the whereabouts of the missing golden bone. And then all hell breaks loose.
I loved it very much and enjoyed it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder Straughten for giving me an advance copy.