A visceral and evocative read, Kilcoyne’s debut follows 5 members of an insular farming community as they battle an unknown menace in their midst. The story leans heavily into metaphors about links between guilt and grief, soil and power, escape and survival, blood and growth. The images that build these metaphors are striking and memorable, making this a wholly unique read. Kilcoyne also uses a lot of what felt to me like intentional disorientation, creating an atmosphere of uncertainty that’s structured into every sentence and every chapter. We switch POV characters with few clues about whose head we’re in or why we’ve made that particular shift at that particular moment in the story. We don’t have clear answers about what the group is fighting or how any of the magic is deployed, developed, or distributed among the population of the small town. We shift without transitions from high-stakes, horror-type action to quiet, small-town scenes about weeding tobacco or playing pool. For readers looking for a clear linear plot or a set of characters with defined wants and obstacles, this might not be the best fit. For those up for a genre-bending story full of imagery you can feel between your teeth and prose that makes you reread the sentences so you can fully sense the weight of their meaning, this is a heck of a ride.

After Laurel drops out of college, she goes back home to Kentucky to her Uncle and his tobacco farm. Laurel’s friends Issac, Garrett, and Ricky are also home waiting for her, and she has to figure out how she’s going to break the news to them.

When Laurel was younger a tragedy fell upon the farm when her mother fell into the livestock well and died. Laurel doesn’t really remember much about her mother, but there were always rumors around town about magic and the devil surrounding her. It seems that now the devil and that magic might not be just rumors, and something is haunting Laurel and her friends.


I really enjoyed reading this story; I connected with the characters and I was really interested in the plot. It also had just the right amount of horror elements — it was spooky but not too spooky. I like how the book is wrapped up. I was afraid at first that I was just going to be left with questions, but it soon started to explain things. I really liked the concept of leaving, coming back home, and now it’s a hostile place — it strikes up a fear of losing your safe place.

This is a horror book! There are plenty of gorey and spooky scenes described, so if that’s not really your thing I wouldn’t recommend. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys not only horror but also a bit of family/hometown drama.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!

I really enjoyed this read and for reasons more than just the horror aspect. Laurel is living and working on her family's tobacco farm in Kentucky. She has a unique hobby of working with bones and an ability to read them in the sense that she can see the death of the owners of these bones. However, one day her bones walk away and she begins to understand the evil at work on her land.

While being a creepy read, especially the ending, I found the author's look into grief and hopelessness really intriguing. Kilcoyne told this story with a bone jarring passion that cannot be ignored. I was lost in the author's winding storytelling style and it felt amazing to be so wrapped up in a book that is so honest about how many new adult's deal with change and decision making during difficult times. I definitely would say this is worth a read!

The author has a link on their book review on Goodreads for all the trigger warnings. There is rape, abuse, violence and disturbing imagery in this, but check the link if you can because it's more detailed. Also this list is available in the book.

Out July 12, 2022!

"The sleepy little farm that Laurel Early grew up on has awakened. The woods are shifting, the soil is dead under her hands, and her bone pile just stood up and walked away.

After dropping out of college, all she wanted was to resume her life as a tobacco hand and taxidermist and try not to think about the boy she can’t help but love. Instead, a devil from her past has returned to court her, as he did her late mother years earlier. Now, Laurel must unravel her mother’s terrifying legacy and tap into her own innate magic before her future and the fate of everyone she loves is doomed.

Elizabeth Kilcoyne's Wake the Bones is a dark, atmospheric debut about the complicated feelings that arise when the place you call home becomes hostile."

Haven become horrifying!

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I was very intrigued at the beginning. It starts off relatively slow, but you know that something is coming. It has an eerie atmosphere throughout the beginning of the book that makes you wonder what's coming.

I will say, while I love slower, more atmospheric horror, the pace was a bit too slow for me at times. I didn't find all the characters as fascinating as I would have wanted (especially Laurel, which is unfortunate since she's the MC).

I also really thought Laurel and Christine were going to have a thing, but then...they didn't? It felt like a bit of queerbait. Like, there was SOMETHING, and then she just...went with Garret, who was incredibly blah.

I dunno, there were definitely things I enjoyed, and things I didn't. It also felt like it ended and the story was going to be wrapped up, and then, surprise! Ther's more.

