This is suspense on steroids. Throw in the sexual tension and the pages are cracking. The author is masterful in her character and plot development. She gives nothing away until it’s on the page. There are surprises galore. Ash and Becca are superbly crafted characters. They are filled with passion and angst. You will both love them and hate them at times. The story itself will make your heart break and also give you hope. This is an excellently written book!

A city cop returns home to investigate her dad’s death, something the local, small town police had ruled a suicide. She knew her dad well enough to know that wasn’t true, but what was?
This is a good mystery that is at times bogged down with overdone romantic scenes.

Rebecca North, a police detective in Ottawa, was preparing to testify in court when she received a distressing call from her father, Noah, convinced that someone was stalking him. Concerned about her father’s state of mind, as well as his excessive drinking, Rebecca is crushed when she gets another call, informing her of her father’s death by suicide. She returns home, determined to figure out which cold case her father, a retired police detective, was re-opening, and how much information he had uncovered.

Noah’s cold case was the disappearance of Whitney Gagnon and Trevor Beauchamp, teenagers who supposedly left town twenty years ago, heading for Los Angeles. The official story was that they had been hitchhiking, and gotten into a white van with Oregon plates. As Rebecca continues looking into the case, she is confronted by the hurt she felt at the time, when she caught the love of her life, Ash Haugen, leaving the horse barn with Whitney.

This is the second book in a series, and reads well as a stand-alone. I loved Rebecca and appreciated her courage and desire to discover what had really happened to her father, and her determination to solve the cold case he was working on in order to clear Noah’s reputation. This was a compelling story, with plenty of suspense, and I was captivated throughout.

This was a great book! Totally enjoyed the storyline and characters. Dark roots in a small town setting and generations of secrets. Felt like I was a part of this story. So well done!

I started The Dark Bones without realizing it was the second book in a series. That being said, it worked fine as a standalone and convinced me to go back and read the first one. This book is an absorbing suspense tale combined with romance of the first-love variety.

Becca North grew up in Clinton, West Canada, which she fled after betrayal by her first love. She is now a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and returns to bury her father, a victim of suicide. She finds evidence that her father, a retired officer, spent his final days buried in an old cold case. She partners with her first love to try to find out what happened to her father and bring resolution to the 20 year old disappearance of two teenagers.

Loreth Ann White excels at drawing the reader into this small Canadian town. Clinton became almost another character. The story moves at a great pace and the minor characters in the book are a welcome addition as well. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and look forward to future books featuring Becca North.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing me an advance copy of this book.

If I could give this book ten stars I would. It had me right from the first page and I couldn’t put it down! I have never read this author before but it will not be the last time I read her that one is a promise. Thank you Loreth for such an excellent book!

When I picked up Loreth Anne White’s The Dark Bones for review, I wasn’t aware that it was linked to one of her earlier books, A Dark Lure, in which a young woman who was abducted and repeatedly assaulted is making a new life for herself in rural Canada only to have to face the prospect that her abductor may still be at large.  But never fear; it’s perfectly possible to read The Dark Bones as a standalone as the author brings new readers quickly up to speed, and the plots in both books are self-contained, so there’s no real overlap.

When Rebecca North left her small Canadian home town, she moved to Ottawa, where she has built herself a successful career in the white-collar crimes unit with the RCMP.  She hasn’t been home in years and doesn’t have plans to do so, until her father, a retired police officer - calls her out of the blue to tell her that he knows she was lying about an event that happened twenty years earlier, and that he needs to talk to her urgently.  He’s clearly drunk – he’s rarely been sober since the death of his wife – and Rebecca’s about to go into court, so she puts him off, promising she’ll  call him soon… but she can’t put his words out of her mind.  Her father is referring to the day she’d found the man she loved stumbling along a country road, bruised and bloody, a long gash down one side of his face he’d attributed to a riding accident – but why is he asking about it now?

The next day, Noah North is found dead in his home, all the evidence pointing to his having set fire to his remote cabin and then shot himself.  The police are convinced it’s suicide, and the coroner’s report seems to bear that out, but Rebecca isn’t satisfied.  Her father may have been overly fond of drink, but she doesn’t believe he was suicidal, especially given what he’d said the last time they’d spoken; that he’d found new evidence in an old case he’d worked – and that he thought he was being watched.  She decides to do a bit of investigating of her own, and in the process discovers that her father was looking into the disappearance, twenty years earlier, of an old schoolmate of hers.  Evidence given at the time said that Whitney Gagnon and her boyfriend were seen getting onto the bus heading out of town - but it seems that evidence was false, and Noah was convinced that the young couple were killed before they could leave.  If that’s true – who murdered them and why?  And could someone have killed Noah because he was getting too close to the truth?

