Thank you Netgalley and Montlake for the chance to read an advance copy of The unquiet bones by Loreth Anne White.
This is my first read from the author, and I couldn't have picked a better book to start with. This is a fabulous cold case mystery, and I loved the fact it takes place in British Columbia. I was quickly hooked after the first chapter when a body is discovered during an excavation. The chapters are multi-POV, but are easy to follow and the timeline alternates between 1976 and present day. Homicide detective Jane Munro, pregnant and dealing with the disappearance of her fiancé is assigned to the cold case unit. When the bones of a young woman are discovered, the clues point to a decades-old case of missing teen Annalise Jansen.
I was not only hooked on the mystery, but also the characters of Jane, and the forensic anthropologist, Dr. Ella Quinn and totally recommend the book, as well as the author Loreth Anne White. Fans of Louise Penny may enjoy this book.

Loreth Anne White can always be counted on to provide a story that keeps me engaged and flipping the pages. I've always enjoyed her books and this one did not disappoint.

Description:
When human bones are found beneath an old chapel in the woods, evidence suggests the remains could be linked to the decades-old case of missing teen Annalise Jansen. Homicide detective Jane Munro—pregnant and acutely attuned to the preciousness of life—hopes the grim discovery will finally bring closure to the girl’s family.

But for a group of Annalise’s old friends, once dubbed the Shoreview Six by the media, it threatens to expose a terrible pledge made on an autumn night forty-seven years ago. The friends are now highly respected, affluent members of their communities, and none of them ever expected the dark chapter in their past to resurface. But as Jane and forensic anthropologist Dr. Ella Quinn peel back the layers of secrets, the group begins to fracture. Will one cave? Will they turn on each other?

The investigation takes a sharp turn when Jane discovers a second body—that of the boy long blamed for Annalise’s disappearance. As the bones tell their story, the group learns just how far each will go to guard their own truth.

My Thoughts:
The discovery of the bones under the chapel is the trigger that opens the cold case of a girl gone missing 50 years ago. Detective Jane Munro get the case by default since she is the only person assigned to cold cases (which was supposed to provide less stress while she deals with her own missing person issue and her pregnancy). There are a group of friends who know what happened 50 years ago, but no one talked then and they went on with their lives are are now successful members of the community, some very wealthy. What will happen if one of them talks? This was a fun investigation with a lot of twists and turns and surprises. I think anyone who likes mysteries or police procedurals will enjoy this book.

Thanks to Montlake through Netgalley for an advance copy. Expected publication on March 5, 2024.

A shocking discovery of human bones reopens an almost fifty-year-old cold case—and rips apart the lives of a group of friends—in a riveting novel by Loreth Anne White, the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Maid’s Diary.
This was a solid 4 star read for fans of Unforgotten - the ITV series. I would have liked to know what happened to her fiance, but didn't see the twist at the end.

I am a huge Loreth Ann White fan, so thank you for the advanced copy!

Pacy, Intriguing..
A group of close friends are torn apart when something dark from the past is revealed in this gripping tale of a cold case reopened. When human remains are discovered under a wooded chapel, evidence suggests that they are linked to a decades old cold case. Forensic anthropologist, Dr. Ella Quinn, is sent to investigate alongside Detective Jane Munro. The investigation is soon deepened by the discovery of another body and those bones will tell their own tale - but how far will that group of friends go to hide their own secrets from the past? Engaging and compelling with a firm sense of place and well realised setting, a pacy and intriguing plot populated with a deftly drawn cast and an underlying sense of menace,

BOOK TOUR • REVIEW: Suspense / thriller / police procedural

Thank you #partners @mbc_books & #montlakepublishing @amazonpublishing for my #gifted copies and for including me on this tour.

The Unquiet Bones
Loreth Anne White
3/5

📖 Detective Jane Munro knows a thing or two about missing people. After all, her fiancé has been missing for several months, and she's pregnant with his child. When human remains are discovered buried at a ski resort, Jane links them to a teen who's been missing for nearly fifty years. But what she doesn't know is how they got there, or why. With the help of a forensic anthropologist, Jane uncovers the sordid details that led to the teen's tragic death, all while grappling with the unknowns in her own life.

