Intro
Natalie Bayley is a talented UK born Australian author residing in Sydney and it's a pleasure to be part of the digital blog tour celebrating the release of Bone Rites.To celebrate the book launch, I'm hosting a giveaway and will be sharing a guest post from the author later this month entitled A Wander through the Weird & Wonderful World of the Edwardians.
In the meantime, it's giveaway time!! For your chance to win a signed copy of Bone Rites, winner of the The Virginia Prize for Fiction, enter below.
Blurb
"I collected the first bone when I was twelve. This fact was not mentioned in court... Such a tiny little bone, more like a tooth. I only kept it to keep him safe."Holloway prison, 1925. Dr Kathryn Darkling, branded The Westminster Vampire by the press, has two weeks until she is hanged for a series of brutal murders. Facing death, she knows that time is running out to complete her mission. Will she find a way to escape her fate?
Will she be able to perform the special bone rites that will save her brother?
Bone Rites is a dark, literary tale of love, loss and one woman's obsessive fight for justice and redemption within a ruthless world.
Review
Bone Rites is a dark historical fiction novel set in the Edwardian period, in London. Dr Kathryn Darkling's story alternates between her Holloway Prison jail cell in 1925, and the events that led her there, beginning in 1905 with an irreversible injury suffered by her brother.
Kathryn is an easy character to warm to and the familial love she has for her younger brother powers the entire book. Pursuing an early interest in medicine, Kathryn struggles to succeed in a male dominated environment and takes measures to address them that had me clapping and cringing.
As Kathryn began to cross the lines of morality in the pursuit of her life's work, her sanity starts to shift and slide with the introduction of a supernatural influence after her service as a doctor in the war.
The research behind Bone Rites was seamlessly incorporated and the writing was polished, giving me great reading moments like this one:
"My hand connects with her face with such force the resultant crack silences the room." Page 223At the time of reading, I could almost hear the reverberations of that crack and flinched from the impact of 'that' slap. The narrative is convincingly gothic and dark and will appeal to readers of Stacey Halls, Jess Kidd and Laura Purcell; in particular The Corset by Laura Purcell.
Bone Rites by Natalie Bayley is about female agency, sibling love, forbidden love, the ravages of grief, the horrors of war, justice, redemption and ultimately hope. Enter below for your chance to win a signed copy!
This sounds interesting. Thanks for sharing your review with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome Marg, the author is on an overseas book tour at the moment :-)
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