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    All These Bodies
    All These Bodies
    All These Bodies
    Audiobook7 hours

    All These Bodies

    Written by Kendare Blake

    Narrated by Matt Godfrey

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    * Indie Next List Pick * Indie Bestseller *

    Sixteen bloodless bodies. Two teenagers. One impossible explanation. In this edge-of-your-seat mystery from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kendare Blake, the truth is as hard to believe as it is to find.

    Summer 1958. A gruesome killer plagues the Midwest, leaving behind a trail of bodies completely drained of blood. 

    Michael Jensen, an aspiring journalist whose father happens to be the town sheriff, never imagined that the Bloodless Murders would come to his backyard. Not until the night the Carlson family was found murdered in their home. Marie Catherine Hale, a diminutive fifteen-year-old, was discovered at the scene—covered in blood. She is the sole suspect in custody.

    Michael didn’t think that he would be part of the investigation, but he is pulled in when Marie decides that he is the only one she will confess to. As Marie recounts her version of the story, it falls to Michael to find the truth: What really happened the night that the Carlsons were killed? And how did one girl wind up in the middle of all these bodies?

    Editor's Note

    Inspired by true crime…

    Historical fiction that’s inspired by true crime books like “In Cold Blood.” In the late 1950s, more than a dozen people have been found murdered, eerily with no blood left behind at the scene. That is, until a 15-year-old girl is caught at the scene of a crime, covered in blood. Blake (“Three Dark Crowns”) evokes a spooky, surreal atmosphere as a young, aspiring journalist tries to figure out the truth behind the killings.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 21, 2021
    ISBN9780063137202
    Author

    Kendare Blake

    Kendare Blake is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Three Dark Crowns series. She holds an MA in creative writing from Middlesex University in northern London. She is also the author of Anna Dressed in Blood, a Cybils Awards finalist; Girl of Nightmares; Antigoddess; Mortal Gods; and Ungodly. Her books have been translated into over twenty languages, have been featured on multiple best-of-year lists, and have received many regional and librarian awards. Kendare lives and writes in Gig Harbor, Washington. Visit her online at www.kendareblake.com.

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    Reviews for All These Bodies

    3.5/5

    218 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Good book but the ending was bad for me .

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      WHAT?! This story was NOT what I thought it was going to be! The second half of the book disappointed me, the ending feel flat... it felt rushed.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Am I the only one confused by the ending? What do you suppose the author was insinuating? Or did I just miss the whole point of the story?

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Warning- this book is written from a reporter's pov (even though it is all fictitious) spoiler alert**
      Nothing was resolved in this story. This book was anticlimactic and left me regretting wasting my time.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This was better than I expected and I had decently high hopes.

      First, the narrator was good. Initially I didn’t think I’d like him but his voice was perfect for this novel and I wouldn’t mind listening to him read me true crime novels at bedtime.

      Next, I know a bit about the source material of which, per the author (and physics), liberties were taken. But I want you to know the feel of this novel was real. The way the world felt about Catherine, the way authorities wanted to pin her for everything, going between being a Lolita Vixen Seductress to an innocent child… all of this was so parallel and so well done that this felt like a sad, but gripping true crime novel. But also paranormal!

      I can’t decide if I liked the paranormal aspect or not, not sure if it adds to it, but in the end I think I appreciate it because it made an interesting juxtaposition of who we see as the monsters, the actual monsters, and the things in between.

      Honestly, I would recommend this but maybe not to everyone.
    • 2/5
      I like Kendare Blake, and I was initially enjoying the book. But the end was not great, making the book a waste. It leaves more questions than answers, and not in an insightful or thought provoking way. It just left me frustrated, confused, and somewhat irritated. I will still read Kendare Blake, but this was a miss.
    • 4/5
      I love how then narrative begins to grow into a more sinister and misterious story. I loved it, the characters, somehow it made me realice that there are far more layers to a murder case, not just what the media uncovers, but every single detail and word count.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed the story, but I really wish the ending would have been more expensive. I'd have loved it to have a few more chapters with details.
    • 4/5
      If, like me, you have read Kendare Blake before you will not be surprised that this novel goes to some pretty dark places, and that it doesn't wrap everything up in a neat little bow. If you like Blake's style, you will probably enjoy All These Bodies.I found the way Blake investigated the treatment of Marie to be interesting - the ways in which other characters projected their assumptions about her onto their belief (or not) of her story says a lot about how we view women, and how we view those accused of crime. This won't be a satisfying read for everyone, but I find Blake's work to always be thought-provoking and worth my time.
    • 5/5
      My experience reading Kendare Blake is entirely based on Anna Dressed in Blood, which was extremely creepy, verging into scare-my-hair-off. This book is similar in many respects, not least for the absolutely brilliant unanswered questions. Based off a true story -- a pair of teenagers that went on a murder spree through the midwest in the 1950s, compellingly written, remarkably believable, and pretty much impossible to put down. It's not necessarily fast paced, but it is creepy. Also, it leaves me with big philosophical feelings about the corruption of innocence and whether that can indeed spread. Also, I wish I had a vampire? tag instead of just the plain vampire one -- it would be more appropriate.

