Wake the bones

Title:

Wake the bones

Author:

Summary:

The sleepy little farm that Laurel Early grew up on has awakened. The woods are shifting, the soil is dead under her hands, and her bone pile just stood up and walked away. After dropping out of college, all she wanted was to resume her life as a tobacco hand and taxidermist and try not to think about the boy she can’t help but love. Instead, a devil from her past has returned to court her, as he did her late mother years earlier. Now, Laurel must unravel her mother’s terrifying legacy and tap into her own innate magic before her future and the fate of everyone she loves is doomed. -- Amazon.

Audience:

Ages 13-18. Wednesday Books.

General Note:

"Something rots. Something rises." -- Cover.

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

309 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.

Genre:

Horror fiction.

Fantasy fiction.

Subject Term:

Grief -- Fiction.

Fate and fatalism -- Fiction.

Mothers -- Death -- Fiction.

College dropouts -- Fiction.

Monsters -- Fiction.

Magic -- Fiction

Geographic Term:

Kentucky -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Wednesday Books,

Publication Date:

2022

ISBN:

9781250790828

Publication Information:

New York : Wednesday Books, 2022.

Call Number:

YA KILCOYNE

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003628164	Young Adult	KILCOYNE	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

"YA horror has found a new standard-bearer." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Dark, gripping, and gorgeous, Wake the Bones will lead you into the woods and keep you up late. As lush and sweltering as a Kentucky summer... Elizabeth Kilcoyne is a force." - Gwenda Bond, New York Times bestselling author

The sleepy little farm that Laurel Early grew up on has awakened . The woods are shifting, the soil is dead under her hands, and her bone pile just stood up and walked away.

After dropping out of college, all she wanted was to resume her life as a tobacco hand and taxidermist and try not to think about the boy she can't help but love. Instead, a devil from her past has returned to court her, as he did her late mother years earlier. Now, Laurel must unravel her mother's terrifying legacy and tap into her own innate magic before her future and the fate of everyone she loves is doomed.

Elizabeth Kilcoyne's Wake the Bones is a dark, atmospheric debut about the complicated feelings that arise when the place you call home becomes hostile.

"Seething with shadows, summer, and uniquely southern magic, Wake the Bones is a powerful debut that captures the ache of home being a place you simultaneously love and loathe." - Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of For the Wolf

Author Notes

ELIZABETH KILCOYNE is an author, poet, and playwright from Lexington, Kentucky, who began this story after stacking rocks in her family cemetery one day when she realized she was standing on her own grave. She has been published in several literary journals including Still: The Journal . Wake the Bones is her first novel.

Reviews (2)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 10 Up--Back home in her small town after a failed year of college, Laurel Early seems to be falling back into farm life with her best friend Isaac and the Mobley boys, Garrett and Ricky. Additionally, her new side hobby of creating bone jewelry is connecting her to the nature of the forest and keeps her mind occupied. But when her family's past comes back to haunt her, Laurel must face a gruesome creature to protect those she holds most dear. Magic is at play, and the creature demands blood--the question Laurel has yet to figure out is whose. Kilcoyne's debut takes a small-town setting and twists it into a dark supernatural landscape stalked by an unnatural beast. Lush descriptions of the environment are covered with intricate details of decay and horror, building a tense world for the characters. The macabre monster targeting Laurel is not only a physical terror, but a great illustration of multiple characters' familial grief as a devil parasite that's relentlessly consuming life and weighing them down. Influenced by past darkness, Laurel and Isaac's evolving relationships with each of the Mobley boys brings light to their dim outlooks, reshaping their view on how wide and open the world truly is. All characters are described as white. Sensitivity content warning is included at the beginning for abuse, violence, suicide, and more. VERDICT A southern gothic horror sure to thrill, and thoroughly creep out, readers.--Emily Walker

Publisher's Weekly Review

Nineteen-year-old white-cued Laurel Early battles supernatural forces on her family's tobacco farm in Kilcoyne's visceral horror debut. Laurel's late mother Anna, who was a pariah in their rural Kentucky town, used her magic to grow healthy crops. The magic Laurel inherited, she believes, is less practical: when she touches a deceased animal's body, she sees its death. After dropping out of college in Ohio, she returns home to help her uncle Jay run the farm alongside best friends Isaac, Ricky, and Garrett, all coded white. Increasingly strange and terrifying events--animals found brutally killed but uneaten, a giant monster made of bone, and Anna's ghost issuing warnings--prompt Laurel to consult local outcast Christine, who reluctantly helps Laurel harness her magic. Laurel and Ricky's combative romance and Isaac and Garrett's tentative courtship are expertly developed, and their complex relationships with the "mean-mouthed and close-minded" townsfolk, the land itself, and each other are realistically thorny. Using an ominous third-person perspective, grisly horror elements, and distinct setting, Kilcoyne delivers an exceptional examination of life, death, and grief teeming with beauty and menace. Ages 13--up. Agent: Erin Clyburn, Jennifer De Chiara Literary. (July)