REVIEW: IN HER BONES, BY KATE MORETTI

 

 

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…

My Thoughts: I was immediately caught up in the story of Edie and her serial killer mother Lilith. How does a daughter escape the legacy of her mother’s sins?

I enjoyed seeing how Edie (known as Beckett) tried to overcome her obsessions, while also struggling to hold down a job, maintain normal relationships, and move beyond the past. But could she ever find any kind of normalcy?

Then when a murder turns everything upside down for her, and she is the prime suspect, she must go off the grid and try to solve the case on her own. In the process, she begins to learn more about her mother and about herself.

In Her Bones is told in alternating narratives: from Edie, Detective Gil Brandt, and then from the excerpts of a book based on the crimes. The anonymous author seems like an insider, because of the details he or she knows. I liked how Edie figured out who wrote the book…and confronted the author.

Despite my fascination, the book was a bit of a slog for me…and I was glad to put the gruesome details behind me. 4 stars.

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