💭 The Unquiet Bones is a slow-burn, large cast thriller - a mash up of police procedural and suspenseful murder thriller. White gives us past/present timelines and multiple perspectives, which took me a bit to get into, as there are a lot of layers to pull back. This is the kind of book that makes you work for it, but once you're invested, the payoff is worth it, especially that shocking conclusion!😱

As there are a couple loose ends here, specifically with Jane's missing fiancé, I suspect this will be the first in a new series. Highly recommend for fans of Karin Slaughter and Lisa Gardner.

📌 Available 3/5. Also available on Kindle Unlimited, in both ebook and audiobook.
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I ended up really enjoying this novel in a very general sense. I definitely feel like it's setting up for a sequel/series, because there were quite a few loose ends with the main characters, but the mystery plot is very well executed, and I definitely didn't see ANY of the resolution coming. Very well done, I will definitely keep an eye out for more from this author.

This rating may be a bit generous but I can't quite round down on it. My struggle here is while I enjoy this kind of mystery -- cold case, new evidence, the unfurling of a past timeline, and the red herrings along the way -- I wasn't all that enamoured by any of the characters; and we had a lot of them.

Jane Munro is a homicide detective and our main POV (but again, not our only one by far) and her connection to this case is unique both because she, too, is struggling with a loss that has no answers, no closure, and she, too, like the body that is discovered, is (was) pregnant. That's where the similarities ended but loss, missing persons, that unending grief and how it redirects the path of one's life, was a main player and popped up for a few different characters, too. So, I sorta kinda liked Jane, or at least found her circumstances sympathetic as they informed at least half of the emotional drive for resolution, but with such a large cast, and with the differing timelines, we never spend enough time with any one character, so it ends up being more about the mystery and everyone is just a vehicle for that reveal.

And it was a big one. Also horrible and sad. But, at the same time, not entirely satisfying in some respects (which I think was an interesting choice) and also not action packed and thrilling (which I think was the right choice, but also maybe not what readers have come to expect).

I don't know if this book is meant to kickstart a series -- I can sorta see where breadcrumbs have been left to do so -- but if so? I'll read it.

“One day they are going about ordinary life, the next day they are absent. Vanished as if into thin air, leaving a thrumming, pulsing, living, breathing hole that won’t die. Or live. It’s a hellish kind of limbo, this not knowing.”

Woah. The Unquiet Bones is a slow burn police procedural/cold case murder mystery that gripped me and didn’t let go. I’m pretty sure my blood pressure actually rose reading the last 10% of this book.

There are a lot of characters here and I did initially find myself a little confused on who of The Shoreview Six was who since they were all so intertwined. But that in no way diminished my engrossment into the story. And I really couldn’t see where these TWO murder mysteries were headed or how they were even related. And that, my friends, is the beauty of a great mystery. It unwraps like a present and takes you on one hell of a ride in the process.

Per the media mail that came with the book, this is to be book 1 of the new Munro & Quinn series and is inspired by a true crime that occurred in Canada in 1976, the same year that the crime in the book occurred. I can’t wait to continue on with this series as the character arcs were SO strong. Here here for strong and willing to work on themselves to be better women!

“‘Just like the lines in tree trunks, our lives are written into our bones. And if you know how to read them’—she glances at her students—‘they speak.’” 🦴

THANK YOU to @mbc_books, @lorethannewhite, and @amazonpublishing for the #gifted copy.

3,5 Stars

Sixteen year old Annaliese went missing after a party almost fifty years ago to. When human bones are found buried in an old chapel the group of her old friends gets nervous. Could this be Annaliese? And if so, will all their lies be exposed and ruin the lives they have built? The same night a fellow student went also missing. Did he something to Annaliese? The group of friends seems to know more than they let on.

The story is told in multiple POV including homicide detective Jane Munro who has her own problems. Unfortunately this slows the story down. While it held my interest it is also sometimes very repetitive. The book is called “The Unquiet Bones” and the aspect and science of what the bones of a long gone person can still tell is given much room.

There are a lot of red herrings and at some point everybody is suspicious and could have done harm to Annaliese. But there is a final twist at the end and it is heartbreaking. It is a good and complex story but the pace is really slow. While the story about Annaliese is resolved this is not the case for Jane Munro and her problems. So I guess we will see her soon in another book from the author.

I was hooked by the plot of The Unquiet Bones and how well White wove so many point of views to effectively tell a story. Jane is a cold case investigator, six months pregnant and with a missing fiancé, when a case lands on her desk of some bones found under an old chapel at the base of a mountain.