It was good, but not amazing.

Wake the Bones Review

I really enjoyed this book from start to finish. Elizabeth Kilcoyne does an absolutely stellar job creating an atmosphere in Dry Valley that oozes unsettling feelings and unrest. The magic is rich and enticing, I was taken with the visceral feeling the author is able to conjure up as Laurel grows to understand and control her power. I haven’t been this creeped out by a book’s monster and magic in a while - so 12/10 overall! The different obstacles: personal, emotional, and supernatural are all deftly woven into this spooky and gripping book. The romance and unrequited love and troublesome-early 20s-feelings provide nice support to build the world and the characters of Dry Valley. Our heroine, Laurel, is relatable in her struggle to find herself, her deep love for her friends and her home, and her passion for her craft: working with the bones of the dead.
It was easy to sympathize and relate to Laurel, a young girl doing her best to find her place in the world, currently at a crossroads because school did not go as intended and while home is safe and familiar, it too is changing and growing. Growing up in a small-minded town can be very alienating for the non-conforming and I think Kilcoyne does a great job featuring that through the different lenses of mockery and fear that was expressed through Laurel’s companions and the townspeople.
Dry Valley’s wild landscape and story is one which is easy to get lost in; the prosaic approach to decomposition, death, and finding beauty in all forms of life really swept me away, while the blood, trauma, and scary monsters kept me on the edge of my seat and hungrily reading on.

Wake the Bones is a book I've been intrigued in ever since I saw the cover. Can you blame me? Talk about something that manages to be both gorgeous and unsettling. And that's kind of the ending vibe of Wake the Bones. This multiple POV debut balances the action and atmosphere with themes about power. Laurel's returned home, but little does she know that nothing will stay the same. Pretty quickly Wake the Bones becomes haunting - quite literally. But the atmosphere only grows.

It straddles this line between horror and fantasy. Between a world of demons and sacrifices and magic which demands. A magic that rushes over us, pulling us under without our consent, to wash over us. It's one that hollows us out in what it takes. Returning home, Laurel stumbles back on the drama and dynamics of her friends and this town. But the supernatural won't let her rest. It's calling. The multiple POV in Wake the Bones provides almost mini palette cleansers that both illustrate the ways our lives touch others, and our own roles we have to play in this town mystery.

Laurel comes home from college after dropping out and something is there waiting for her. Her mother awakened something in their small farming town, and now it's up to Laurel and her childhood friends to send it back where it came from. What follows is an Appalachian magic,
There's appropriate trigger warnings that I was very grateful for, and the realism of the characters. They are so multi-faceted. I really hated Laurel, she was selfish and childish. But she was so real and visceral. It wasn't a matter of me not liking a female character who is battling depression. It's more that I didn't understand where her severe childishness came from. She gets put on academic suspension, and as a result just drops out of school. She doesn't want to be some small down girl who lives and dies in the same house so she won't give in to her feelings for Ricky. But as soon as he says he doesn't want that life either, she wants him. She came home because she "Couldn't make it out" Her (gay) best friend Isaac had plans to join her at college- a place where he can be free and himself and out from under his heavily abusive father- and when he admits his plans haven't changed even though she's not going back to college, she argues and fights and insults him and doesn't understand how he could want to leave. Because, well, she's back now, so why would he want to leave? She just acts like these boys should only ever live for her, and the idea that they would want things outside of what she wants is something she really can't comprehend.
Every action she makes is so fully focused on herself and her wants and based on her own understanding of the world, and never any consideration of others. Then she acts shocked when they're angry that she did something selfish. She acts like the world is this innocent place. "He hit you, so I made sure we got out of there before you could gather your things and we could leave safely"Just such a simple view of the world and its horrors.
That's not even touching on the issues of world building. There's magic, and while I love the idea of the Appalachian Magic being represented, its FUNCTIONS were so confusing. Certain VERY IMPORTANT events happened in such a way that it was confusing until a while later that anything had even happened. THere's also the way the boys love Laurel, who has magic, but condemn Christine who also has magic. And the only excuse is a throw away comment that Christine was grown in different soil. So they... insult her extensively.
Overall the only saving grace of this book was the characters, who were so well done and believable.

