Near the Bone

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. I was in no way compensated for this review.TRIGGER WARNINGS: Abuse, sexual abuse, controlling spouseChristina Henry’s Near the Bone was without a doubt one of the most chilling reads I’ve ever read! There was so much horror to this novel and not all of it was monsters! I mentioned the trigger warnings forefront this time because this book is deeply seeded into some scary things. The book itself is still amazing, but I wanted readers to be aware of the characters’ dark history in this one. It left me chilled and with a mess of emotions whirling about.Mattie lives with her husband, William, in a remote forest on a mountain. It’s always just been the two of them but then one day when checking the traps for their food source, Mattie finds a chilling pair of footprints that are not like any animal she’s ever seen before. She and William discover a cave of horrors that belong to this creature and William becomes set on hunting down this monster once and for all.Though while journeying through the forest they run into a new problem, intruders. A group of hikers are out and about conducting research and when they encounter William and Mattie it sends a spark of familiarity with one of them. Mattie has lived a secluded life for many years because her husband deemed it so, so seeing other people left her a little off-kilter.All the while, Mattie is overcome with dreams of another life. One about a young girl with her family. A life of before…soon a new horror story is revealed to Mattie day by day as memories long forgotten resurface. This my friends was the truly scary part of the story. It left me chilled. Christina Henry is proven once again to be a master storyteller, even of the hard topics.That William is an abusive d—husband has you rooting for Mattie with every little act of defiance that she commits. When the strangers soon turn to trying to help Mattie escape William, Mattie has to relearn what humanity is truly like.Oh and all the while they are being hunted down by a monster they cannot see, one that moves so quick no one ever has the chance to scream. Blood trails and animal parts are left strewn about the forest in a macabre matter. This story is not for the faint of heart in more ways than one.Near the Bone was a heart-racing read on many levels that it has a greater magnitude of “page-turner.” Still, you can’t help but turn the pages as fast as you can to see what the outcome will be. You hope for many things, but only a few will come true. That doesn’t make this a disappointing read in the least, it makes it one emotional gut punch to the feelings though.In short, Near the Bone was one of the most soul-chilling reads I’ve ever read. It’s definitely a horror story to be sure and I stress again it is not for the faint of heart. The trigger warnings I mention only touch the surface. There is another one that I will say connects to a controlling spouse, I intentionally left out the actual word for spoiler purposes, but figured you might be able to gain an idea from the last part. This book was horrifying to say the least, but masterful storytelling and underneath it all, a story of hope…as most “monster” stories can be. That last piece of positivity was everything though.Sadly, while I hoped for answers as to this mysterious monster stalking the woods that only seemed to appear recently, those were not so forthcoming. I can understand leaving it a mystery in some sense, but what baffled me was that this monster literally only came about recently, so it left me wondering where was it in those early years of Mattie and William’s lives in the forest? It was puzzling for sure and that we only catch glimpses of it had me even more intrigued…yet still utterly horrified! The mysterious monster was definitely a puzzle I would’ve liked solved, but I can mostly live with not knowing…except the bit about where it suddenly came from though! Lol.If you’re looking for a positively terrifying read this year, Christina Henry’s Near the Bone is the read to go with! It’s so utterly bone-chilling, that you will never want to go camping again! I knew there was a reason why I didn’t like going into nature! This is a read not to be missed for fans of horror!Overall Rating 4.5/5 starsNear the Bone releases April 13, 2021

I really enjoyed her style of writing. I like books that don’t hold back from being graphic and raw. I was hoping for a little more at the end but overall I thought it was a good read. I enjoyed the authors other book “Alice”. Now that was instense and extremely graphic.