Speculation quickly arises as to who the bones could be, with signs pointing to a teenager, Annalise, who disappeared in 1976. We’re sucked into the lives of the Shoreview Six, Annalise’s friends who though no longer close, hold many secrets about the night she disappeared years ago.

As each clue was discovered, I shifted who I believed could be responsible. There was a good balance between the police procedural portion and the unraveling of the Shoreview Six as the truth started coming out that kept me turning the pages.

THE UNQUIET BONES by Author Loreth Anne White is based on a true unsolved crime that occurred in North Vancouver, Canada in 1976 where White resided as a young teen. A local sixteen-year-old girl disappeared after parting from her best friend and proceeding home alone. Her murder remains unsolved today, leaving loved ones in limbo without closure. White's compassion and empathy for the lost and those left behind to grieve fuels her desire to highlight their plight via her books giving a voice to the emotionally distraught suffering the aftermath of trauma, loss and especially the unknown.

THE UNQUIET BONES, a highly atmospheric suspense thriller involving skeletal remains unearthed during the moving of an old chapel, is book one in the Munroe and Quinn series. Upon the discovery of the remains, speculation is that it could be Annalise Jansen, a young teen who's been missing for forty-seven years after vanishing on her way home from a party. RCMP Sgt. Jane Munro who's mourning the mysterious disappearance of her finance, Matt Rossi, is struggling to come to terms with her overwhelming grief as well as her six-month pregnancy, when she's assigned the cold case. Having experienced unsolved loss, she's sympathetic to families desperate for closure, and determined to give them answers. Jane calls in forensic anthropologist Dr. Ella Quinn and together they vow to identify the remains through every means possible and bring this long-lost individual home to their family.

When news of the recovery circulates, rumors run rampant among the people in the small town. The possibility and high probability it’s Annalise make six outstanding citizens once dubbed the Shoreview Six extremely nervous as they wonder if their long-buried secrets and lies are about to unravel. Meeting in secret, they shore up old alibis and alliances. If the truth is revealed, affluent lives are going up in smoke and someone is going to pay the price for what happened all those years ago. If no one talks, their secrets remain buried, right? Maybe, maybe not. Authorities look to the recovered bones for answers while a town holds their collective breaths. In the hands of a skilled forensic anthropologist like Dr. Ella Quinn, the long buried, unquiet bones speak. They have a story to tell. What do they reveal?

Author Loreth Anne White renders another riveting, impossible to put down, page burner in THE UNQUIET BONES. Her skill as a writer and the fact that this story is based on a true crime take it to another level. Through multiple points of view and past/present chapters, a heartbreaking story emerges with dire implications for several of the large cast of unreliable characters. As fingers are pointed and threats made, an inevitable tone of malice permeates the pages. With each exposed secret and lie, the pace steadily increases, and White brilliantly manipulates readers and characters toward the shocking conclusion. Layers are stripped away, skeletons rattled, and the truth finally breaks free giving loved ones left behind needed closure.

White's unique gift for taking real life tragedies and turning them into mesmerizing stories with grace and passion while weaving forensic science into a riveting story line is simply amazing. No one does it better. The level of research, time, devotion and heart she puts into her work is evident. I can't wait for the next book in this series. Highly recommended to fans of mysteries, suspense and thrillers as well as lovers of crime fiction.

Loved it!!! There's so many twists and turns. I had no clue who killed Annalise or what happened to Darryl. I was suspicious of everyone and my suspect list was long. The Shoreview 6 definitely looked guilty and were hiding something about the night Annalise died. All of them lied about something. Jill and Mary seemed like the only two who had any redeeming qualities. The rest were only out for themselves. I was shocked when the truth about Annalise was finally revealed. The reason behind the murder was horrible. The worst part is that Annalise asked for help and the person did nothing for her. The whole situation was sad. Angela was hurting the investigation with all her "journalism." If the chapel wasn't being relocated would the truth about Annalise's mysterious disappearance ever been solved?

The biggest mystery of all is what happened to Jane's fiancé???? Do they ever find him? Is he alive, dead, assuming a new identity......? The list goes on and on. Even after I finished the book, I can't help wondering about him. I was hoping Jane would get a message that someone found him or that he magically appeared at their apartment.