Laurel Early's farm just woke up. Her bone pile (don't ask) had gotten up and walked away. The woods are shifting, and the soil is dead.

The devil that courted her mother has come for her. She and her friends are now in danger and Laurel must rely on her own inner magic to help protect herself and those she loves.

This is a highly imaginative and original book. I had the privilege of having both the book and audiobook. The farm/land is very much a character in this book as well. It sets a very stark and hopeless stage.

This is a book that is best to go in blind. It won’t be for everyone. This book contains themes of abuse, sexuality, finding your inner power, dropping out of school, and friendship. There are dark elements at play here.

This book is a mash up of fantasy, horror, and romance.

This was an interesting book experience. The entire time I read and listened, I wasn't sure I liked it, but I also could not put it down. I'm still not entirely sure where I stand, but I must give it props for originality and creativity.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Young Listeners and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

This Southern Gothic fantasy creeped me out in all the right ways.

Despite being a total wimp when it comes to spooky stories, I loved Wake The Bones for its gorgeous visuals, its commentary on trauma, and how unapologetically Southern it was.

I'd recommend fans of found family stories, especially Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle, keep an eye out for this one.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own thoughts.

It feels a bit unfair of me to rate this book because I don't think I'm the intended audience. The more I read Paranormal books the more I'm starting to feel like they just aren't for me.

So this one was fine, it didn't do anything special for me. There wasn't really anything creepy in this story aside from one scene, which I personally didn't think was creepy but I feel like some people might. The characters were fine but I didn't care about any of them. Again, I don't think this book was for me.

2.5 ⭐️⭐️✨ This was an easy read that just took me a while to get through. Its a severely slow burn kind of book and the stereotypes are harmful to say the least. The writing style is beautiful however, I just wish the story was a bit better more action packed, I wish I could understand and connect more with the characters, but they were flat to me. Overall I don’t think ill be recommending, but its an easy read with some gore, so if you are into that be my guest!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 Stars

I really enjoyed the vibes and gothic horror this book had. It was spooky and full of mystery that grabbed me from the very start.

I enjoyed the characters and the setting of Dry Valley was interesting and had this air of mystery I really enjoyed.

Overall, it's a pretty good book and I recommend it heavily for ones who enjoy mystery and horror.

*I was offered a copy of this ARC by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Laurel Early just dropped out of college. She decides to come back to the familial tobacco farm to work and spends time doing taxidermy. She tries to have a quiet life with her childhood friends but the farm wants something else. Something has awaken and it wants blood.

If you are looking for an older YA book with horror, mystery, magic and ghosts, this is the book. Young adults trying to find themselves, facing hardships and most of all the devil. The characters are not some superpowered humans, they are normal teenagers with real problems. I really liked how the story was built and how it all came together even though there was magic. A magic none of them understood but discovered.

3.5/5 stars

f yearbook superlatives were outdated Vine references, Wake the Bones would have earned the honorable title, “Country boy, I love you… eugh.” What reads at first like a horror novel, featuring an off-the-wall taxidermist protagonist named Laurel, instead veers off course to follow two parallel romances in a small town-Southern setting.

After dropping out of college and retreating back to her small Southern hometown, Laurel is fighting what feels like the inevitable fate of settling down to marry her childhood friend (read: rival). Isaac wants nothing more than to get away from this town and his father’s abuse to pursue a life removed from the stifling prejudices of the rural South. These two main conflicts dominate the speculative elements including a monster made of bones that may or may not have killed Laurel’s mother, a murder that was written off as a suicide. It’s a bit of a disjointed setup, with just enough horror to not read like an outright literary fiction.

The whole concept of impoverished Southern white people growing old in the same tiny community they were born in is one I think has already been well-explored in fiction. And while I’m not saying that’s a story that doesn’t need to be told again, even the speculative element of the narrative with the looming threat of a “bone monster” chasing down Laurel wasn’t enough to distinguish it in my memory. In a lot of ways, I was reminded of the Bone Gap. It’s a very similar small town setting featuring an outcast protagonist that goes head to head with a villain that may very well just be a metaphor. But where The Bone Gap is a book that has stuck with me, I can feel that Wake the Bones is going to fade away into the next cycle of stories that tread similar ground.