      Advanced Readers Copy provided by Edelweiss.
    • 4/5
      A random Bookstagram recommendation, which I actually enjoyed! Yes, this is YA, but YA done right can appeal to all generations of reader and this worked for me. I enjoyed the 'true crime' element - and picked up on the In Cold Blood vibes from the remote setting of the small Minnesota town - but also the mystery. There doesn't have to be a conclusive ending for me.When a young family is brutally slain in their midwest farmhouse, the crime is connected to the recent spate of 'bloodless' murders, where the victims appear to have been bled out. But there is a further anomaly at the latest crime scene - a young girl standing in the centre of the bodies, completely drenched in blood that is not hers. When she is taken in by the local sheriff's office, all she will tell them is her name, Marie Catherine Hale, until she meets the sheriff's teenage son, Michael. Suddenly she is ready to tell her story, but only to him. With the town and a zealous prosecutor from Nebraska out for justice, Michael needs to find out what happened to the Colson family and if Marie is with the 'bloodless' killer, but is Michael in Marie's thrall or is she telling the truth about a vampire?The 1950s Minnesota setting was suitably cold and depressing, and the characters were believable enough to tell the story, which could be either a murder mystery or a supernatural story. Michael is a fairly bland narrator, bullied by kids at school when he forms a bond with the murder suspect, but Marie is intriguingly inscrutable. Is she an abused teen or a willing accomplice? The ending was a bit worrying, however!
    • 3/5
      While All These Bodies by Kendare Blake appears to be about vampires, the fact is that the story is so open-ended as to be about nothing more than a serial killer and his accomplices. In a break from her previous novels, Ms. Blake skates around any supernatural elements, neither confirming nor denying them. The truth, in this case, is up to the individual reader, and while I can appreciate it, I did not love it.What I did love about All These Bodies is the idea that it is at heart a commentary on our legal system and how we profess innocence until proven guilty but rarely achieve that in the media. Even though the story occurs during the 1950s, the media is no different today, seeking scandal and assigning guilt before a case ever gets near a courtroom. In this instance, we see the damage such attention causes on those close to the case, regardless of what side the person is on. This aspect of the story, more than the whodunit, grabbed my sympathies and kept my interest.While All These Bodies is different and has some great moments of terror and intrigue, I like my murder mysteries to have a few more concrete answers. I appreciate the fact that Ms. Blake lets the reader choose their own answers, and I particularly like that she includes a vampire as one of those answers. Yet, the ambiguity did not pique my interest. I like my vampires to be more in your face, and I want answers to my mysteries. There is a reason I avoided “Choose Your Own Adventure” books as a kid, and All These Bodies simply reiterates my ongoing dislike of such stories.
    • 5/5
      Serial killer(s) roaming the midwest, bodies piling up, drained of blood, is their town next? This is the atmosphere at the start of this book, and Michael, son of the sheriff in Black Deer Falls, Minnesota finds himself in the middle of a firestorm when three members of the Carlson family are found with their throats slit and drained of blood. Unlike all the other crime scenes, this time a baby is left unscathed, AND a fifteen year old girl is also found alive, drenched in blood. Once things begin to be sorted out, the girl, Marie Catherine Hale, or so she claims, is a suspect, but everyone believes she had to have an accomplice. There are no other fingerprints, footprints, of signs of a second killer, so what really happened? Marie and Michael form a connection and she soon tells the authorities he's the only person she'll talk to about the crimes. What follows is a twisty, torturous account that comes in fits and starts, intertwined with seemingly supernatural events that ramp up distrust and violence, the longer the hunt for a second killer goes on. Reading along through these events, the gradual revelations and the intriguingly cloudy ending is fascinating. That ending, while quite ambivalent, is also satisfying in the way it encourages readers to imagine what's unsaid.
    • 3/5
      Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this book through NetGalley to review. Thoughts: I really enjoyed "Anna Dressed in Blood" but Blake's other books have been a bit hit or miss for me. This one was okay, but didn't really pull me in. Originally I thought this was a retelling of an actual series of murders, but the whole thing is fabricated (even if it is loosely based on a variety of events that have happened in the past, which Blake addresses in an Afterword) and that makes this story have less impact.The story is told from a teen boy's perspective as he is tasked with interviewing Marie, the girl who was found covered in blood at the last of the Bloodless Murders. It ends up being a fairly dry story and moves very slowly. Marie's stories push the reader towards believing that these events were paranormal in flavor but nothing is well defined and the reader is left to draw their own conclusions.It was a short enough story that I went ahead and finished it. However, I found the ending to be fairly disappointing and open ended. Those who follow my reviews know that I generally don't like a lot of open-endedness to my books. The one bright point here was I enjoyed the Minnesota setting. It's fun to read books set in my home state; there just aren't a lot of books set in Minnesota. I do think Blake did a great job of capturing the shifting moods of a small town and enjoyed that as well.My Summary (3/5): Overall this one was a bit of a miss for me. It is pretty short and I was curious enough to finish it up. However, it moves slowly and the ending was disappointing. I went into this thinking this was a story about an actual serial killer, but it is all “made up” which gives it less impact. I also thought that the supernatural/paranormal elements felt forced. The characters are pretty hard to engage with as well. I did enjoy the Minnesota setting. This is one I would personally skip.