KATIE MARIE

Revenge is a Bitch

Today I want to talk to you about Bag of Bones.

Bag of Bones is a novel by Stephen King, written in 1998. It won the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel and the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel AND the Locus Award for Best Dark Fantasy/Horror Novel. In a nutshell this is a critically acclaimed book and rightfully so.

I loved this book, it’s no secret that I very much enjoyed Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca (It’s my favourite play and in my top ten books) and this book not only references Rebecca but re-uses a lot of Rebecca’s plot elements.

Summary

4 years ago, Mike Noonan, a bestselling novelist, lost his pregnant wife, Jo to a brain aneurysm. Mike is still grieving, suffering writers block and nightmares. His nightmares are set in his vacation house, so he moves there to confront those fears.

On arrival he meets Kyra, a 3year old, and her widow mother, Mattie. Mattie is struggling with her rich, elderly father-in-law who wants custody of Kyra. Mike helps out and hires a lawyer for Mattie and his involvement in their lives helps him with his grief, he starts to write again.

As Mike writes, Jo’s ghost helps him solve the murder of Sara Tidwell, a local blues singer whose ghost haunts the place. Mike also discovers he has a psychic connection with Kyra. Mike is attacked by Mattie’s father-in-law (and his assistant) and almost dies but survives with Jo’s help. That same night, out of nowhere, Matties father-in-law commits suicide.

Mike starts learning more about the town, like how if a local born residents has name that begins with K or C they tend to drown when little.

Mike goes to spend the night with Mattie, but there is a drive by shooting and Mike flees with Kyra. As he does so he is lured by Sara’s ghost to drown the child and take his own life. Jo once again saves him and leads him to research she did that shows Mike is related to one of the families in town. He also learns that Kyra as a decedent of her father was scheduled to be the next to die.

Mike figures out that this is Sarah Tidwell’s curse, he goes looking for her grave but is attacked by ghosts of old residents. He eventually unearths that Sarah was raped and murdered by these men; her son Kito was also drowned by them. All the children who have drowned subsequently were descended from those men. Mike reaches Sarah’s grave and destroys her bones which ends the curse.

Mike goes back to find Kyra has been kidnapped but thanks to the ghost of Mattie, killed in the earlier shootout, this doesn’t result in any harm to Mike or Kyra.

The book ends with Mike trying to adopt Kyra, and while it is unresolved the book seems to end on a positive note.

General 

I love the atmosphere in this book, it’s a thing of beauty.

My two favourite things about King are his ability to build an atmosphere and his ability to craft compelling characters. He does both in this book. I swear this could have just been a story about a grieving widower moving away to cope with the loss of his wife and I’d have still enjoyed it.

Characters 

The characters are fantastic, Mike develops at a reasonable and realistic pace. He is a plausible character in this respect. His journey through the story is compelling and well-paced. He acts in a believable manner when things star rapidly becoming more extraordinary and his emotional vulnerability and desire to help Mattie, his connection with Kyra all combine to make connecting to him easy.

Kyra and Mattie are also well crafted though they do not go through the same level of character development that Mike does, they are still compelling in their own right.  

Setting 

I love the setting in this story, to be fair though I really enjoy King’s small-town Maine, I’m defiantly one of those who does not roll their eyes when they see yet another King book set in Maine. I want to go there to see if the vibe is like it is in the books lol.

But King, as usual, nails the feel of a small town, both the positive, cozy feel and the negative, small-town-with-a-dark-secret vibe.

Plot 

The plot is well structured and paced with nothing really coming out of nowhere, the events of the plot all follow on well and feel real, as opposed to unrealistic things happening just so the plot can get from A to B.

The story is suspenseful, especially at the end when Mike is revealing the towns dark secret and resolving things, then with Kyra’s kidnapping. But the suspense isn’t just in the ending its builds slowly and insidiously through the story.

I must confess that I found the eventful ghost of a woman who was assaulted and murdered to be a little predictable, the addition of the men harming her child and that’s where he revenges came from was refreshing.

The stakes were made clear early on and maintained throughout. I do love a good unsolvable mystery. The side story of Mattie trying to keep her daughter kept the story grounded and kept the stakes from becoming stale, especially when the two stories became interconnected.

So, in conclusion this is a great book, it deserves the praise it received and I recommend you pick up a copy.