Where this book really leaves any lasting impression is with its prose, which is a great thing to say about a debut author. So even while I wasn’t invested in the plotting and execution here, I will be interested to see what Elizabeth Kilcoyne releases next. She has a control with language that makes even some of the more gruesome descriptions here oddly lyrical, which is exactly my flavor of prose.

In the end, Wake the Bones is gloomy, and slow, and a little bit existential. I absolutely think there’s a reader that's going to connect with this type of story. Unfortunately, that reader wasn’t me. So while I respect the atmosphere the author was able to establish, I didn't care enough about any of the characters enough that I think their individual arcs will linger with me.

Thank you to the publisher Wednesday Books for providing an ARC via NetGalley for an honest review.

This was such a spooky, fun story! I loved the atmosphere and the setting. It had everything a YA horror reader could want! It was a quick read with an enticing plot!

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but I was pleasantly surprised. I've always been a fan of magical realism, though my tendency is for the more happy kind. Kilcoyne's storytelling is full of beautiful visuals that range the magic itself, from life to death.

A creepy, sticky and magical book that reads like the quintessential summer read. WAKE THE BONES has a special quality about it. I loved the setting of this book. I loved the Southern Gothic, midsummer feel of Dry Valley and it's very creepy woods. Everything about Kilcoyne's writing just oozes creepy: the monsters, the ghosts, the forest, the bones, everything. It's wonderfully atmospheric and eerie. Things definitely get weird at times, but I just couldn't look away the deeper and deeper I got into this story. It took me a while to warm up to our MC, Laurel, but as family secrets come to light and Laurel learns about the demon haunting her woods and her place in that story I really came around to her. I love the comradery between Laurel and her friends and this concept of them being a found family for each other. Each character was unique and compelling. The narrator for the audiobook did a great job achieving what Kilcoyne was trying to do with this story and capturing the feel of this book. WAKE THE BONES is a genre-bending, horrific and creepy gem of a book about sacrifice, ghosts of the past made present, and consequences that I really did enjoy.

This was exactly what I was looking for when I read this synopsis and I’m so glad that I was able to read an early copy because it was the perfect winter read for me. It was dark and gritty and felt incredibly realistic even with the addition of magic.

I’m writing this review a few months after reading the book and I can still vividly recall so much of what I read, which is impressive considering how bad my memory is. But the entire atmosphere of this one was just so well done that I can still feel that creepy vibe when I think about it. And I mean that as a compliment.

The characters were fully fleshed out and their different relationships were so complex and well executed and it made the stakes that much higher since I was so invested in them all. The magic and everything was also just so dark and gritty and it just fit the setting so well.

I don’t even know how to talk about this one other than the vibes were perfect and the story flowed beautifully. I just really loved this book and I’m excited to read more by the author in the future.

Before I get into the review, I need to say a quick thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers over at Wednesday Books for giving access to the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. Wake the Bones is a New Adult Fantasy/Horror novel about a group of friends in a middle of nowhere town. A few want to get out. A few want to stay. But all must deal with the horrors living in the foundations of the Early Farm. Wake the Bones comes out on July 12th and is available for preorder now.

I explained the plot of this novel so vaguely because, to me, this novel is The Raven Cycle plus horror. The vague magical realism with no clearly defined rules, the group of friends consisting of one girl and one boy who like each other and two gay teens who eventually get together, nature magic, a semi-threatening forest. Not to mention that each of our four characters basically have characteristics of the Raven Cycle characters. Isaac is abused by his father. Ricky has a lot of the rougher edges that Ronan in TRC. Gansey’s character is mostly portrayed by Garrett. This is a book that is almost all vibes with very little plot. I liked the spooky atmosphere. I liked the way the small town felt like a true small town. It feels like the author knows a lot about tiny specks of towns in the rural U.S. I wish there was just more depth there.

Maybe this book would be better for the people who are big Fantasy readers or the ones coming at this story from the Horror side of things. This book just never gave me enough. Not enough scary moments, not a strong enough magical system, not enough depth of characters. The moments that really caught my attention were the chapters with Christine (a side character). I felt like there was so much to this side character that I would have loved to get more into as the story went on. The writing style is a flowery language that I know so many people love. I’m just still feeling torn on this one.