Skeletal

I really enjoyed the concept of this book- I love crime-type novels and I loved The Lovely Bones so I figured this book would be for me. It was highly interesting- and for the most part if was very good, but I did have a minor isue with it. 

I couldn't really tell if Dania was a little crazy. I mean, obviously Mr Grey was a figment of her imagination but I was curious how much she imagined and how much was true. I know she had those papers and such that disappeared but I was confused by Mr Grey. 

I loved how the author moved from the court case to Dania  perspective. I loved seeing not only the aftermath of her death but how and what actually happened to her. I loved it.  I was highly engaged in the book throughout the whole book- it was grest writing and I honestly read the book in one sitting, I couldn't put it down.

Skeletal is the kind of book that lets you loose a night of sleep because you just can't put it down once you start reading. I can hardly describe how good this book is.. After a few pages you have a feeling you just know Daina, you feel what she feels, and you cannot but feel sorry for her and admire her greath strength... even in death. 

(A longer version of this review will be published on 10 March 2015 on Crimezone.nl)

I was given this book to review and I am sad to say under normal circumstances this would not be a book I would have picked up on my own and boy would I have missed out on one of the best books I have read in a long time.
This book grabs the reader from the start and you have no choice but to get enthralled with the main character's story. No young woman should go through what she went through in her short life and the fact that you are both hearing her story as she remembers it as a ghost and how people are testifying about it in the New Zealand's form of looking into and determining the cause of one's death makes this book all that more powerful.
There were places were I was trying to guess where the author was going to take the story and then something would happen and what would happen would totally disrail my thoughts and I would have to go back to square one and that is what I look for in a true suspense book.
Skeletal is an excellent book that I would highly recommend. I would even suggest it to someone who was not so sure about the book or the subject because as I said at the beginning normally this would not be my type of book but it was one of the best and more then worth the chance I took.

I am giving this book an A.

I thought the way Hayton wrote the book was well done. It was a combination of flashbacks and present day.  I was kept guessing until the very end of the book, I didn't know what was real and what could have been hallunications. I felt so much for Daina, she was isolated in her own world for so long that she was starving for love. We got to see Daina grow up and ultimately die. It wasn't always easy to stomach, but this book will stay with me for a long time.

wow loved this book! Very good from the start and just seemed to get better and better, would defo recommend. Also this story has a very deeper meaning behind it and almost makes you feel for the character. I couldn't put it down :)

Skeletal – Katherine Hayton

I received a digital copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

When I read the blurb for this book, I knew I had to read it. It looked set to provide me with a YA thriller of a book, filled with mystery, suspense and dealing with issues that some may never even dream of happening to them. Instantly, I knew this book would be a good one, and Katherine Hayton did not disappoint.

First of, let’s look at the blurb:

Three months before she died Daina Harrow faced a bully at school.
Six weeks before she died Daina Harrow suffered an assault in the park.
One week before she died Daina Harrow stole a secret people had killed to hide.

That was ten years ago. Ten long years.

Now, her bones have been found on a building site. A coroner's inquest has been reopened. A parade of witnesses is about to start.

And Daina's here. Watching every day as her mother cries in the courtroom. Watching every day as her friends, and her enemies, and her killers lie about her on the stand.
Watching, and making sure that no matter what the coroner hears, you know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

So help you God.

Skeletal is told from the perspective of Daina Harrow, but not Daina Harrow as you expect. Daina is dead and this story is told from her flash backs, as well as statement accounts from her own coroners court ten years after her death, as at last, she has been found.

Skeletal is certainly not a book for the weak hearted, this book is incredibly deep and incredibly dark. Many YA books tiptoe carefully around life events, however Skeletal is hard hitting and a complete eye opener. Covering such sensitive topics, that are so cleverly and beautifully written, that you feel each and every heart wrenching moment, and are truly at Daina’s side throughout the entire story. It really becomes one emotional rollercoaster and even though you are reading from Daina’s POV from the other side, you still cling to some hope that she may make it through. It is a complete page turner and you really struggle to put it down.

