17 new SFF books to get nice and cozy with this September
By Lacy Baugher
The Bone Houses – Emily Lloyd-Jones
A creepy tale perfect for the beginning of Spooky Season, Emily Lloyd-Jones’ The Bone Houses is a standalone historical horror novel with a distinctly dark feel.
Seventeen year-old Aderyn has been making a living for herself and her siblings as a gravedigger since their parents died. That’s become more and more difficult since the dead started rising.
(Um. Yikes?)
The risen dead are known as “bone houses,” and Lloyd-Jones spares nothing in describing how gruesome and disgusting these creatures are. They’re apparently the result of a long-ago curse, which may or may not be due to the fact that their village is located on the edge of a dark and mysterious forest with a connection to faeries. (Just guessing!)
Desperate to protect her family and clear their debts, Aderyn joins up with a mapmaker named Ellis, who will pay her to take him into the mountains. Their journey turns into a search for a magical cauldron that can stop the dead and end the curse.
The official synopsis is a bit more descriptive.
"Seventeen-year-old Aderyn (“Ryn”) only cares about two things: her family, and her family’s graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don’t always stay dead. The risen corpses are known as “bone houses,” and legend says that they’re the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it about Ellis that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good? Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them deep into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the long-hidden truths about themselves."
The Bone Houses is available on September 24.