Into Bones Like Oil

De: Kaaron Warren

Narrado por: Katherine Littrell

In this gothic-styled ghost story that simmers with strange, Warren shows once again her flair for exploring the mundane - themes of love, loss, grief, and guilt manifest in a way that is both hauntingly familiar and eerily askew.

People come to The Angelsea, a rooming house near the beach, for many reasons. Some come to get some sleep, because here, you sleep like the dead. Dora arrives seeking solitude and escape from reality. Instead, she finds a place haunted by the drowned and desperate, who speak through the sleeping inhabitants. She fears sleep herself, terrified that the ghosts of her daughters will tell her "it's all your fault we're dead". At the same time, she'd give anything to hear them one more time.

©2019 Kaaron Warren (P)2020 Meerkat Press

Not much happens but a lot is remembered

This book moves slowly, which I usually dislike. But something about the characters keeps you enthralled. You find yourself in a world surrounded by undesirables, but ones that have their appeal. And you find yourself dissecting interactions between people for clues about their past. This isn't a scary story, or even really a gruesome one. Rather it's a story where the dark elements of personalities are hidden in plain sight and where desperation burns hotly but quietly. This book is a ghost fire, a white flame barely visible packing enough heat to melt whatever it touches.