Book Summary and Reviews of When the Bones Sing by Ginny Myers Sain

When the Bones Sing by Ginny Myers Sain

When the Bones Sing

by Ginny Myers Sain

  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Published:
  • Mar 2025, 352 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From New York Times bestselling author of Dark and Shallow Lies comes a new southern gothic supernatural thriller about a teen girl in a small Ozark town who can hear the bones of the dead.

The past three years have been tough for Lucifer's Creek, Arkansas, a small town quietly tucked away in the Ozark mountains. More than two dozen people have disappeared on the local hiking trails; there one moment, gone the next, not a trace left behind, until their buried bodies are discovered.

17-year-old Dovie doesn't believe in magic even though she comes from a long line of women who can hear the bones of the dead sing, and for the past few years the bones have been crooning nonstop, calling out to Dovie to dig them up.

Some of the old-timers believe that it's the monstrous Ozarks howler snatching people off the Aux Arc Trail. Well Dovie doesn't believe in the howler, and she doesn't believe her best friend Lo when he tells her he is being haunted by dark shadows. All she believes in is her talent that guides the local sheriff to the bones when they begin their song, then reuniting the dead with their families to give them some peace.

Lo doesn't know peace, though. The shadows follow him everywhere. He soon learns they're the murdered hikers and they want answers. But the truth of their deaths isn't buried with their bones; it's hidden somewhere deep in the hills. And Lo and Dovie must unearth it before anyone else is killed.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Lyrical prose…vividly descriptive text evokes an ethereal yet grounded setting. Plot points offer shocking twists that feel appropriately earned in a rural Southern gothic horror novel that will stay with readers well beyond the last page." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Like the sulfurous stream that gives Lucifer's Creek its name, the central mystery twists and turns in unexpected ways, building up to a chilling reveal in the final act that skirts the edge of horror. Gripping and intensely atmospheric." —Kirkus Reviews

"A twisted, gripping mystery."  —Booklist

This information about When the Bones Sing was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Ginny Myers Sain

Ginny Myers Sain is the New York Times bestselling author of Dark and Shallow Lies, Secrets So Deep, and One Last Breath. She lives in Florida and has spent the past twenty years working closely with teens as a director and acting instructor in a program designed for high school students seriously intent on pursuing a career in the professional theatre. Having grown up in deeply rural America, she is interested in telling stories about resilient kids who come of age in remote settings.

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