Anna Bailey

TALL BONES by Anna Bailey is a firecracker of a literary crime novel, set in a claustrophobic and remote Colorado town, that explores what happens to a fractured community following the disappearance of a teenage girl. When 17-year-old Abigail goes missing, her best friend Emma (who only has Abi for a friend), compelled by the guilt of leaving her alone at the Tall Bones party that night, sets out to find the truth about what happened. But as the details unfold, the festering secrets and longstanding resentment of both Abigail's family and the people of Whispering Ridge, Colorado begin to surface with devastating consequences. Among those secrets are those harboured by the members of Abi's family: her older brother Noah's unworldly yet horribly dangerous love for the handsome Rat, a Romanian immigrant who recently entered town; her 12-year-old brother Jude, who is filled with a shining goodness yet walks with a stick because his father threw him down the stairs and their mother Dolly turned away. And what about Dolly, who married the bible-bashing Samuel on a whim, and now has a frozen heart and watches her children unravel? Not to mention the crazy pastor who incites hatred, filling his congregation with tales of fire and brimstone. Dark and atmospheric yet hopeful through the spirit of its young set of characters, TALL BONES is at its core a story about love and hate, acceptance and intolerance, and how religious devotion can manifest as rage and violence with utterly dangerous consequences.

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