Set in Canada amongst blizzards and whiteout and mountains. The past meets the future in an exciting thriller.

Loreth Anne White is one of my favorite authors. I love all of her books. Her characters are memorable and the suspense is always outstanding!

The Dark Bones is the second book in the Dark Lure series (The Dark Lure was FANTASTIC). The main character is Rebecca North. She's a Royal Canadian Mounted Police detective who moved out of her rural hometown of Clinton, Canada as soon as she could after her boyfriend Ash Haugen broke her heart.

Rebecca's dad is a retired detective. He's an alcoholic and he lives by himself. Out of nowhere, he calls Rebecca and tells her that he believes someone is following him and he wants to see her. He has been reviewing a cold case and he wants to know why she and Ash lied to him so many years ago. Rebecca knows this has to be about Whitney Gagnon who had slept with Ash and had left town with her boyfriend Trevor Beauchamp. Rebecca tells her dad she will call him back. Next thing she knows, she gets a call. Her dad has killed himself. Rebecca can't believe it. She comes home to investigate. She believes her father has found something about the disappearance of Whitney Gagnon and Trevor Beauchamp and someone killed him for it.

"He lied
You both lied."


On her first night back home, she bumps into the last person she wants to see, Ash. All her past feelings for him resurface. She remembers how hurt she was when he cheated and when she found out he had lied to her. She also remembers he was her first love and she has never forgotten him. As the days and the investigation progresses she realizes she still feels something for him.

Besides Rebecca and Ash, two teenagers are also important. One is Olivia's daughter Tori Burton (Liv is the main character on The Dark Lure) and the other one is Ricky Simon, a kid Ash promised to take care of. Both of their lives are in danger. They know too much.

Soon, Ash becomes the main suspect and Rebecca knows she needs to figure out who's at fault or none of them are going to be safe.

The Dark Bones was gritty, dark and full of suspense. Loreth Anne White painted a perfect small town ambiance full of secrets and lies. She gave us a great resolution while still leaving an opening for another book to answer the remaining questions.

"Quiet descended with a sense of menace."


Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book for my honest opinion.
I loved this book even though it was a sequel, it pretty much was a standalone. It was a riveting story about an allegedly suicide of a retired local cop. His daughter Detective Rebecca North flies back into town to investigate his death because something make sense.
Rebecca runs into her old flame, who she was running from, Ash Hauger.
There was no way that her father was an alcoholic who was crap faced drunk and knocked over an oil filled lamp in his cabin. This incident caused him to be burned alive in his cabin. Yet the local officials were deeming his death as a suicide.
The storyline has a great deal of lies and secrets thus causing it to jump around.
It is a great read. Excellent for a movie.

Overall, it was a good read but it took a while to really get the plot going. The jumping between past and present was a bit jarring and really messed with the flow of the story at times, but all of the plot lines were wrapped up at the end. I would definitely another book by this author.

This book was one of great mystery, intrigue, and family drama. I enjoyed this book from the very beginning. It kept me totally immersed throughout the book until the very end. Rebecca North saw her boyfriend, Ash Haugen, and Whitney Gagnon, come out of the barn during the yearly Clinton Rodeo, apparently, looking like they had just had sex. Rebecca was devastated, and was determined to leave this pathetic little town of Clinton behind. Rebecca had made a move to the East Coast, and is now Sergeant Rebecca North investigating white collar crime. She was engaged to be married, but something just wasn’t right. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Her father called her, drunk, as usual with his conspiracy theories on cold cases that he had never rectified. Rebecca was headed into court, and told her father she would call him back. That was the last time she heard her father’s voice. He was found with a self-inflicted wound to his head with a shotgun, and his house had burned down around him. Rebecca arrived back in town. She was determined that she would prove her father didn’t kill himself, and he would be buried with honors. What case was it that he was so obsessed about? Why did he think that Ash was involved in this cold case? Can Rebecca trust the local law enforcement, since Buck was an old classmate of Rebecca’s. Buck didn’t seem to be asking the right questions, and basically closed the case. Why was the ME so focused that her father committed suicide? There is an underlying theme here, and Rebecca was certain that everything was not as it seemed. Individuals who became involved in the investigation seemed to be having accidents resulting in death. Who is behind this mystery cold case, and what is it that they are trying to keep hidden? What mystery will she uncover from over 20 years ago? Will Ash really be the culprit of the cold case? Will Rebecca and Ash ever get past what happened between them 20 years ago? The plot was well throughout and had multiple underlying themes within it. The writer reverted back from 20 years ago to the present. This definitely kept the reader coming back for more. The character development was on point. The reader could definitely relate to the emotions and flaws within each character. I also liked the life lessons that were intertwined in the plot of this book. This was really an action packed book. You will definitely enjoy this book.

I always love a good story about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and this no exception. Childhood hurts exposed, honorable characters come to light.. Truth about "upstanding" community members is exposed. Good mystery & romance.

Thanks for granting me access to their s book.

