Kate Moretti | IN HER BONES

Plot (via Goodreads):

Fifteen years ago, Lilith Wade was arrested for the brutal murder of six women. After a death row conviction, media frenzy, and the release of an unauthorized biography, her thirty-year-old daughter Edie Beckett is just trying to survive out of the spotlight. She’s a recovering alcoholic with a dead-end city job and an unhealthy codependent relationship with her brother.

Edie also has a disturbing secret: a growing obsession with the families of Lilith’s victims. She’s desperate to see how they’ve managed—or failed—to move on. While her escalating fixation is a problem, she’s careful to keep her distance. That is, until she crosses a line and a man is found murdered.

Edie quickly becomes the prime suspect—and while she can’t remember everything that happened the night of the murder, she’d surely remember killing someone. With the detective who arrested her mother hot on her trail, Edie goes into hiding. She’s must get to the truth of what happened that night before the police—or the real killer—find her. 

Unless, of course, she has more in common with her mother than she’s willing to admit…

Review:

September is just one of my favorite months. The weather gets cooler, the television shows we love come back, and the fall reads are just really kicking off. This month was one of those months that I just had to be really selective with what I chose to feature on my blog as so many great titles were being released. The first book I chose? IN HER BONES by Kate Moretti. Last year I read and adored The Blackbird Season. Moretti's writing style is just off the charts when it comes to writing great characters and really sets herself apart from all of the other authors out there with her ability to tell a story that is so detailed and unique that you cannot help but become obsessed from the first page. IN HER BONES is that and more.

When I read the plot to this novel, I was really shocked with how dark it seemed compared to some of the other titles by Kate Moretti that I've read. I was taken aback in the best way possible and immediately knew I had to reach out and beg for a copy...luckily due to her phenomenal publicist, I got a copy rather soon after. There's a trend with thrillers now where you kind of see relatives of a bad seed and how it affects our protagonists within these novels. This one reminded me of Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land but had that extra special touch that only Kate Moretti can accomplish. The novels starts off daring and really seduces the reader by introducing you to a list of Lilith Wade's victims and their families and how it's all going to be shockingly sprinkled throughout in this suspenseful and twisted tale of what it's like to grow up with a serial killer as a mother.

I was hooked from the beginning. I absolutely loved Edie. She was dark and unapologetic, yet easy to sympathize with and I immediately loved reading her thoughts and getting to know her. Moretti has this knack for introducing you to a character like Edie and giving you small tidbits at a time and a large picture of what that person is like almost as if you're getting to know them in real time. Her characterization with her characters is unabashedly genius and thought provoking without skipping on the entertainment one bit. The other characters don't just play second fiddle, they play large parts of the story that give you a vision of different aspects of this plot that just really make it hard to put down. I mean, who needs water or food when you have a Kate Moretti novel? Order take out, you'll thank me later. No use wasting time cooking when you have a book like this in your hands.

This one started off like a psychological thriller and just kept kicking the suspense up a notch as you continue and almost had a hint of action in it similar to the movie The Net with Sandra Bullock. It was one of those novels that I just couldn't figure out what was going to happen next, what else I was going to uncover, and what other tricks Moretti had up her sleeve that would tantalize me even more with this story. This novels brilliantly written, featuring fantastic characterization and a plot that is so twisted and emotional that I was surprised how quickly it went by. I didn't pay attention to what page I was on at all during this read as I just kept gobbling up every word during the entire reading experience. I don't know what came over Kate Moretti when she came up with this plot that is so much more suspenseful and darker than her previous novels, but I hope it sticks with her as much as this novel has stuck with me.

Thank you so much to Atria Books for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4.5/5