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I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This review is spoiler-free.

I am most familiar with Christina Henry's retellings (The Mermaid is a personal favourite), but between last year's The Ghost Tree and her latest book — Near the Bone — I'm becoming a huge fan of her horror titles. Near the Bone is a fantastically tense, incredibly immersive, and totally brilliant bit of horror writing. Like most tense, thriller-type books I can't say too much for fear of giving things away, but I'll do my best with a short review.

Told from Mattie's perspective, we learn early on that something isn't quite right and perhaps things aren't what they seem. Henry teases out the facts of Mattie's life in a masterful way, filling every page with tension from beginning to end. I literally could not put this book down — fun fact: I cooked dinner and brushed my teeth with this book in hand. What better endorsement could you want? I was totally hooked and loved the way this story unfolded.

Mattie is a fabulous character. Seeing her complex situation, emotions, and ingrained behavior and reactions is heartbreaking, yet so satisfying when her survival instincts kick in as she's determined to escape the monster in the woods. She has a deeply satisfying story arc and she's an incredibly compelling character.

Again, I just can't say much more about this book without giving anything away. But I can confidently tell you that if you're a fan of supernatural horror, thrillers, or tension-filled books in general you absolutely must pick up Near the Bone. This is easily one of my favourite books of the year!

If you're curious about content warnings, please do message me! I generally don't believe in the whole 'content warnings count as spoilers' thing, but I think this is one of the rare cases in which that might be true.