I will leave a 4 star review on Amazon under name of Connie

Oh my goodness!This book just stole my heart and has not given it back yet! So much action and the romance was so tender and emotional that it brought me to tears more than once. Rebecca and Ash had been teenagers in love. They broke up when Rebecca knew that Ash had slept with someone else. She left town and was working as a white crimes detective. She comes back home when informed of her father’s death, suppposedly by suicide. She does not accept it was suicide and begins investigating on her own behalf. It becomes obvious that Ash and Rebecca still have feelings for each other, but will they deny their feelings? I just loved this book and I loved the characters of Ash and Rebecca.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Rebecca North has everything going for her, until Whitney Gagnon. Ash Haugen has everything going for him, including Rebecca North, until Whitney Gagnon. Rebecca and Ash don't seem to get past Whitney. Whitney has left town, never to be heard from again. Fast forward, Rebecca's Dad, and ex cop, Noah North reopens the question of where IS Whitney, just before he commits suicide. Or did he? This is a riveting story of what can go so very wrong when lies are told and secrets are kept. Loreth does a terrific job of keeping one guessing, while adding in believable characters along the way. Enjoy!

I am a big fan of Loreth Anne White, first discovering her through the Angie Pallorino series. After I devoured those books, I moved on to A Dark Lure, which I was equally impressed with. Needless to say, I was thrilled to find out that she wrote a follow-up novel that included A Dark Lure's protagonist Olivia West.

The Dark Bones follows Detective Rebecca North who returns to her rural hometown after learning of her drunken/disgraced father's apparent suicide. 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. Rebecca just cannot believe that her father killed himself and sets out to prove it. Loreth Anne White does in impeccable job of weaving together multiple story lines over the span of twenty years into one cohesive narrative. This book is simply a must read!

"Can you pinpoint the exact instant your life starts on a collision course with someone else's? Can you trace back to the moment those lives did finally intersect, and from where they spiralled outward again, yet from that point they remained forever entwined, two lives locked one with another?" (quote: The Dark Bones)

Really good Mystery Suspense novel, not a lot of romance which kind of made me twitchy. But I overall thought it was a great read.T he Dark Bones is the second book in the Dark Lure series. The main character is Rebecca North. She's a Royal Canadian Mounted Police detective who moved out of her rural hometown of Clinton, Canada as soon as she could after her boyfriend Ash Haugen broke her heart.

Two teens disappear 20 years ago and the mystery was never solved until now! A retired cop comes across new evidence and is killed because of it so his daughter Rebecca comes home and starts putting all of the clues together.

The author jumps from the present to the past and back again to set up the relationships between Ash, Becca, and Whitney. The past holds the key to actual crimes committed. And man, I couldn't put it down. The book is emotional, and could be triggering to some it involves physical abuse, inappropriate behaviour, murder, deep & dark secrets, brief mention of rape and a second chance to romance.

I received an ARC of this book for my honest review.
I loved this book. A great psychological thriller. It was a page turner till the end and I didn't figure it out till the reveal. A most excellent read.

A suspense story that will keep you turning the pages until the end. Lots of intriguing characters that you'll wonder who to trust. There are secrets buried that need to be discovered so that life can go on.

Characters from the first in this series make a return, although their part isn't necessarily significant. This time around we follow the story of Sergeant Rebecca North and her need to understand her father's sudden death, suspected to be suicide. As she starts asking questions, we learn that her father's death is tied intricately to the disappearance of a young woman about twenty years before - a young woman with whom her high school sweetheart cheated on her. There are plenty of twists and turns along the way to a satisfying ending, with the reader not being sure who they should trust or believe.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC.

The Dark Bones opens with a chilling, atmospheric crime that sets the tone for this thriller that brings readers back to Caribou Country. The cold case plot brings a town daughter home too late to save her father. It twists through people’s lives with a grip that sets the towns people against each other and no one is safe in this compelling read. I couldn’t put it down and read it till I finished it. Her heroine, Rebecca North, is so complex I want to see this book on the TV or silver screen. I loved every second of this story and didn’t want it to end. If you’ve read The Dark Lure, this is a must-read for you.

Laurie Wood, Author of "Northern Deception"

“He’d always harbored a fear that she still lay there. Her dark bones in wait. To rise. To get them.”

Reading Loreth Anne White is a sensory experience. You can feel the biting wind in your hair, whispering in your ear like a lover might. The snow crunches and powders beneath your feet. Frost alights on your fingertips, and the sky is vast overhead, raining stars over the horizon. It’s as if you are there, walking side-by-side with the characters, hearing a bird shriek in the wilderness, seeing headlights flash in the dark. It’s my favourite thing about her writing – that acute sense of place, and it never wavers.

The Dark Bones is a sequel to A Dark Lure, and I was excited to see White returning to this world. Although I didn’t remember everything about Olivia, Cole, Tori and Ace, I remembered enough to want to check in – see how they were doing, and get reacquainted with their town and the folk who live there. Although they’re kept on the periphery, I sense another novel in those characters – Olivia and Cole’s romance especially seemed to have stuttered to a halt – so I’m anxious to see if White returns.

