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In the acknowledgments, Emily Lloyd-Jones mentions her pitch to her editor of a book about a “gravedigger versus medieval zombies.” At the end of The Bone Houses, I finally realized that “zombies” was a good categorization of the creatures in the title. Duh. Probably other readers would have figured that out sooner.
The gravedigger is Ryn, who took over caretaking of the cemetery and digging graves for the recently departed in her small village after her father went missing on a scouting mission. She and her younger brother and sister scrape by, much like many in the village. Ryn sometimes goes into the nearby forest to find food to eat and sell to augment their living. She’s the only one in the area who does; her father taught her to be careful and how to deal with the “bone houses” who sometimes would come across their paths in the forest. Bone houses were the remains of the dead who had been reanimated. The old stories say it’s because of the misuse of an item belonging to a fairy king.
But the creatures kept to the forest. When, all of a sudden, they start emerging from the forest, Ryn is confused about what caused the change. After one terrible invasion, Ryn decides to go to the old home of the fairy king, deep in the mountains and past the forest. She aims to find the cursed item and destroy it and end the bone creatures. She is accompanied by Ellis, a young man from the city who wants to create maps of unmapped areas.
Ryn and Ellis will destroy the creatures or die trying.
The Bone Houses is a kind of horror story set in a medieval era and land. I picked it up not because I’m a fan of zombie tales but because I really enjoyed Lloyd-Jones’ The Drowned Woods. (And she has a new book out that I’d like to read.) And it’s fall/Halloween, which seemed a perfect time for this kind of read. It’s also a poignant story of two young people finding their way, figuring out their pasts and learning truths about themselves. I loved the ending. (And just as in Woods, which features an entertaining dog, this book features a scene-stealing goat.) Recommend.
Rated: Mild. Profanity includes 5 instances of moderate profanity and 6 uses of mild language. Sexual content includes some kissing. Violence includes regular attacks and fights with zombielike creatures, using axes, swords, knives, etc. The undead are generally taken apart and sometimes burned. There are descriptions of the undead’s various states of decay.
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