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anna bailey’s debut, tall bones, is the latest novel to have gripped grazia’s book club
A SMALL-TOWN GIRL goes missing in the woods – that’s the starting point of Anna Bailey’s haunting debut novel, Tall Bones.
But what happens after 17-year-old Abigail Blake goes missing in Whistling Ridge isn’t the beginning of a predictable or run-of-the-mill whodunnit thriller. Abigail’s disappearance is the start of the unravelling of the whole town, exposing the secrets they’ve kept hidden and the shame that has plagued many of the residents for years.
Within Abi’s family, a brutal history of grudges, resentment and dark secrets will have to come out into the light as her friend Emma refuses to leave any stones unturned in her quest to find out what happened.
There’s a darkness that runs throughout the town, too – led by Pastor Lewis, prejudice and violence lies barely hidden beneath the surface of Whistling Ridge and hardly anyone is left untouched by the ripples that follow Abi’s disappearance.
A book thick with male violence inside and outside the home, Tall Bones is an eerily prescient read today. ‘We live in a world so dominated by male violence and I think the problem is that we have really normalised it to some degree. When bad things happen to women, we’re shocked, but not always surprised to find out that it’s men who are almost always behind it – and that is something I felt passionately about and wanted to write about,’ says Anna.
Despite the troubling subject matter, Tall Bones comes recommended by all of your favourite thriller writers – and the Grazia Book Club, who praised its depiction of small-town life and intricate pacing, which sees you swing from past to present in a bid to know Abigail and understand what happened to her and the residents of this seemingly-cursed town.
A nuanced thriller that will haunt you long after you race through its pages, Tall Bones is a novel you’ll be itching for your friends to read, just so you can discuss it. Tall Bones by Anna Bailey is out now (£12.99, Transworld Publishers)