The novel switches between the past and the present, circling around Rebecca North, once an insecure, shy teenager, and now a police officer based in British Columbia, who returns to her hometown after her father commits suicide. His cabin is also razed to the ground in an “accidental” fire, and knowing that her Dad was working on a cold case when he died, Rebecca is suspicious of the blaze. She begins to investigate both her father’s death, and the cold case he was fixated on – that of the disappearances of Whitney and Trevor, local teenagers who vanished twenty years back. Her machinations bring her into close quarters with Olivia (whose daughter Tori is suspected to have been near the cabin when it burned), and Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend, Ash Haugen, whose land borders Broken Bar Ranch, and who cheated on her with Whitney the summer they turned seventeen.

It’s all quite a quagmire, and I found it difficult to get into at the beginning. The action felt slow to start. Not only that, but I wasn’t enamoured with Ash, and grew quickly exhausted with Rebecca still being hung up on a guy she went to high school with. Slowly though, White hooked me in, as she has a tendency to do, and the tension ratcheted up to a fever pitch. I appreciate that as a novelist, she’s not afraid to go to dark places, and truly, the reality of what happened to Ash, to Whitney, to Trevor and more… it’s disturbing, and raw, and bloody.

As the book drew to a close, it became clear why Rebecca was so frustrating in the beginning – because she’d sublimated so many memories of her past in order to move on, and coming back was like a regression of sorts. The landscape of her childhood was a hell of forgotten feelings, and the ghost of her father, whom she’d been too late to help.

Ash too, was unable – or unwilling – to work through what had happened to him, and so, they were both stumbling, like newborn deer, into the dark.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley and Montlake Romance, in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to both!

Loved this book! I had a hard time putting it down and was late to work so I could finish it. Loreth Anne White has crafted a compelling, suspenseful and intriguing mystery. Police officer, Becca, receives a drunken phone call from her alcoholic ex-police chief father. He asks her about an incident that happened twenty years earlier in their home town of Cariboo Country in British Columbia. She puts it aside as a drunken delusion but is horrified the next day when she receives word that her father shot himself and his homestead had burned to the ground.

Becca rushes back to town and soon believes that her father's death was murder, not suicide. She runs into Ash Haugen, her high school boyfriend. Ash betrayed her twenty years ago by sleeping with Whitney, drove her to the bus station a few weeks later and Whitney was never seen again. Now it seems that Whitney may have been the victim of foul play and Becca's father was murdered for uncovering new clues in an old case. As Becca continues her father's investigation she uncovers so much more than she ever dreamed,

There is so much happening in this book in addition to the murder. White did an excellent job of conveying life in a small, rural town populated with colorful characters. She also describes the gorgeous wilderness that is a key component of the story. The Dark Bones is an excellent book and I look forward to reading more from this author. I appreciate the opportunity to read the ARC.

This was a very intriguing mystery. Rebecca returns home when her father commits suicide, she feels guilty because she didn’t make time for him until it was too late. She decideds to pick up where her father a retired cop, left off and instantly walks into a very enthralling mystery filled lies, love and secrets that have been hidden for 20 years. This book did keep me guessing to the very end. I will definitely be reading more books from this author.

Apparently this is a sequel, which I hadn't read the first, but I don't think it made any difference to this book. At first the chapters jump around with people and timelines. There is a mystery from 20 years ago, then a mystery from the present, ultimately they all come together for a good mystery telling. Many characters, in fact I finally began writing down who all these people are and their connections to each other, kind of humorous when this is a very small town. In the end I did enjoy the book and it all made sense. A little romance, suicide cleared and missing people cases closed with an open end for maybe a sequel to this story.

Rebecca comes back home when her Dad dies. As a cop and daughter she believes there is more to the story that her dad committed suicide. While home she runs into her first (and only) love Ash. She is still distrustful of him because of how their relationship ended. But the story uncovers secrets from their past and reveals the answers to an unsolved mystery for the town. There are a lot of characters and twists to the story. The story kept me guessing. It was well written. I read it in a day. I received an advance copy from Netgalley for an honest review. I would recommend.

Gut Wrenching Psychological Thriller! I have to admit full disclosure I am huge fan of Loreth Anne White. I thought I had read Book 1 in the Lure series when I asked for this arc, but I had not. There was no problem what so ever reading this, it can definitely be read as a stand alone, Book 1 would make you more familiar. You are caught right off the bat with the prologue, running, ducking, searching and it keeps going. There isn't non stop action, but there is non stop suspense. Rebecca look out, be careful. Ash what is so dark, Tori so faithful to RIck and Rick trying to do the right thing. This book touched so many emotions, and touched on so many issues in life, rape, molestation, drugs, family, love, second chances and hope. This was a one setting read, having to lay the book aside or a few minutes here and there to breath. So grateful to Loreth Anne White, Montlake Publishing and NetGalley for this arc!