This cold case stirs up a myriad of long-buried feelings for Rebecca, not least of which is guilt over the fact she didn’t visit her father often because she couldn’t bear to run into her former boyfriend Ash Haugen, the man she loved, and the man who broke her heart twenty years earlier.  Now she’s back, and meeting Ash is unavoidable – but more than that, it seems that every investigative road leads to him. He was the last person to have seen Noah North alive – and some witnesses suggest they were arguing – and she can’t ignore Noah’s words during that final call “he lied – you both lied”. Because while Rebecca’s lie backed up Ash’s about the riding accident, he never told her the truth about the injury to his face - which was sustained the very same day Whitney and her boyfriend were seen getting ready to leave town.

I was completely engrossed by the storyline of The Dark Bones and by the way the author so skilfully juxtaposes past and present events, giving us glimpses – in flashback – of the events of twenty years before, and linking them to the current investigation into Noah North’s death.  Her descriptions of the landscape of this area of rural Canada are incredibly vivid, enabling the reader to easily picture the locations she describes, and her portrait of small town life – where everyone knows everyone else and one only has to sneeze to have three people on the doorstep proffering hot soup and Lemsip within the hour – is simultaneously charming, menacing and claustrophobic.  I liked Rebecca and Ash, although I never felt I got to know them deeply; Rebecca fled when Ash broke her heart but never really got over him, while Ash was forced to give up on his dreams because of a single mistake that changed the course of his life.  The strong undercurrent of deep longing and hurt running between them is palpable from the moment they see each other again; and while I’m often sceptical of stories in which romantic feelings endure for years even when the couple in question doesn’t see each other throughout their separation, the strength of the connection between Rebecca and Ash practically leaps off the page and helped me to get past my usual side-eye of the trope.   In fact my main criticism of the book stems from the fact that I’d have liked a little more exploration of their relationship in the now, especially in the light of what we learn about Ash’s difficult past.

The pacing in the first part of the novel is perhaps a little slow, but I didn’t find that to be a problem at all; in fact, I really appreciated the time spent on setting up the situations and introducing the secondary cast (some of whom were central to A Dark Lure, which I intend to pick up as soon as I can).  The Dark Bones is a wonderfully atmospheric, multi-layered and well-constructed mystery from a real master of her craft; it will draw you in and keep you intrigued from first page to last

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Book 2 in the Dark Lure series, The Dark Bones is a gritty, suspenseful read. This is my first read by this author and although it was book two I found it could stand on its own. I will be going back to read book 1 and to read more by this author. Overall a great read

This was my first time reading a Loreth Anne White novel and can’t wait to get other books, especially the first book of this series.
White had me captivated from the start. Her development of the characters made them real and convincing.
The short chapters with descriptive, interesting details, especially about the western Canadian setting, made this book an easy read.
White is a masterful storyteller.

Rebecca is called home only too late. Why didn’t she go sooner she wonders. Is it because her long time love is still there? How can she clear her Dads name? What old case was he working on?

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were very interesting and believable. It kept me intrigued until the end. I would definitely recommend it..

A broody mystery and romance. Who says you can’t go home again.? Second chances and death. What could be better!

The past and the present inevitably will collide…

This is the second book in the Dark Lure series that can be read as a standalone.

The prologue, which is set in the past, immediately grabs the reader’s attention: a woman is being chased, the reasons why unknown and then the reader is left to wonder how it relates to the present.

Regret can come from putting things off too long. Regret is what Sergeant Rebecca North, a commercial crimes detective for the Canadian federal police force in Ottawa, is feeling after hearing of the death of her father. She’d received a call from him recently, on the day he’d died, and it concerned her, he was a retired cop with issues, alcoholism being one of them, but there was something different about his tone. She wondered if he might have been imagining things in his paranoia but there was true fear in his voice and he asked a question he wanted her to answer that she was not ready to face even after all the years that had passed since an event occurred.

The call had come right as Rebecca was going into a courtroom for a high profile trial she was involved in so she could not talk long. She said she’d visit him when the trial was finished, she never expected that would be the last time she would hear his voice, or that his death would be considered a self-inflicted suicide. The father she’d known would never have taken his life, he might have had issues but this she cannot believe of him.

