Rating 4.5/5

I just knew that this book would be right up my street, the secrets, the family drama, and the mystery sounded fantastic but I was not at all expecting just quite how much I would be sucked into the lives of the family at the centre of this story. After reading the description I thought that the hunt for the golden bone would be the main part of the story but it’s the relationship between the Churchers and the Lallys and how the family is tangled together through choice, through circumstance, and through The Golden Bones that is the focus, and I loved it.

The characters were fascinating, some were toxic and manipulative, some were caring and loyal, they were all deeply flawed and trying to survive as best as they could with the fame and the furore that came with the success of the book The Golden Bones. Nobody in the book was particularly likeable but I think this worked brilliantly in this kind of story because it added to the stress and the tension of the plot but also the dysfunction of the family itself.

The story is told through multiple POVs and flashbacks to a few different timelines, and even though I feel it had the potential to be confusing in some respects I felt like it worked well here. I enjoyed getting to see what lead the characters to their decisions and enjoyed that each little reveal had a big impact on the story. I also loved that there was a magical but dark atmosphere throughout the book, there was something about the folklore that is involved in The Golden Bones and the lengths that people went to interpret it, which seeps into the main story and helped to keep me entranced.

I am not going to delve much into the plot because I honestly wouldn’t know where to start, this is a story that has been so well crafted and is both captivating and twisted. This author has a knack for throwing me off guard, there were so many unexpected events and reveals and I could not put the book down as it headed into the final stages of the story. This book has been playing on my mind since I finished it and I am still thinking about these characters and still getting hit with jolts of realisation about the events and consequences in the story. It is the best kind of book hangover.

The Skeleton Key is the first book by Erin Kelly that I have read but I doubt it will be the last.

Title: The Skeleton Key
Written by: Erin Kelly
Pub Date 1 Sep 2022
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Theme: Mystery & Thrillers

Frank Churcher has managed to make an amazing book that not only tells a story but also includes a treasure hunt of sorts. Churcher's story tells of a murdered woman who's body was hidden, the book gives the clues to where her body parts lay. People, fan's, hunters who ever they are have searched the whole of England in search for her. Some of them even think the story is a true one and that when Elinore is put back together she will live again.

Only one bone remains and Frank has decided to tell fan's where it is. But will this news cause more harm than the whole history of the hunt.

Personally I began to dislike this book almost immediately. I feel the narrations was very negative from the beginning. For instance the description of Cora and her bedsit. The misogyny of Franks lust for Cora but seemed uninterested in her as a person. This was later fallowed up by the fact that Frank had several affairs. There also seems to be an anti Irish/xenophobic feel to it.

I am aware that Kelly probably has Irish ancestry but this piece felt very anti Irish well before page 5o. Lal being an alcoholic, turning down a knighthood as he say himself as being a soldier of Ireland. Not forget that he saw him self as Catholic and was there for against abortion. There was also her mention that the children were given Irish names just to annoy the English, and not as a continence of heritage.

With in the first 50 pages I found so much of the materiel to be so problematic that I gave up. there was no way I was going to read another 400+ pages. Even the hint of Pedophilia /ephebophilia was enough for me. If your wondering where that accursed it was when Eleanor thought Oisin was checking Billie out.

Kelly also had a habit of telling which was probably just as good given the size the book already was. And while I have no problem with books that swap timelines, I felt this book was all over the place, by about page 50 we had already been to 1992, 1969, 2021, 1972. As if that wasn't bad enough we then have Eleanor tell us about the past too. And as for the kids, I have no idea how some of them were raised by feminists, up until this point I didn't really see any feminism, only judgement.

There also seemed to be very little setting of scenes. I didn't feel like I was in 70's London or any other time period. There was no change in atmosphere and I felt the description of the female characters was lazy.

Not sure what it says about the writing style to say that it was an easy read. I could have seen myself finishing it in just a few days. Which is saying something as a book of this size would usually take me a month or more. Personally I don't think I would have called it poetic, perhaps flowing would be a better term. Having said that it was just too problematic for me.

Kelly seems to have wanted to make this book so many genres that she has failed (in my opinion) to make it anyone thing. If this is how mysteries are written in general I will stick to plain fiction thanks. All be it none problematic ones. To be honest it is probably my own fault, I saw the stunning cover and read the blurb. Due to both I requested it, only when my request was granted did I realize I had read a book by this author before and didn't like it much.