The plot for this novel is truly fascinating, we meet Daina who has had to move to a new school and yet another town, her mother is an alcoholic and a drug abuser, her dad has left and started a new family, and we see Daina really is neglected and alone. Her start at her new school doesn’t go well either; she makes a few friends, but also makes instant enemies. This results in some really hard hitting bullying and physical attacks, which are truly shocking to read and witness. Throughout the book we see the flaws of the school system, loss of evidence at the coroner’s court and just the negligence of parenting from Daina’s mother’s side, and just how this was able to go on undetected and unreported. 

You are constantly left questioning throughout this book, trying to piece together information, constantly looking out for who her killer could be, was it an accident, was it merely from malnourishment, just what happened for Daina to be dead and her body found in the foundations of an abandoned house, and just who is that man in Grey? All questions which ultimately are answered and tied together into one big intricate ball of exposure which really makes you realise just the extent of how the events in Daina’s life have panned out.

Usually I give a quick rundown of the characters in the book, their traits and personalities, but I really cannot do that in this review, as I fear it will spoil a great deal of the story for others. However this book truly is incredibly, and with each twist and turn this book takes you really don’t expect it to be as big as it really is. You never know who to trust and just who is being real and who is being fake.

This novel is a great testament to Katherine Hayton’s writing and ability to unravel a story and keep you guessing throughout each turning page and I truly cannot wait to see what else she produces.

I highly recommend this book if you love a good thriller and mystery. But don’t go into this book thinking it will be a light hearted YA book, as it really and truly isn’t. It is completely heart breaking and yet brilliant at the same time.

I give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

First upp...I could not stop reading this book. I had to eventually when it became so late that I had to go to bed. But the first thing I took upp the following morning was my Kindle to continue reding. 

I felt for Daina tought about what it must feel to grow upp with a mother constantly drinking and partying. Not having enough to eat to be constantly afraid of the men your mom is taking home. But as if that´s not enough Daina gets bullied att school everery day. The friends she hopes having her back turn on her and it´s all a bad joke.

Enter: The Grey Man. Him I had problems with.... What roll did he play? I didn´t get it. What was he? Did he exists? 

And the ending was inte what I had expected at all. Nobody gets punished.... I so wanted someone get punished. That was the only thing I didn´t like in the book. 

I gave the book 4 solid stars and defenately recommend it to everyone who likes to read about mysteries.

This book had me hooked right from the beginning. It was a roller coaster of emotion, and the characters were vivid in their grotesque glory. The author had me guessing, and second-guessing my predictions the whole way through - right up until the end. I need to read it again.

I received this book via NetGalley to give an honest review.

I was pretty taken away by this story. We are told this story through Daina who has passed away and what led up to her dying.
Daina has had it tough and I do mean tough. She is fourteen, and has a alcoholic mother who doesn't take care of her daughter. Daina tries to keep to herself as she doesn't want to be taken to a group home because that is what would happen if anyone found out about her mother and how she is not properly taken care of.
So when Daina goes to a new school you can tell right away from the first character she meets that this person is going to cause her trouble. And trouble does it cause, this young girl has it out for Daina just because a teacher "showed" interest in her.  The bullying escalates to the point that Daina is hurt not only physically but mentally my heart broke for her. Though out the story she seems a bit off the rocks at times and I couldn't pin point what was going on until the end and it clicked. Not only does she get bullied and railroaded by her classmates but adults as well.  I couldn't stand the way she was treated at school, and for sure got very upset with how she was treated at home.  We get a look into the present which is where the court is dealing with her death, the past leading up to her death and the distant past how this all became.  The story is different and I didn't want to put it down because I wanted to find out what happened to her, who did this to her.
At the end it was a nice twist and I was like oh so that is what happened. It was a great mystery.
Through out the whole story I felt for Daina it was like she was still alive even though we already knew she was dead. It was just hard to read what she had to go through and she had no one to help her. We watch her pretty much waste away and it was sad no one seemed to notice.

