Title: The Bones of the Story
Author: Carol Goodman
Pages: 326
Pub Date: July 11, 2023
Source: NetGalley
GoodReads Description: The twisty locked-room mystery from two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author Carol Goodman, about a group of former classmates trapped on their college campus—with a murderer among them.
It’s been twenty-five years since the shocking disappearance of a female student and the distinguished Creative Writing professor who died while searching for her. The Briarwood College community has never forgotten the terrible storm that caused the double tragedy. Now, the college President—who has his own reasons for drawing attention to the notorious incident—is bringing together faculty, donors, and alumni to honor the victims from all those years ago.
On a cold December weekend after the fall semester has ended, guests gather on the vacant campus for the commemoratory event. But as a winter storm descends, people begin to depart, leaving a group of alumni who were the last ones taught by the esteemed professor. Recriminations and old rivalries flare as they recall the writing projects they shared as classmates, including chilling horror stories they each wrote about their greatest fears.
When an alumna dies in a shockingly similar way to the story she wrote, and then another succumbs to a similar fate, they realize someone has decided at long last to avenge the crimes of the past. Will the secret of what they did twenty-five years ago be revealed? Will any of them be alive at the end of the weekend to find out?
My Review:
The Bones of the Story is a dark academia novel, set at a small private college known for its writing program. Bones are found in the ice caves during a school ritual and our main character seems to know something about how they've come to be there. The story goes back and forth between Nell's time as a student and her time in the present day as Dean of Students.
This book is all about the atmosphere! I thought the setting of Briarwood College was perfect and what I wouldn't give to be in the Raven Society - Briarwood's exclusive writing program under its writer-in-residence! In the present day, the college is trying to resurrect its writing program after the pandemic, but when the Raven Society of one particularly fateful year come back to Briarwood, tragedy strikes.
I thought this book was a fun read - one of those books that you fall inside the setting for a while. Makes you question all of your life choices - I mean obviously I should have been a writer and gone to a college with an intense writing program, steeped in tradition and ritual, with a writer-in-residence to give me a recommendation letter at the end. Preferably Stephen King - wasn't he a writer-in-residence at a few colleges?
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