I can see the type of audience this would appeal to but unfortunately, it is not for this woke, agnostic, feminist, Irish woman. (The non Irish soldier type!)

I loved the premise of this and it actually works.
The writing style was very engaging with a very strong plot but it does time hop quite a bit and together with the introduction of so many characters, I found this hard going in places.

This is a compelling and original thriller, quite different from anything I have read before. It is incredibly well thought out with twists I definitely didn’t see coming. Nell is an appealing, offbeat heroine from a dysfunctional family and I so wanted her to triumph. The novel just gets more and more exciting as the story goes on. I would recommend starting this book when you have lots of time to lose yourself in it!

In the summer of 2021, Nell returns to her family home to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Golden Bones, written by her father.
In part a treasure hunt, the book led to a group of obsessed fans joining together as The Bonehunters, convinced that Nell is actually Elinore, the main character in The Golden Bones, and that she knows where the last missing piece of treasure is.
Full of mystery, twists and turns, The Skeleton Key’s narrative darts between past and present, revealing ugly family secrets along the way.
I really enjoyed it, but it’s not an easy read - there are a lot of characters and details to remember- but definitely a book worth spending time over.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

Loved loved this one!! Gripping and exciting and as always a fab read and can't wait to see what this author does next :)

This book was a bit of a slow burner at first and I wasn’t exactly sure where it was going but….
Once it got it’s hooks into you there was no going back. The story of how rivalries and obsessions can become imbedded in a family and that they can destroy lives. The ripples of past events, and ‘sins’, can become all engulfing waves years later.
The suspense kept growing and kept you guessing right to the end.

This is a brilliant and originally book, I have found Erin Kelly's work (in the past) really hit and miss. I found this book gripping, especially as I love puzzles in my day to day life so a frantic treasure hunt that costs sanity, and marriages with super high-stakes gripped me from the off. What a stellar book and I shall be recommending it to everyone!!

Something a bit different, I was gripped from the start and there were many twists and turns along the way.
If you love a bit of mystery, you'll enjoy this.

As a long time Erin Kelly fan, I wanted to love this more. After taking a long time to get into this, I did go onto to enjoy it, but the faults still made it a slow and average read for me.

The plot is fascinating, the first chapter very good but so very slow afterward, and at times much more descriptive than necessary. There is however a switch in the middle of this novel, and that is where I truly connected with this, but to read to half way through hardly caring either way...

But the latter part - the deepening deceptions and tangled web of secrets throughout the two families lives over the course of generations - was truly something. And the enjoyed, I enjoyed. That said, the somewhat tedious subplots and Nell's constant, infuriating decisions do still let this down.

3 stars from me - some great, some good and some not so good - certainly not as enjoyable as Kelly's other novels but I'll still watch out for her next.

I’m getting to that age, and I may be getting to it prematurely. No, not the menopause. That age when the relationship of responsibility between parent and child switches. All my friends are having to deal with aging, cantankerous, increasingly conservative parents. But for some of us, this balance of responsibility has been skewed almost their entire lives.

Enter Nell, the protagonist of Erin Kelly’s latest novel. Nell, like me, comes from a bohemian hippy family where the parents grow their own pot and aren’t particularly discrete about their extra-marital sex. Unlike me, Nell’s family is also at the centre of an international treasure hunt, prompted by a picture book her parents wrote in the 1970s.

I had come into this book expecting something of a treasure hunt for the reader, along the lines of Alexandra Benedict’s The Christmas Murder Game or Janice Hallett’s The Twyford Code, but to the best of my knowledge this is not the case (Although it’s perfectly possible this book is full of acrostics that went right over my head!). What I got instead is what I was so badly wanting from Eve Chase’s The Birdcage: a properly twisty family story, spanning generations and delivering plenty of shocks along the way.

In this, Kelly absolutely delivers. There is a mystery at the heart of the story that has both Nell and the reader reaching down wrong turns almost all the way through. But at the same time, the narrative darts back and fore into the past, laying context on key moments, giving deeper insight into Nell’s family. And let me tell you, some of it is not pretty! This is a warts and all look at family interactions, and the quiet neglects and traumas of those of us who were brought up ‘to be independent’.

At the same time, we’re presented with kids who fell into (or through) the system. The hardships faced by those with no parents, whether that be because of absence or death. Kelly doesn’t seem to judge one side as worse-off than the other, but rather reveals the myriad ways in which we are all, as Larkin has it, “fucked up” by Mum and Dad.

