Book Title: The Bone Hunters
Author: Joanne Burn
Date Started: October 27th 2024
Date Completed: November 5th 2024
Genres: Historical
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star
Final Rating: Five Stars
Review:
◆ Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook for review ◆
Fossils, fossil, fossils, what better thing to do than discover and fawn over them. I've been to Lyme once - very briefly on a film location recce - but reading this book I felt the sharp sea air again, the pebbles shifting underfoot. Staring up at the towering cliffs waiting to topple over themselves and onto you, and the white hot excitements of what exists within the stones surrounding you. It feels folkloric even then, and I suppose it is in a lot of ways, something that is even played with a lot in this novel.
The Bone Hunters is far more grim than its synopsis will have you suspect, but it's not keenly dramatic for the sake of it. Each beat has its place in the plot and in Ada's story, and creeps up a cliff small step by small step until you stand at the peak staring at the blackness below. In only 400 pages, an expansive tale unwinds itself with relationship morphing in new directions neither Ada nor I saw coming. (And some of my favourite representations of female/male friendships I've read in a long time.)
Ada's character was a significant highlight of the novel; the balance between headstrong determination and active awareness of her precarious situation was so well developed her quietness spoke volumes in every chapter. It's rare to find a character (let alone a woman) realistically shown to be confident and loyal to herself but still be fought with worry about her place in the world - yet so many of us are like this.
The Anning inspiration is very clear from the start, but I really like the creative license used to tell a slightly different story while paying homage to the mother of geology. I hadn't heard of Joanne Burn before this Netgalley arc but I will be looking up their books now - as is the magic and privilege of being a book reviewer.