Definitely recommend the book. It was a great mystery/thriller. Loved the characters (even though most of them are horrible people), story and writing style. I was hooked from the first page and couldn't put the book down. Look forward to reading more books by the author.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Montlake through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

A nicely done thriller about deeply buried (literally and figuratively) secrets that threaten to rip a small town apart. Jane the detective dealing with the case, is a good protagonist, it's atmospheric, and it kept me guessing.

The Unquiet Bones was another incredible book by Loreth Anne White. I had a hard time putting it down. It's filled with so much mystery and suspense it had my mind spinning. Highly recommend!!

Thank you for my gifted ARC!

An excavator digging up a bone with a heeled platform boot leads to marriages, families, and friendships to spiral dangerously out of control in the newest 5-star thriller from Loreth Anne White.

The Unquiet Bones takes readers back to the end of summer in 1976 when two teens go missing. One is a white female from a good family; the other is a male whose parents are immigrants from South Africa. Long held secrets of one disastrous night come to light leaving the lives of many in ruin.

As with any novel from Loreth Anne White, I was instantly intrigued. I appreciated the story being told from various points of view allowing me to form connections and suspicions of them. In the end, I would not have anticipated where the story was heading.

I consumed this and definitely recommend it to other fans of thrillers! If you’ve not read any of White’s other novels, you absolutely need to check them out!

SYNOPSIS
- Bones are found under an old church.
- The bones are linked to a cold case involving a missing teenage girl, who has been MIA since 1976.
- Jane, the detective working the case, looks into all the angles to uncover what happened.

MY THOUGHTS
- I really struggled getting through this one. There were too many POVs, and it got really repetitive.
- The premise & story was decent, but the investigation is repeated over and over. It also was very procedural and literal in some parts.
- I wasn’t a fan of the ending, and overall, I would say this is an average/okay “who done it” novel.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️average/okay “who done it” — very repetitive in some parts.

Thanks to Montlake and Netgalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book will be published on March 5, 2024.

I was so excited to be approved for an ARC of The Unquiet Bones as I love Loreth Ann White’s work. This thriller is atmospheric, twisty and well thought out. I like how White slowly reveals truths and perceived truths little by little allowing the reader to make predictions which will then ultimately be wrong or at least not the entire truth. I will say this book had a lot of characters to keep track of but the plot and pacing made it worth keeping track of them. Another fabulous read from White that I’m sure I’ll think about often, much like her other works I’ve read.

I absolutely loved this book. It was written so well and came together flawlessly. I definitely didn’t see the direction it was heading so it was quite a shocker at the end. This is a must read!

Loreth Anne White's The Unquiet Bones immediately captivates with its gripping narrative, pulling readers into its world from the opening chapter. White's skillful storytelling keeps readers engaged until the final page.

The mystery surrounding unearthed remains beneath a chapel unfolds like peeling layers from an onion, intensifying suspense with each revelation.

The discovery shocks the Shoreview Six, childhood friends entangled in the mystery. Annalise's disappearance after a party sparks rumors of elopement, then darker suspicions of foul play involving an older boy. Yet, her fate remains a mystery until the recent discovery of her remains, unearthing buried secrets.

Narrated through multiple viewpoints, including Jane's investigation and the poignant perspective of Annalise's sister, the story delves deep into the profound impact of grief on families of missing persons. It vividly portrays their stagnation amidst the world moving forward, akin to a moment frozen in time.

Jane's personal history adds depth, marked by her fiancé's disappearance and her subsequent pregnancy discovery. Additionally, a fame-seeking journalist underscores ethical dilemmas in the media industry and the pursuit of breaking stories.

Despite minor niggles with the ending, the story's engrossing mystery kept me guessing until the end. The Unquiet Bones by Loreth Anne White is a captivating read that I highly recommend.

This was an ultimately rather disappointing procedural mystery. The synopsis talked up the forensic anthropology angle as a part of the central plot, but it really was more of a sideline, and there were way too many POVs to keep track of, which left me feeling like I couldn’t get invested in any one character, even the detective who is ostensibly the protagonist. The characters didn’t seem to have a lot of coherent motivations or reactions, and the final reveal felt unfortunately predictable (and comes with trigger warnings, and I personally hate when trauma is used as a twist). Wouldn’t recommend.

Thanks to Montlake and Netgalley for the advance copy.