The Bone Mother
4/5
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Currently unavailable
About this ebook
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE 2018 AMAZON CANADA FIRST NOVEL AWARD!
LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2017 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE!
FINALIST FOR THE 2017 SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD!
WINNER OF THE 2018 SUNBURST AWARD!
LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2018 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS!
Three neighbouring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind—and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary—they tell their stories and confront their destinies:
Eerie and unsettling like the best fairy tales, these incisor-sharp portraits of ghosts, witches, sirens, and seers—and the mortals who live at their side and in their thrall—will chill your marrow and tear at your heart.
“Demchuk gracefully pieces together a dark and shining mosaic of a story with unforgettable imagery and elegant, evocative prose. These stories read like beautiful and brutal nightmares, sharply disquieting, and are made all the more terrifying by the history in which they’re grounded.”
—Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)
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Reviews for The Bone Mother
22 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a series of vignettes, each narrated by a different person, set mostly in and around the Ukraine, framing traditional fairy tales and mythical creatures in the real world of WWII and Soviet occupation. I picked this up because it was short-listed for the Shirley Jackson Award in the best novel category, but I couldn't find the narrative thread that would tie these vignettes together into what I would consider to be a novel. I thought the writing was good, and I enjoyed the photographs of (real) people that preceded each vignette, but I think I would have been lost without the publisher's description on the back of the book. Still, interesting and different.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pros: delightfully creepy and/or unsettling vignettes, real photographs, fascinating mythologies Con: no frame story to bring the disparate bits together This is a collection of vignettes by people who have had supernatural experiences of some sort or are themselves supernatural creatures. Each story shows a snippet of life. There’s little description or detail, but it’s not required. I enjoyed piecing some of the stories together as the collection went on, though there’s no frame story giving them the feeling of being a cohesive whole. The publisher’s synopsis for the book is basically the frame story the book itself lacks and needs in order to give a sense of cohesion to the collection. I read this in ebook format and hadn’t read the synopsis in months, so wasn’t able to benefit from the information it gave. At the very least there should have been a wrap up story that tied things together better. Most of the stories are fronted by a real photograph from the Costica Acsinte Archive. A few stories have hand drawn illustrations instead. While I was familiar with a few of the creatures described, most of them were new and quite fascinating. It would have been cool to get more details about them, but again, the stories are more about ambiance and the feeling of dread than about describing things in detail. In this way, not knowing what the creatures were in some ways enhanced the horror based on the limited descriptions that were given. Several of the stories are by people who grew up and lived in the three Eastern European villages, the rest are by their descendants. At least one story took place in Canada, and another in the United States. On the whole I enjoyed the collection. A few of the stories were genuinely terrifying, while most were joyfully creepy. I would have liked a proper conclusion or frame story tying everything together better, but it’s definitely worth picking up.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I can sum this one up in two words: LOVED IT!Told as a series of short stories, I adored the way THE BONE MOTHER was presented. Each tale was preceded by a photograph and I found that those photos gave a face to the characters in each vignette. The tales themselves were very dark. They all came together,( mostly), at the end, to tell a story of pure evil. Told from Ukranian/Romanian points of view, these characters named horrors that I admittedly know little about: The Holodomor, for instance. Easily over 3 million dead, yet most Americans I've met know nothing about it. Why? References to Kristallnacht, and other horrific events in history also appear, all of which add to the darkness and brutal honesty of this volume.In some ways, though, these tales do have a lighter side to them-isn't it often the darkest of times that bring out the best in people? These characters sacrificed and loved each other, despite the often miserable lives and events they faced. In that way, this book SHINES. The writing was gorgeous and descriptive without being overly wordy. The presentation just blew me away. The photographs, the stories, the horror, the love and finally the darkness of it all-combined they make THE BONE MOTHER. My HIGHEST recommendation!*I received this paperback from the author with no strings attached. I read it, loved it and here we are!*