To escape the emotional trauma of her youth Rebecca had left their small town in the Cariboo Country part of Canada years ago and stayed away, and in doing so she failed to be there for her father when he needed her but she vows that she won’t fail him now, she’ll prove he didn’t commit suicide and to do so she’ll have to solve the cold case from twenty years ago that he was working on, and face the memories of the past, and the man she’d left behind, Ash Haugen, for it’s all connected.

To move forward in life one must make peace with the past or it will forever haunt you. The author described the collision of the past and the present that Rebecca contends with aptly: “Because the past writes the present and the present writes the future, and sometimes the loop just cannot be broken.”

This was a new author for me and I was very pleased with a suspenseful captivating storyline, an intricately woven mystery with numerous twists, myriad characters keeping dark secrets, emotional growth, absolution, and even the rekindling of a romance that had been badly broken. Rebecca must unravel the spider web of deceit that some in this small town had hidden for years as she decides who she can trust and resolves her own psychological issues to give the father she loved the recognition in death he deserved. The story is told with flashbacks, the characters were well- developed, the main protagonists had much depth. I would definitely read this author again.

Though not graphically described there are triggers for child abuse in this story.

An advanced reading copy was obtained from the publisher via NetGalley.

4.5 stars

This was my first time reading anything from this author and I’ve already gone and checked out her other books. I loved the descriptiveness of the setting that the author was able to convey in the page without it feeling like an info dump. The protagonist was smart and someone that you actually wanted to follow from the start to the end of the book. This is technically a romantic thriller but anyone that enjoys thrillers in general would love it. Highly recommend!

First off, I have to say that Ms. White has written some of my favorite stories. I love her writing and couldn't wait to get my hands on this book. I stayed up until 1:30 in the morning reading this one and finally called it a night (my eyes were getting blurry) and had to wait until the next day to finish.

At the beginning of the book, I was disappointed with the past/present jumping as it pulled me out of the flow of the story. Plus the past was written in present tense which I absolutely do not like. However once the story reached a certain point, I was so pulled into Rebecca's story, her efforts towards solving her dad's murder, and her need to solve the cold case he had been working on that I was hooked.

The cold case was really interesting. You knew the direction of the bad guys but who made the large payment? The plot was well paced and kept you guessing.

Rebecca is a really interesting character that I became vested in her and I hope there are more stories with her as a key element.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

This is a romantic mystery set in the wilds of Canada. I simply loved the description of the vast wilderness, the trees and animals and all the things I’ll never see in person. I even learned all about snowmobiles. Deep down, this is about unrequited love between Rebecca and Ash. She left for the big city for a law career and he stayed behind to run the family farm. A death brings her home and she unearths a decades old murder mystery. A satisfying ending. Just read it already!

An unsolved crime 20 years in the past is still heavily influencing lives in the present in this complex crime mystery. I didn't realize when I started the book that it is the second in a series. Didn't matter - the story stands alone with no knowledge of the first book. The story unfolds tying events in the past to events in the future, going back and forth between the two time periods. The tension plays out slowly as you are led to the climax and I enjoyed it very much. The main characters were well-drawn and I really liked Becca and Ash, who were in love before events 20 years ago tore them apart.

Thanks to Loreth Anne White and Montlake Romance through Netgalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have voluntarily read and reviewed a copy of this title given to me via NetGalley. The Dark Bones is a Dark Lure novel and I just fell in love with this story. I just had so much fun reading this story. I just didn’t want it to end.

Excellent psychological thriller! It moved at a fast pace with twists and turns throughout! I can’t wait to read more from this author!

After her father’s apparent suicide, Canadian police detective Rebecca North returns home to the rural western part of her country. She left years ago, disappointed by the young love of her life, Ash Haugen. Convinced that her father’s suicide is suspicious, she begins an investigation that reveals twenty year old secrets and reunites her with Ash.

Technically, this could be classified as a romantic thriller. Not my favorite genre, but it was a riveting story. I didn’t want to put it down. The writing and character development are good, with the author painting a graphic picture of the brutal cold of winter in the northwest as well as the tough life many encounter there. My only criticism is that it was a bit long in parts and I found myself skimming more than once.

One thing I really liked about the book is that Rebecca is a savvy protagonist; she did not get herself into any stupidly dangerous situations, something that occurs all too often in thrillers.

This is the second in “A Dark Lure” series. I did not read the first, although, from what I understand, it featured some of the characters in this novel, although not Rebecca. I hope that if there is a third, Rebecca will be a central character.

Wow...story started off with a bang! Very gripping...wanted to keep reading. Loads of twists and turns. One unfortunate thing was the excessive use of overly foul language whenever describing the one sexual encounter. Seemed unnecessary.