Bone Deep by Sandra IrelandMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
To be honest when I started reading this book I wasn't sure if I was going to finish it because it wasn't what I expected when I read the synopsis nor was it the type of story that I normally enjoy reading. So I was genuinely surprised that the further I got into the book,I found myself becoming more and more enthralled and drawn into Mac and Lucie`s stories. This is essentially three stories (historical,recent and current) and the lengths that three women were prepared to go in the name of that four letter word that rules our lives,hearts and heads....love
Mac is a seventy year old,retired academic,who lives in a house near a old,unused watermill with her adult son Arthur who is a baker.Mac is a historical author and is currently working on a story called The Cruel Sister about two sisters Bella and Elspeth who according to local myth grew up in a castle not far from Mac's home.Lucie is a young women who Mac has reluctantly hired as a Girl Friday due to Mac's recent health scares. Lucie has recently been thrown out of her family home after her mother caught her in a compromising position with her sister Jane's sleazy boyfriend Reuben. Both women have secrets and as Mac becomes increasingly more and more obsessed with the story of The Cruel Sister,the lines between what happened in the past and what is happening now become blurred. Soon there is a growing sense of unease and forbidding as secrets are revealed and the story builds up to its dark and terrifying conclusion.
The chapters that are quite long in length alternate between Mac and Lucie. I honestly didn't like Mac from.the moment we were introduced to her character on the very first page. She had a major attitude problem,was very self centred at times and even though she admitted that she had been a neglectful parent when Arthur was younger,she still treated him badly and was resentful of his presence whenever her came home. It was fascinating watching her unravelling mentally,but how much was real and how much was her just pretending to lose the plot. She was a very clever,conniving,manipulative character. I had mixed feelings about Lucie,I didn't find her very likeable but couldn't help feeling a bit of empathy for her because of how badly she was treated by her parents. I really liked Arthur,he was such a sweet,caring man despite Mac being his mother. Interwoven throughout the story is the gothic tale of Bella and Elspeth,a story of love,rivalry,betrayal and murder that eerily mirrors the story playing out in the present day. The authors descriptions of the setting for this dark,enthralling story are so vivid and realistic,you can close your eyes and picture the creaking watermill,the wind blowing through the trees and stirring the crops growing in the fields. Things splashing in the pond,sounds that appear so innocent in the daytime but so sinister during the hours of darkness.
It's not a very long story but it is a mesmerising read that has a growing sense of foreboding as the story unfolds. This is the first book that I have read by this author and it most definitely will not be my last. Highly recommended by little old me.
Arthur arrives at two minutes to ten. I’m still in my study and his car headlights play across the glass, illuminating the desk, the notebook. My pencilled words spark silver and came to life for a split second.
In the middle of the wedding feast, a stranger comes to the hall. He is cloaked and dragging something heavy in a jute sack. When questioned, he says he brings the gift of music, for shouldn’t every bride be blessed with music? He is given a seat at the table, and food which he doesn’t eat. Bella thinks he seems familiar, although his hood obscures most of his face. She cannot see his features, merely the shadows cast by them, and she’s suddenly afraid to look too closely in case that’s all there is . . .
I hear the car door slam and a lot of bad-tempered jangling of keys at the lock. Oh dear. I sit back and wait for the darkness to enter.
‘You were making no sense on the phone whatsoever, Ma.’
‘I merely called to tell you that Lucie had a visitor’
‘That was hours ago, Ma, and anyway, I’m more concerned about the other stuff you were saying. It’s the other stuff . . . that’s why I’m here at bloody 10 p.m.’
‘You didn’t have to come. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ We are nose to nose in the study, Arthur still twitching his keys as if he’s in a hurry to get away. There’s a smell of petrol and night air about him. But what’s all this? He’s repeating things I don’t remember saying and my heart is juddering like an old locomotive. I feel taken aback. Surely I said nothing of the sort?
‘You were banging on about the mill. Again.’
‘I was not.’
‘You were.’
‘I never mentioned the mill, son.’ I hadn’t. Had I? Something is lodged in my throat. It’s hard to swallow, to breathe.
‘You said Reuben had come to the mill. Just before we came back.’
‘Yes. Yes, he did. That’s why I called you.’ I feel for my chair and lower myself into it. Anything to unhook myself from Arthur’s hardest stare. I pick up my pencil and begin to doodle on the open notebook. ‘I only went in there to get my watch. I must have left it there last time.’
‘I don’t really care why you were in there, Ma. It’s what you said. You said you were very tempted to “fix Lucie’s little problem, once and for all”.’ He makes quotation marks in the air. ‘Do you remember now?’
A flower takes shape under my pencil. A child’s flower: five oval petals and a round middle. The pencil is shaky. ‘I would’ve sent Reuben packing. That’s all.’
‘You really don’t remember what else you said, do you, Ma? I worry about you.’ Arthur’s eyes soften. He’s looking not at me but at something beyond the window, something that makes him rather sad and pensive. He’s still talking but I’m not really concentrating on what he’s saying. I get bits of it. See someone . . . mention it to the doctor next time . . . memory loss . . . dark thoughts . . . I’m staring at the notebook. Below the flower, a single name is printed in a careful, schoolgirl hand. Bella. I don’t remember writing that.
AUTHOR BIO
Sandra Ireland was born in England but lived for many years in Éire before returning ‘home’ to Scotland in the 1990s. She is the author of Beneath the Skin, a psychological thriller, which was shortlisted for a Saltire Literary Award in 2017. Her second novel, Bone Deep, a modern Gothic tale of sibling rivalry, inspired by an old Scottish folktale, will be published in the UK by Polygon in July, and in the US (Gallery) and Germany (Penguin) next year. She also writes poetry, often inspired by the seascapes of Scotland’s rugged east coast. Her poems have been widely published in anthologies, including Seagate III (Dundee), and New Writing Scotland. She won the Dorothy Dunbar Trophy for Poetry, awarded by the Scottish Association of Writers, in 2017 and 2018. Sandra is Secretary of Angus Writers’ Circle and one third of the Chasing Time Team, which runs writing retreats in a gloriously gothic rural setting.
Social Media Links
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3065982.Sandra_Ireland
Website : https://sandrairelandauthor.com
Twitter : https://mobile.twitter.com/22_ireland
PUBLICATION DATE : 5th July 2018
PUBLISHER : Polygon Books
GENRE : Psychological Thriller
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https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bone-Deep-Sandra-Ireland/dp/1846974186?pd_rd_wg=H9fT2&pd_rd_r=3c22b5ba-fdac-47af-9a78-13a8102f2a23&pd_rd_w=wYDoT&ref_=pd_gw_simh&pf_rd_r=NF59QSNJRVQDBMA1RVXA&pf_rd_p=14f91171-0541-58ad-938b-3aec945f4cb7
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