Besides the brilliant twists and heart-breaking secrets, the book is a really nice read. Nell is an easy character with whom to spend the majority of the novel, and the writing is very smooth – I got through the book quite quickly.

All in all, one of my favourite books of the year. Definitely come to this book if you’re looking for a mystery that will keep you on your toes, and an authentic and sympathetic look at that true step into adulthood: realising your parents are the real kids!

I really enjoy Erin Kelly’s books so I was delighted to receive an advanced copy of #TheSkeletonKey, with thanks to @netgalley and @hodderstoughton.

It’s Summer 2021 and the Churcher family have gathered for the filming of a documentary about the book “The Golden Bones”, a part-folklore-picture-book, part-treasure-hunt, written by Sir Frank Churcher, the patriarch of the group. The book was a global success and resulted in rabid fans traveling across the UK and looking for the seven sites where jewels were buried; each one with a tiny golden bone that would eventually add up to a full skeleton.

Only the pelvis has been missing..until now. Frank uses the extra spotlight from the documentary crew to finally reveal where the last bone is, but to everyone’s shock and horror, it’s a real pelvis, and the family find themselves embroiled in a much more sinister mystery than they could ever have anticipated.

This was a slow starter. I’ve always flown through Erin Kelly’s books so I was surprised at how long it took me to fully immerse myself in The Skeleton Key. The author is a master of world building and I truly believed in the hysteria around The Golden Bones; it felt very real. The characters, although all terrible people bar one or two exceptions, were well-developed and complicated. I also thought the mystery itself was clever and I hadn’t guessed the reveal.

I think this works well for an Autumn book to cosy up with, but be aware that it’s a longer read that might take some time to get into.

Content warnings for child grooming and abuse, murder, alcoholism.

I really enjoyed this book – it’s got a fascinating premise which is built upon with layers of family secrets, power struggles and complex relationships. Although this is a mystery novel rather than fantasy, there were plenty of magical and colourful elements to keep a wide range of readers interested.

There are some really carefully thought-through elements at play in this novel. I enjoyed the involvement of the parallel families and generations, the cult-following of The Golden Bones and there were a few great twists towards the end. I also felt that Nell and Billie living on a boathouse was a really clever way of showing how much Nell had separated her life from that of the rest of her family and rejected the legacy of her father’s book.

I found that ‘The Skeleton Key’ reads very much like a YA book; in fact my only criticism is that I struggled a little to visualise the main character, Nell, as a forty-year-old rather than someone in their early twenties. I did wonder whether Billie was originally written as the protagonist.

Overall, I can see ‘The Skeleton Key’ being a smash hit on the bookshelves this autumn. The gorgeous cover highlights is dark, gothic themes and perfectly sets up the novel’s tone.

Really enjoyable mystery book. The premise is totally different from anything I’ve read before and is so richly written you can picture the book involved and it makes you want to be part of it.

The family undertones and nods to the power wielded make it relevant and just a really powerful read.

This book was incredible. Odd families, sketchy characters, great storyline that takes you back in time whe artistes we’re just that.
A controversial book is being republished on the anniversary of its release. The Golden Bones is highly anticipated and the media are whipping up interest in the search for the last bone to complete the skeleton of Elinore.
I find it difficult to précis this book because there are too many great characters and layers of intrigue.
Buy And read, you will love it.

Mesmerizing, full of twists and turns, an absolute delight to read and experience. I will be seeking more from this author immediately!

Unfortunately, for me, this didn't really work. The writing is almost poetic and artful, but the story failed to hit the mark. It took me a long time to become engaged in the story. I didn't really care for the characters and didn't really understand the logic behind the puzzle of the golden bones

Inspired by Kit William's Mascarade book of the 1980s. Frank Churcher wrote a book which invited readers to solve clues which would find jewelled bones which would make a pendant in a skeleton shape. All the bones have been found except for the pelvis. The skeleton represented Elinore, the story's heroine. There are lots of theories about the bone's location and a thriving online community which debates this. The story followsthe impact the treasure and its seekers has on Frank's own family.
A bit slow at the start but it got better.

I enjoyed this book, and although there were some good twists, I wasnt hooked and some of the storyline felt rushed

What a twisted mystery of a story. This is not my usual read but I really enjoyed it and was totally swept away by the mystery hidden in this story and how Nells life has been destroyed due to her families fame. I couldn’t put this down.