Now the reason I am giving this book a 4 rating.  Sometimes I was a bit confused but it all came together eventually.  Second the way that an incident was handled at school. I honestly could not believe that it could be handled in that way, it was too unbelievable and this bothered me. Especially because it involved raped. And that is where I am going to leave that statement.

Overall a great crime mystery and I plan on reading more from this author.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1214180354?book_show_action=false

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Barnes and Noble (Autumn2): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/skeletal-katherine-hayton/1121079133?ean=9780473309268

Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com/books/38288182/Skeletal/reviews/4739248

Booklikes: http://anauling.booklikes.com/post/1122679/skeletal

Skeletal is an action packed and twisted story about a young girl and the mysteries of her death. Daina was a fourteen year old who moved around a lot. Her mother was an alcoholic and a drug addict. Daina had to take care of herself. After moving to a new school Daina is bullied and sexually assaulted. Then she goes missing and is presumed a runaway. The book takes place 10 years later in the courtroom. Dainia's body has been found and the court is deciding the cause of death. The story is told from Daina's point of view a she, dead and bodiless, watches the proceedings. All she wants is for the truth about her demise to come out.
The story is told from dead Daina's point of view during the court hearing and also through flashback chapters of her life immediately leading up to her death. The plot is fast paced and, due to the way the story is told in bits and pieces, leaves you guessing until the last minute. It's obvious that something terrible happened to Daina and that there is more going on than there seems, but you don't have any idea of what really happened right up until the very end. This is a very suspenseful story and left me a bit emotionally drained by the time I had finished.

I don't want to go too far into the plot. I was really surprised with where the story ended up going and I wouldn't want to spoil the twists and turns for anyone. Suffice it to say, Daina has a hard life and any number of people around her could be involved in her death. The character of Dainia is completely relatable and believable. She's a teenager who has had to grow up before her time and take care of herself while her mother is in a drunken stupor. Despite this, Daina keeps her grades up and works as hard as she can towards getting into university and finding a better life for herself. She doesn't have many friends and she doesn't fit in. It's easy to hope the best for her and it's hard to read the book knowing that it obviously does not all work out in the end.

The teenagers in this book are written well. Each character was multi-layered and seemed real. The bullying in the book is all too reminiscent of real life bullying and opens your eyes to the genuine problems that young girls and boys face today. Daina is a strong character that copes the best way that she can with the terrible things that happen to her. Though the majority of the characters that Daina encounters are not likable, they seem real and have understandable motivations.

The mystery of what happened to Daina is slowly revealed chapter by chapter. As each new witness takes the stand you learn more about Daina's death but also about the underbelly of the town and the school. About halfway through the book the plot twisted in a way I did not expect. I was thinking the story would be a relatively straightforward murder mystery, but it is anything but that. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of this story and the amount of attachment I had to the main character.

If you enjoy murder mysteries, this is for you. This book is about the suffering of a teenager and her need for the truth to come out, not about the investigative side of a murder case. This is a visceral story with dark tones. I think anyone who likes a darker type of Young Adult novels, without the focus on romance that can be typical, would like this book.

Oh my god! I loved this book! I couldn't put it down!  I think this is an amazing read for anyone who loves mystery novels.  Highly highly recommend it!