4 1/2 stars.I loved the last 2 books I read by Christina Henry, The Girl in Red and The Ghost Tree so I was thrilled when I saw she had a new thriller, Near the Bone, coming out. I couldn’t wait to read this book and let me tell you, this is my favorite so far. If you are a thriller fan and love slasher movies like I do, then this is definitely the book for you.Mattie and her husband William live alone in the mountains. Mattie has no contact with the outside world and cannot remember her life before William. Mattie tries to be the good wife William expects, because when William gets angry, Mattie pays. One day while checking the traps in the woods, Mattie finds what look like bear tracks but are way too large to be a bear. When Mattie and William go searching the woods for this animal, they find its cave and what they find inside makes no sense for a wild animal. Inside the cave are bones that are separated into categories, skulls in one pile, ribs in another etc. as well as a pile of intestines. When 3 strangers show up on the mountain to hunt for this animal, Mattie needs to make them leave before William sees them. William will be angry and it will be Mattie that suffers.I had so much sympathy for Mattie. The only life she knows is with William and she just suffers such abuse from him. And now Mattie has 2 monsters to worry about, William and the creature in the woods. I was rooting for her to have the strength to finally escape. And I was also cheering her on when she gradually found the strength to fight back at both William and the creature. As the story progresses, we do get bits of info of how Mattie came to be living with William and the more we learned the more my heart broke for her. When everything was finally revealed I was praying that the creature in the woods would give William a slow and torturous death. Oh, how I hated that man.Griffin, CP and Jen are the three strangers that showed up on the mountain. And while we don’t get a lot of background on them, I did like how they were sympathetic and interacted with Mattie. But boy, these 3 came across to me as the group in a horror movie you kept yelling at to shut up. I kept thinking “Why don’t you just have a neon sign above you, Yo killer over here!” LOL. Mattie got so frustrated with them when she was trying to get them to realize they need to listen to her if they wanted to get off the mountain alive.I really liked how Henry left what the creature looked like for the reader to decide. She gives vague descriptions of the creature, but the rest is up to the reader to create their own image. I really thought this was a great way to add to the terror of the book. I am not going to tell you what I pictured, but I did conjure up one heck of a terrifying creature. I also thought Henry did an amazing job of creating a creepy setting with the isolated snowy mountains.I really cannot say much about this book because I don’t want to spoil anything. But if you are a horror fan that likes gore, then I think you will love this book.

Beautiful book, the cover and everything is just beautiful but the story was just...disappointing.As an avid fan to the point of buying the books as soon as they came out, this one paled in comparrision to her other books. The theme of trauma is quite well represented but the impression you get off the blurb isn't what the book actually is about. In my opinion, you couldn't really get lost in the book.Despite the book being quite serious in terms of plot and theme, I found myself not liking any characters(other then William which I LOATHED so that's actually good). I found the decisions they made were completely stupid and not at all someone would do in that situatation(yes it's a book but the seriousness of the entire thing, you'd expect the characters not to be flaming idiots) so at the end, I didn't really care, I just wanted it to be over.Some parts made me wince and others triggered anxiety/PTSD but I feel like the writing style, the frustration with the side characters and the previous love for all prior books really made this book to be a poor experience. By all means if this is your first time reading her, then your choice, but her previous workings were amazing and this was longly anticipated, so it fell so short of expectatations.I feel genuinely worried for 'horsemen' that's coming out in sept/Oct.

Mattie lives in a cabin on a mountain with her abusive husband, William. She isn't allowed to wander far from their home, & she has never seen anyone else for as long as she can remember, but when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox, she realizes that they're not alone after all. Something strange is in the woods, a natural predator, so William wants to get rid of it as he fears it will bring more people up the mountain to hunt it.This starts off quite slowly, but gradually builds to where a small group of people are fleeing for their lives from whatever is killing everything around it & leaving their corpses strung from trees. This part of the book is gripping, especially as Mattie starts to remember her life before William. Talking of William, never have I wanted a character to meet a sticky end as much as I wanted him to.TW: physical abuse, gaslighting, paedophilia, miscarriage, graphic injury/violence, animal death.

I an overwelled at this book, l have been a fan for a while now, not everything, Alice and the Red Queen where all l needed.When l saw this volume l was curious, as she always taken on so called fairy tales.No quite true, but this is in my opinion a bit overlong, yet dealing with abbuction. Peadiopillia, total power over another.Yet so many more secrets to be reviled.Outstanding and set against in my mind beauty and the beast, in a way l could not have imagined.I perchased this on kindle, but think a heard copy needs to be on my shelf as well.Well worth the criching, frightening, unease, that will get to your core on so many levels. A must!!! What more can l say

I adore Christina Henry's books and have devoured all her others, loved them and recommended them. I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed in this one. Don't get me wrong, I was gripped by it, however it felt like it came to such an abrupt end, with no real tying up of loose ends.As always, Christina isn't afraid to up the gore factor and it has her usual almost magical qualities to it , I was just left wanting somewhat.However, it certainly won't put me off buying more. For me, all her previous books have been the full 5 stars 🌟 so I think for one to not quite make the same high grade is perfectly acceptable.If you're a fan please don't avoid it on the strength of this review, however , if you're considering this as a first read of this author , please try one of her others instead , as to me, this is not a true representation of her incredible writing talent.

I have to say that this book is frightening in parts but I really felt like I was willing the story to continue.I could picture the setting and really felt the emotions of the narrator.I would recommend this book to readers who are not too squeamish as the descriptions are vivid.