Ink and Bone Book Review

Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger

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Blurb:

Twenty-year-old Finley Montgomery is rarely alone. Visited by people whom others can't see and haunted by prophetic dreams, she has never been able to control or understand the things that happen to her. When Finley's abilities start to become too strong for her to handle - and even the roar of her motorcycle or another dazzling tattoo can't drown out the voices - she turns to the only person she knows who can help her: her grandmother Eloise Montgomery, a renowned psychic living in The Hollows, New York.

Merri Gleason is a woman at the end of her tether after a ten-month-long search for her missing daughter, Abbey. With almost every hope exhausted, she resorts to hiring Jones Cooper, a detective who sometimes works with psychic Eloise Montgomery. Merri's not a believer, but she's just desperate enough to go down that road, praying she's not too late. Time, she knows, is running out.

As a harsh white winter moves into The Hollows, Finley and Eloise are drawn into the investigation, which proves to have much more at stake than even the fate of a missing girl. As Finley digs deeper into the town and its endless layers, she is forced to examine the past, even as she tries to look into the future. Only one thing is clear: The Hollows gets what it wants, no matter what.

Review by Brittany:

I requested this book on NetGalley largely because I have not read anything by Lisa Unger, despite her being a bestselling author.

I'm not typically a fan of psychic-type novels, possibly because I'm a bit of a skeptic, but mostly because the story line just typically feels a little too "magical" for my liking. This one still has tones of that - Finley having visions and hearing things - but there was enough solidity to it to keep me interested. While Finley is working with Jones to find Abbey, the reader is also given glimpses into the world of an abducted girl. She is referred to as "New Penny", and it's through these parts of the story that the reader learns why multiple girls have been abducted through one family.

I love the character of Jones in this novel. It's interesting that he is one of my favorites because he actually doesn't get much page time in the novel. I think one thing that appeals to me about his is the fact that he's very much unsure about the psychic abilities of Finley and Eloise, but he takes what they say into consideration and can give these things a head nod, despite his desire for more logic. He also struck as the most interested in justice and the most respectful of the role that every person plays in a missing persons investigation - not just the psychics, but the police who get a bad rap for not handling investigations well. I think he was a great, solid role for this book, especially considering how many parts of this novel were paranormal in nature.

The suspense in this novel is pretty top notch. I definitely felt intrigued by the story and wanted to keep reading to see if Abbey could be found. The end of the novel has a bit of a twist to it that came as a surprise, and also left me interested in how this twist would help develop characters. Based on this novel, I would definitely read more by Unger.

Overall, I quite liked this book. The plot was interesting, and there was quite a bit of character development throughout, with not only the main characters, but also the supporting characters. If paranormal suspense is in your wheelhouse, I'd definitely recommend picking this one up.

Notable quotes:

More than anything else, resentment was the death of love. It killed slowly.

But language was a precision instrument. Used imprecisely it could level all kinds of damage.

"We almost never feel ready for any of life's passages. And yet we often must move through them all the same."

The smart phone dad - always taking pictures and posting beautiful filtered shots on Facebook and Instagram for others to admire, forgetting almost entirely to look with his own eyes.

She didn't want to forget, to move on. You didn't have to do those things to let go.

People didn't even know how cruel kindness could be, how much it hurt.

But, silently, like so many other things, it gnawed at the cord that tethered them, fraying it so that when it was pulled tight in stress it nearly snapped.

Daily, she forgave his flaws, just as she knew he forgave hers.

But in another place and time, it wouldn't have mattered. The consequences were not appropriate to his actions.