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A review by amym84
Quiet in Her Bones by Nalini Singh
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Ten years ago Nina Rai vanished. Taking nothing but some money and her car, she left everyone, including her beloved son Aarav, behind. It's something that has had a huge impact on Aarav growing up and now, as a best-selling author, the themes of loss and abandonment are prominent in his works.
Everyone, even Aarav, had put her disappearance down to an unhappy wife leaving her unhappy and toxic marriage behind.
Except now, Nina Rai has been found, and it's not on a calm and sunny beach somewhere, she actually didn't make it much farther than her own home before her car veered into the brush.
Aarav immediately knows that this wasn't some unfortunate accident. He knows his mother was murdered. Now, he'll stop at nothing to unearth the secrets from the past. But can he rely on his own memories about what happened all those years ago when he's held so much grief and anger towards his mother and father? But if he is right, there's still a murderer on the loose, and secrets that someone wants to leave buried.
Nalini Singh is a must-read author for me. Even when she moved from her fantasies and romances into this mystery/thriller genre I knew she wouldn't let me down.
This is her second foray into mystery following [book:A Madness of Sunshine|44525771], but I loved how different the two books are. Nalini Singh takes readers in a completely different direction, but obviously still retains the murder mystery aspect.
This time around readers are taken to the affluent gated community Aarav calls The Cul-de-Sac where everyone knows everybody else's business. At least, they think they do. Behind closed doors everyone has their secrets. Aarav is newly returned to the community returning to his childhood home after a vehicle accident left him with a broken leg.
The entire story is told from Aarav's point of view, and I feel like Nalini Singh was very calculating in how she framed everything. You at once feel bad for the child Aarav once was, losing his mother, but then some of his actions as an adult make him kind of easy to dislike. The same goes for the rest of the people in the neighborhood. But then you stop and think that ALL of this is from Aarav's perspective, and then you begin to question how much you can take at face value and how much is a distorted point of view.
Without another more reliable character to balance things out a bit, Quiet in Her Bones wasn't always an easy read. But as I said before, this is all so calculated. It's meant to cause the reader to get pulled in and question everything just as Aarav does. So even we feel this kind of isolation. Who do you trust? Who can you believe? Nalini Singh pulls this aspect off to perfection.
There was a very Hitchcockian feel to the story especially the idea of this idyllic close community, these neighbors that smile to your face on the outside and seemingly have it all, yet pretty much everyone harbors some kind of secret. It's something that kind of carries over from the her previous book. The secrets that hide beneath the surface of a community.
I don't want to say too much for fear of spoilers, but suffice it to say, Nalini Singh has never let me down no matter what she's writing. I'm really loving her new Mystery/Thriller direction.
Everyone, even Aarav, had put her disappearance down to an unhappy wife leaving her unhappy and toxic marriage behind.
Except now, Nina Rai has been found, and it's not on a calm and sunny beach somewhere, she actually didn't make it much farther than her own home before her car veered into the brush.
Aarav immediately knows that this wasn't some unfortunate accident. He knows his mother was murdered. Now, he'll stop at nothing to unearth the secrets from the past. But can he rely on his own memories about what happened all those years ago when he's held so much grief and anger towards his mother and father? But if he is right, there's still a murderer on the loose, and secrets that someone wants to leave buried.
Nalini Singh is a must-read author for me. Even when she moved from her fantasies and romances into this mystery/thriller genre I knew she wouldn't let me down.
This is her second foray into mystery following [book:A Madness of Sunshine|44525771], but I loved how different the two books are. Nalini Singh takes readers in a completely different direction, but obviously still retains the murder mystery aspect.
This time around readers are taken to the affluent gated community Aarav calls The Cul-de-Sac where everyone knows everybody else's business. At least, they think they do. Behind closed doors everyone has their secrets. Aarav is newly returned to the community returning to his childhood home after a vehicle accident left him with a broken leg.
The entire story is told from Aarav's point of view, and I feel like Nalini Singh was very calculating in how she framed everything. You at once feel bad for the child Aarav once was, losing his mother, but then some of his actions as an adult make him kind of easy to dislike. The same goes for the rest of the people in the neighborhood. But then you stop and think that ALL of this is from Aarav's perspective, and then you begin to question how much you can take at face value and how much is a distorted point of view.
Without another more reliable character to balance things out a bit, Quiet in Her Bones wasn't always an easy read. But as I said before, this is all so calculated. It's meant to cause the reader to get pulled in and question everything just as Aarav does. So even we feel this kind of isolation. Who do you trust? Who can you believe? Nalini Singh pulls this aspect off to perfection.
There was a very Hitchcockian feel to the story especially the idea of this idyllic close community, these neighbors that smile to your face on the outside and seemingly have it all, yet pretty much everyone harbors some kind of secret. It's something that kind of carries over from the her previous book. The secrets that hide beneath the surface of a community.
I don't want to say too much for fear of spoilers, but suffice it to say, Nalini Singh has never let me down no matter what she's writing. I'm really loving her new Mystery/Thriller direction.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Death of parent