The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones

I received this book in a recent OwlCrate and absolutely knew I had to get to it sooner rather than later. I think this is technically billed as a "historical fantasy horror," and even though I'm not usually into historical stories, the one time I really do love them is when there's horror involved.

In The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones, the dead don't stay dead for long. Gravedigger Ryn and cartographer Ellis must team up in order to save Ryn's town from the corpses that have risen from the dead, also known as bone houses. The two trek through the forest trying to find and destroy the magical cauldron that allows the dead to rise.

I loved that Ryn and Ellis were a gravedigger and a cartographer. I feel like there are never any main characters in reads with these professions so it was a nice unique touch. I really appreciated how the romance in this story was not the primary focus, rather a nice addition to an already exciting plot. I also really enjoyed the other side plots, like Ryn's family trying to save their home from their nefarious landlord, and Ellis trying to find his family. 

I got a lot of quest vibes from this story, since they were traveling to find and destroy a cauldron and encountered all sorts of trouble and terrors along the way, so if you love those type of adventure stories, this one would be right up your alley. I didn't get quite as much horror as I was hoping for, which is why I ended up knocking off a star.

But to be honest, my absolute favorite part of this book was the bone goat. You have to read the story to really understand what I mean by that, but I promise you, the bone goat is worth it.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

6 comments

  1. I can't stomach horror, I am too much of a scaredy cat! ;)

    Glad you enjoyed it.

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  2. I don't read a lot of horror books as most I find are far fetched and beyond belief so they are not scary to me. This sounds great though. Lovely review.

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  3. I generally avoid horror but you have me intrigued with the bone goat

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  4. Great review, I really want to check this book out from the library since it first came out because I heard nothing but great things about this book. I'm really glad you fully enjoyed reading this book, thank you so much for sharing your awesome post.

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  5. Intriguing yet terrifying. Cannot handle horror.

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