Book Review: My Sister’s Bones by Nualla Ellwood

1. I love books I can’t put down. I hate books I can’t put down. I both love and hate books I cannot put down. They’re so great, and they keep me enthralled – but I wind up reading all day instead of doing all the things I’m supposed to do.
2. I have great admiration for authors who can write well about PSTD. It stinks. It’s a terrible thing to live with. Suzanne Collins does a good job with showing how PTSD can manifest in The Hunger Games.
3. My Sister’s Bones by Nualla Ellwood combines both 1 and 2 to create a beautifully written book that delves deep into the psyche of someone who had experienced trauma. Bonus: You can’t put this book down.

 If you’ve ever experienced trauma (and I hope you haven’t), you have moments where you seriously question your interpretation of events. Trauma paints glasses on you that you can’t quite take off, and it creates a filter for the world that may not be accurate. In My Sister’s Bones, Kate, who has returned home after reporting on the Syrian war, is faced with the question of whether what she believes is going on next door is actually what is going on next door.

With three kids under four years old, it’s a rare day that I’ll sit and read an entire book from cover to cover in a single day. This book got that honor, and I’m glad. It was beautifully written, moving, and intriguing – the perfect read for a stormy Kansas day.

About My Sister’s Bones

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (July 11, 2017)

“Rivals The Girl on the Train as a compulsive read (and beats it for style). — Observer (UK)

In the vein of Fiona Barton’s The Widow and Renée Knight’s Disclaimer, a psychological thriller about a war reporter who returns to her childhood home after her mother’s death but becomes convinced that all is not well in the house next door—but is what she’s seeing real or a symptom of the trauma she suffered in Syria?

The One Person You Should Trust Is Lying to You…

Kate has spent fifteen years bringing global injustice home: as a decorated war reporter, she’s always in a place of conflict, writing about ordinary people in unimaginable situations. When her mother dies, Kate returns home from Syria for the funeral. But an incident with a young Syrian boy haunts her dreams, and when Kate sees a boy in the garden of the house next door—a house inhabited by an Iraqi refugee who claims her husband is away and she has no children—Kate becomes convinced that something is very wrong.

As she struggles to separate her memories of Syria from the quiet town in which she grew up—and also to reconcile her memories of a traumatic childhood with her sister’s insistence that all was not as Kate remembers—she begins to wonder what is actually true…and what is just in her mind.

In this gripping, timely debut, Nuala Ellwood brings us an unforgettable damaged character, a haunting , humanizing look at the Syrian conflict, and a deeply harrowing psychological thriller that readers won’t be able to put down.

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

About Nuala Ellwood

Nuala Ellwood is the daughter of an award-winning journalist. Inspired by her father’s and other journalists’ experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder, she gained Arts Council Funding for her research into the topic and ultimately made it the main theme of My Sister’s Bones, her debut psychological thriller.

Find out more about Nuala at her website, and connect with her on Twitter.