Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew @KayAyDrew @Scholastic @SnyderBridge4

Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Wyatt Westlock has one plan for the farmhouse she's just inherited -- to burn it to the ground. But during her final walkthrough of her childhood home, she makes a shocking discovery in the basement -- Peter, the boy she once considered her best friend, strung up in chains and left for dead.

Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Peter has suffered hundreds of ritualistic deaths on her family's property. Semi-immortal, Peter never remains dead for long, but he can't really live, either. Not while he's bound to the farm, locked in a cycle of grisly deaths and painful rebirths. There's only one way for him to break free. He needs to end the Westlock line.

He needs to kill Wyatt.

With Wyatt's parents gone, the spells protecting the property have begun to unravel, and dark, ancient forces gather in the nearby forest. The only way for Wyatt to repair the wards is to work with Peter -- the one person who knows how to harness her volatile magic. But how can she trust a boy who's sworn an oath to destroy her? When the past turns up to haunt them in the most unexpected way, they are forced to rely on one another to survive, or else tear each other apart.

Your Blood, My Bones is by a new to me author.  I was completely drawn in by the cover and the premise of the story.  The story, while not perfect, is engaging and had me hooked from the beginning when Wyatt comes home after the death of her father, and wants to burn the entire place to the ground.  But Peter is not only chained in her basement, he has tree roots growing around his bindings.  Confused as to why he is there our journey begins as Wyatt discovers the secrets her father kept and discovers more about the boy who was her first love.

Wyatt, Peter and James roamed the property of Willow Heath thick as thieves every summer until Wyatt turned thirteen and was taken away, not to return for five years.  Estranged from her father, living with her mother, she hasn’t seen or heard from Peter or James in all that time, that is until she returns to the property to find Peter in chains and James on the end of a dead rotary phone saying he will be there soon to help.  This was a story doomed from the beginning and even though you know that I couldn’t help walking the journey with the characters, learning of their past together as Willow Heath’s wards start to fail and the creatures from the darkness start to wander the grounds.

Inosculation, where the trunks of multiple trees grew so close together that they grafted into one.   That was them, he’d thought , only half listening to the lecture.

He, Peter, and Wyatt, their roots so intricately knotted that none of them could tell where one of them ended and the other began. 

Kelley Andrew wrote a character driven story about three people and Willow Heath, that is definitely its own character in the story.   I was wrapped up in it as the walls come tumbling down and Wyatt discovers the magic of her bloodline and why her family has sacrificed, ritually sacrificed, Peter time and time again.  This is the first time he has been allowed to grow past boyhood and now a young man with understanding of his plight he has one goal.  He wants to make it home, to the place he fell through, where his mother is.  To do that, he is supposed to sacrifice the thing he loves most, Wyatt.  He wasn’t able to do it when they were children, but can he do it now?

I would call this horror-lite.  There are some creepy things in the woods, Wyatt is definitely trapped on the property with Peter and the beast is going to come to call soon.  But even the horror aspect, this was so intriguing how the land and the creatures were used.  The dark is a tricky place and while Peter understands what is out there in it, Wyatt is at a loss and is learning some lessons the hard way.

“You can’t run from the things you fear.  Instead, sit with them a while.  Look them in the eye.  You will find they are not as big as they seem, and you are not as small as you thing.”

I knew that in the end we might not get the ending I was hoping for and I’m still a little torn on the ending.  But we did get an ending that was unexpected and I really like when an author can surprise me.  I enjoyed the past present story telling and how some of it seemed almost dreamlike.  The relationship between Wyatt, Peter and James was as complicated as they probably come but I was never bored with it and in the end they were friends first and foremost and would never leave one of them behind voluntarily.

“He could have told her she was dead wrong — that he’d studied her for so long, for so many years, that he knew her like a sailor knew the sea. That he felt the shifts in her moods the way a lightkeeper’s knees ached before a storm.”

If you are looking for something with paranormal aspects, a slow burn type of romance, coming of age with magic and the bonds of friendships forged in childhood that last into early adulthood this could be exactly what your are looking for.   Peter, Wyatt and James are not perfect people but they understand each other and accept all of the perfections and flaws people have in each other.

There are some cameos from a few of Kelly Andrew’s book The Whispering Dark.  I have not read that book and understood that there was probably some history to the characters I wasn’t privy to but it wasn’t necessary to read or enjoy this story.  It did make me want to take a look at that book after reading Your Blood, My Bones as I am extremely interested in the world that has been created and more stories set in it.  I’d also love to see Wyatt again in the future to check up on a new favorite character.

All those years wondering what a real kiss from Peter might taste like, and now she knew.  He tasted like a tragedy. An end, before they’d even begun. 

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Robin

Reviewer at Books of My Heart

Reading is my #1 addiction…I’d go to a support group for it but who are we kidding -  I have no intentions of quitting anytime soon. By day, I’m a chemist and can be found sciencing and listening to books. On nights and weekends, I’m a wannabe Spartan and am often training and listening to books. I straight up LOVE almost everything by Brandon Sanderson and Ilona Andrews; they are my flagship authors and I might be slightly impartial where they are concerned. My other guilty pleasures are unusual fairytale retellings and uber alpha males.


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