This book was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to read. It made me physically ill. Almost every situation that I read about made me want to vomit. It was awful, and long. But it was still a great book.
Seriously, Daina had possibly the worst situation ever. Here’s why.
•	No father in the picture
•	Alcoholic/druggie mother (who ignores her most of the time)
•	Poor
•	Starving
•	Abuse
•	Bullying
•	Traumatic childhood experience
•	Blackmail
•	Hallucinations
•	No real friends or sympathy
•	No one believes her about anything important
•	Even when she tries to do the right thing, things (people) turn against her in really horrible ways, including extreme overreactions 
•	Assault/rape
•	Suspension from school
•	Horrible pictures of her spread around her school
•	Gets wrapped up in something bigger because of blackmail
•	Being BURIED ALIVE Now imagine trying to read an entire book about this. IT DOESN’T GET BETTER. Not really. The only semi-good part (which makes it the best part) is the very end. Normally with an ending like this (I won’t spoil), I’d be infuriated because after a whole book of pure torture and pain you just say ‘for the greater good’ and think it’s okay? But as you might know by now, I am a firm believer in the greater good. A firm believer. It may not justify everything (in fact, in this case it justifies very little) but it justifies the most important thing. Again, I won’t go into details, but it has a lot to do with point #16 (above).
You have to go into this book with a certain amount of cynicism. You can’t expect anything to go right. Daina has the worst luck, having a lot like that. You might think that in society today, we see a poor kid and think, “oh, that’s not their fault, poor little kid, I wonder how I can help.” But that’s certainly not always the case. Teenagers especially will use this as an excuse to bully the kid. And Daina really can’t stand up to her vile enemy Michelle, because Michelle is violent. She’s a puncher and a hitter and is also in possession of a knife and has no moral compass. She’s not the kind of bully you stand up to once and they don’t bother you again. She has no insecurities or childhood trauma that can justify and perhaps stop her horrible actions. She’s basically a walking devil. Even the teachers know it but they can’t do anything without proof. Proof plays a huge role in this story- rather, lack thereof. Along with idiot adults and rotten teenagers.  I mean, why would you read a book where the main character is dead in the first place? It pretty much tells you how awful her life was in the synopsis (although it barely scrapes the surface). Why pick it up when there’s not likely going to be a ‘psych! Back from the dead’ scenario? Well, justice, usually. We want to see the bad guys punished.  So it’s a depressing read. And by the end, you’re so mentally exhausted and physically ill that you don’t even care what happens to the bad guys. Nothing they suffer could be as bad as Daina’s life.
What makes it so awful for her was that she actually had ambitions. She didn’t just give in and commit suicide or something. She was still wicked smart and always looked for ways to better her situation, even if she was limited by poverty and people who hated her because of it. She saw a future for herself where she could break free from the prison of her home. And seeing all that life, or potential, snuffed out was just about the worst thing I could have experienced.
Why is this a good book, then? Why does it merit all 4 stars? It sounds like a Depressing Debbie Downer book. Who wants to read that?
Well, the same reason I read through The Fault in Our Stars. The same reason I read through Thirteen Reasons Why and The Truth About Alice. Because this is life. Because this happens all the time even if we can’t see it. I personally am frustrated by the fact that I have never actually witnessed bullying. I always like to believe that I would be the person to stand up to the bully and help the victim. But I’ve never been able to test this out. I’ve kinda been itching for a chance to, to see what I would really do, but seeing bullying/fighting would probably make my cynicism worse tenfold. So perhaps it’s a good thing that I don’t see it. All the same, I know it goes on around me, in different circles, in dark corners where there’s no one to hear it and stop it. And it still makes me sick. It still makes me want to take action. Reading books like these only fuels my desire for justice in the world. It’s a harsh slap in the face anytime life gets too comfy. I am privileged that this is my fiction and not my life. This book is reality, and it assures me that if I see it happening, I will not sit idly by. Books like these are the reasons I will take a stand.

I received a copy of this courtesy of NetGalley in in exchange for an honest review.

I was craving something different and when I read the synopsis for this book, I decided I had to read it! Very well written and it kept me guessing as to what was going on the entire time. The horrors that Daina went through were awful. 

I was barely able to put down the book and it kept me invested from beginning to end. It did not disappoint! I highly recommend this book if you enjoyed Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. 

There is some language that may not be suitable for younger adults and there is a rape scene that's not so much a rape as it is a non participating, non consensual sex scene. It's not graphic and unlikely to be a trigger with anyone. The way it was written, I'm not even certain I'd call it a "rape." 

That being said... don't hate me. :) Just read the book and form your own opinions!

