Review: The Dark Bones (Dark Lure #2) by Loreth Anne White

Print Length: 440 pages

Publisher: Montlake Romance (May 21, 2019)

From Goodreads.com:  She’s come back to solve the mystery of her father’s death and confront her own dark past.

When Detective Rebecca North left her rural hometown, she vowed never to return. Her father’s apparent suicide has changed that. The official report is that retired cop Noah North shot himself, knocked over a lantern, and set his isolated cabin ablaze. But Rebecca cannot believe he killed himself.

To prove it, she needs the help of Ash Haugen, the man she left behind. But Rebecca and Ash share more than broken hearts. Something darker lies between them, and the investigation is stirring it back to life. Clues lead them to the home of Olivia West and her deeply troubled twelve-year-old daughter, Tori. The child knows more about the murder than anyone can imagine, but she’s too terrified to say a word.

And as a cold-blooded killer resurfaces from the past, Rebecca and Ash begin to fear that their own secrets may be even harder to survive.

                                                         *******************

My Rating: 2 stars out of 5

I was thoroughly underwhelmed by this novel. Even the ending which I'm sure was meant to surprise and shock the reader left me feeling let down. 

Part of this was due to the fact that there was a lot of telling. Over and over again we hear about how cold it is outside. How many layers people have to dress in and how they can only drive certain vehicles (snowmobiles are also quite popular apparently). In addition to this, we hear about how the characters are overcome with some emotion or another. Instead of drawing me in and making me care, it just felt like a lot of tedious dialogue with very little action. I also feel like Rebecca should have known better when it came to certain aspects of her "investigation". There were things that she did that I feel could have caused key evidence to be overturned (or thrown out altogether). And while I understand her desire to find the truth, some things could have been wrapped up a whole lot sooner had she just waited for the appropriate authorities to arrive (in fact a key piece of the puzzle was removed because she rushed into things instead of waiting the extra few hours). 

While I'm on the subject of the characters, they seemed very two dimensional. I didn't buy into the romance between Ash and Rebecca at all. Considering the way things ended between them, and the fact that for most of the book he was her prime suspect, the way they fell back into a relationship was just very off-putting. There was also an abundance of characters that did little to move the plot forward other than add more names into an already confusing sequence of events. By the time we got to the ending, I was more than a little lost where it came to the different people. 

I will admit that there was a certain creep factor to the ending I suppose considering the ages of the players involved, but on the whole it just felt like a  convenient cop out the author used to tie up the loose ends. However, even with these few things that I did not enjoy, I would probably give this author another shot down the road. 

                                                         *******************

                                
                                                             The Dark Bones is available from Amazon.com

                                                                        (for free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited)