Van has finished reading… Old Bones by Helen Kitson

Blessed be the quiet ones. None of your brash crash-bang and razzmatazz, they stoke the fire, plump up the cushions and bring the perfect cup of tea, and you don’t even realise that you’re here now and there is absolutely no way you’re leaving until you’ve turned the last page. Such is the stuff of Helen Kitson’s second novel, Old Bones.

We’re back to the village of Morevale in Shropshire (the setting of Helen Kitson’s debut novel, The Last Words Of Madeleine Anderson), where human remains have been discovered in the nearby quarry, and the lives of three older women are put under the microscope. Having grown up in the village, spinster sisters Diana and Antonia – now sharing their late mother’s house – and librarian Naomi have a shared history. Old animosities resurface, fracturing the peaceful façade of their lives and fuelling the pressure-cooker environment that is village life.

Humour abounds in the early chapters. Beryl-Bainbridge-dry and razor sharp, it feels in the best tradition of wry British humour that is funny until you suddenly realise it’s really not because it’s all too close and all too true. What’s not said is just as important as what is and I could see Old Bones adapted for the stage or the screen, where it’s all about the facial expressions, the hunching of a shoulder, the turning of a back. The writing is precise and unadorned, shifting effortlessly between voices so it’s the characters that really make the story fly. They’re brittle and flinty, brave and defiant, bruised and so very human. It feels as though the author really gets under the skin of her protagonists, so you’re there with every twist of guilt, every stab of envy, all the uncomfortable messiness a person can muster. Perhaps it’s not right to say they’re lovable characters, there’s more to it than that, but you will feel for each of them at some point, and one more than the others, depending on your own proclivities.

Helen Kitson’s Old Bones is a gloriously quiet novel. Thoughtful and honest, it will draw you gently in, it will peel away your defences and then it will lay a tenderness on you that will leave you wanting more.

Old Bones is published by Louise Walters Books on 18^th January 2021 (though early copies are available in November) ISBN:9781916112339

You can find Helen on Twitter @Jemima_Mae_7

My thanks to Louise at Louise Walters Books for allowing me to review this lovely book.