I was not sure what to expect when I started reading this book.  The description sounded interesting so I gave it a try.  I'm glad I did.  I was hooked from the first page to the very last.  The plot and the characters were well done.  This is a murder mystery told from the perspective of the victim.  We meet Daina at the beginning of an inquest into her death.  The story is told from witness accounts and Daina's flash backs.  It is interesting to see the differences between the witnesses version of events and the truth.  We learn of bullying, problems at home, medical research and the grey man.   There are twists and turns to keep you guessing until the end.
If you are looking for an original mystery with interesting characters, give this book a try.  I don't think you will be disappointed.
I was provided a copy of this book by the publishers in exchange for an honest review.  This did not effect my review one way or the other.

When I requested to read this book on Net Galley I didn't look at the authors name, only the blurb. When I was halfway through I looked at the name of the author realizing that I had read one of her books before and liked it. I then knew why my eyes took me to this one, sixth sense I think.

I just knew this was going to be good, but I didn't realize how dam good!

Daina Harrow is the main person in this story, she is young, she is bullied in life, bullied at school. Her Mother is nice to her when sober!! But she's never been a Mom to cook, clean and make sure her child is clothed, feed and watered. All her Mom wants to do is get drunk, men and drunken parties. 

That life is the 'norm' for Daina, after all, she knows nothing else.

She does get befriended by some girls, but even that turns out a twist in the huge plot.

Yes there is violence in this story, but not enough to close your eyes and say "oh, that's graphic" its only disturbing because you feel for Daina. 

Daina has some superb loyalty and morals that got her into trouble by doing the 'right' thing which came and literally bit her in the ass. 

This has a scene of rape, its not blown out of proportion or glorified in any way, its a well thought out written scene. The plot takes over more than what has just happened to her [not that its unimportant, but it IS relevant to the story]

I was literally flicking through the pages of my kindle resenting any time I had to put it down to go cook supper for us all !! still glued to my Kindle whenever possible, I kid you not!

The ending was oh so heart breaking.

The setting for this book is Daina overlooking a Court case about her death, its way unique and unusual reading, fab, absolutely fab I thought. Its written as normal, but comes back to when someone is taking the stand and picks up the real story then through its pages. I LOVED it, can't you tell I loved it LOL

The ending, pay attention to the ending, we know from the blurb that the author says Daina died. Just read and pay attention to the last few chapters, its pulls it together so beautifully but oh so tragic.

I can't say enough, give this book a try. Its up to you if you like it as much as I did, but its well worth a read. 

I love a good thriller. I love new authors that can write well, tell a story well, never loose their focus and reads just brilliantly oh and......takes me away from daily chores!!!

I would like to thank Katherine Hayton via Net Galley for my copy

I have recommended this to so many of my fellow book friends they will think I'm on commission!!

I contacted the author to tell her how much I was loving this book.

If she needs any promotions done, I have a blog separate to help

Wow! I just loved this book! It drew me in from page 1. Such a page turner. I even caught myself holding my breath, waiting to see what was about to happen, a few times. It was a good, easy, fast read. A nice mystery to just get lost in and not have to think so hard about. 

Each chapter would start with a flashback (the real story) from the main character, a ghost, Diana. Then it would have modern day courtroom witnesses tell their fabricated stories about her. I loved this set up and how it was written. Diana was a teenage girl with an alcoholic/druggie mom. She was constantly moving around. She thought she had finally made some friends at her new school. Then everything in her life started to unravel. Diana went missing. They didn't find her body for 10 years. When they did, her case was reopened. Now they are trying to determine a cause for her death. 

I loved the ending, but I wish there was more, it just felt like it was so sudden. There needs to be more there

** A big thank you to Net Galley, the author and the publishers for allowing me to read and review this book. **

I really enjoyed this book. I found this to be really interesting and I loved learning about Daina's life. The only negative thing I have with this book is that I got confused about the whole grey man thing.. I'm still not certain of it now.