Bone Deep by Sandra Ireland Review!

• Publisher: Gallery Books (June 2019)
• Length: 272 pages
• ISBN13: 9781982105075

Is a story ever just a story?

Mac, a retired academic and writer, is working on a new collection of folktales, inspired by local legends, and at the insistence of her only child, Arthur, she hires a young assistant, Lucie, to live in a cottage on her property and help her transcribe them. What Arthur doesn’t know is that his mother is determined to keep the secrets of her past from ever being discovered. And what Mac doesn’t know is that Lucie has a few complicated secrets of her own.

The creaking presence of an ancient water mill next to Mac’s property that used to grind wheat into flour serves as an eerie counterpoint for these two women as they circle warily around each other, haunted by the local legend of two long-dead sisters, ready to point accusing fingers from the pages of history.

This atmospheric page-turner evocatively gives voice to the question: What happens when you fall in love with the wrong person?

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.

https://sandrairelandauthor.com/

My Review
Bone Deep is a novel that is a contemporary retelling of a Scottish legend of two sisters who were often by an ancient water mill that now is the home of Mac, a retired academic and writer. These sister's had a sibling rivalry that turned deadly. Mac is working on a new collection of folktales that include these sisters. Mac is a widow and her son wants her to live in an assisted living type place but she refuses.

Mac is having frequent bouts of memory loss and wants to complete her work so she hires a young woman, Lucie, to help her type up her notes and other duties. She moves into the Miller's Cottage. Lucie left home, her mother actually threw her out after she realized that Lucie was having an affair with her sister's fiance. So she just wanted to earn a living and to try to get past all of this. So dealing with Mac seems to be the way to do this.

The story is told in the point of views of Lucie and Mac. We learn more about Lucie and the affair and also Mac and the old mill and her deceased husband and how he died plus the story of the sisters. There are secrets, secrets and more secrets from these two women and it is how they come to terms with these secrets that make the story. This book is dark at times, gothic kind of read that should appeal to anyone who loves this genre. 

I read some reviews that said it started out slow, I didn't feel that way. I just felt that it was a bit lengthy getting into the story but that was ok because it set up the story to its satisfying but not expected conclusion. Lots of twisty turns but that is what makes a great story right? The ending blew me away! Never saw it coming. Great psychological thriller! I enjoyed the book immensely!