My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Skeleton Key’ by Erin Kelly. I complemented my reading with its unabridged audiobook edition.

The Skeleton Key is the story of two close dysfunctional families, the lies they tell, the casual neglect of their children and the monstrous ego of at least one of their number.This story belongs to Eleanor, the daughter of Frank and Cora Churcher. Frank is a famous artist, his fame having come from sales of a best-selling book, The Golden Bones, a richly illustrated treasure hunt based on an old folk song, which offers clues to a golden, jewel encrusted treasure in the form of a skeleton, parts of which are buried across the British Isles. Kit Harrington’s Masquerade was such a book, but the mystery of The Golden Bones has endured now for 50 years and become almost mythological. An intricately plotted thriller, full of detail and invention, with impeccably realised settings and characters as monstrous as they are believable. Above all it is a completely addictive story of two families destroyed by success. Erin Kelly is a genius' JANE CASEY Oh I LOVE this novel so much!! I read it in one great gulp and lost a fair amount of sleep into the bargain! I was enticed by the story of the bone hunters and Elinore and when I read about Masquerade I was gutted to realise I was born two years too late for it. But as much as I wanted to read it for that I stayed for Nell and Billie. Erin Kelly has woven together the wonderful complex and detailed history for her characters and for the bone hunters and what Nell has been through at their hands. What really made this book work for me is that every single cultural reference, joke or witty aside Nell mentioned is something I’ve said, laughed at or could nod along to. I believe at one point she says to her brother Dom “that’s you that is” something I don’t think anyone under 45 would get but had me roaring with laughter. At times it felt like I could be Nell it was so familiar.

Although this is the kind of dark and twisted thriller we've come to expect from Erin Kelly, The Skeleton Key is also a delicious deep dive into the secrets and grievances of one of the most dysfunctional families you're ever likely to meet * Red Online * That being said the characters are equally if not more monstrous when hearing directly from them. Kelly has created a lot characters in this novel, at the beginning I felt perhaps too many characters but as the novel processes each one plays a key role in expanding and tidying up the plot nicely. Obsession and clues, death and mystery: all this fed into my new novel The Skeleton Key. My book-within-a‑book is called The Golden Bones: the treasure is a jewelled skeleton, scattered and buried at seven locations. Unlike Fenn, my fictional artist calls off the search when crazed fans can’t tell their fictional quest from reality and threaten his family. One golden bone – the pelvis – remains undiscovered. In the present day, the artist decides to update and reissue The Golden Bones, and reveal the treasure’s whereabouts. But human remains are uncovered instead, and dormant obsessions resurface. I was really hooked into this one almost immediately. I had never heard of Masquerade by Kit Williams and its bookish treasure hunt before, so appreciated the author's short introduction. What an intriguing idea and Erin Kelly has taken that and created this fantastic, entertaining and original story.

Featured Reviews

For Darrieussecq, Kafka is the “patron saint of insomnia” and his claustrophobic waking nightmares communicate the horror of lying awake at 4 am every night, your mind teeming with thoughts and words, while others sleep. Indeed Kafka blamed his writing – “the imminent possibility of great moments which would tear me open” – for his sleeplessness. Frank, Lal and their families become rich through the success of the book but it comes at a cost, as the Bonehunters become obsessive about Frank’s daughter Eleanor at great personal cost. The book was a sensation. A community of treasure hunters called the Bonehunters formed, in frenzied competition, obsessed to a dangerous degree. People sold their homes to travel to England and search for Elinore. Marriages broke down as the quest consumed people. A man died. The book made Frank a rich man. His daughter, Nell, became a recluse.