Bonechiller

Time to recommend a brilliant new book by Graham McNamee – although I do wish I wouldn’t keep choosing stories that scare me!

Bonechiller tells the tale of Danny, a teenager who’s moved from one backwater Canadian town to another with his dad ever since his mum died.  There’s something different about their latest stopping point, however…  It could be because Harvest Cove is in the grip of a mid-winter freeze, that children are disappearing in mysterious circumstances – or that there’s a huge, monstrous beast out in the snow that cornered Danny in a ditch and stung him with its long, barbed tongue.  Actually, now I come to think of it, yes – it’s probably that one.  the stinging tongue thing.

However, having escaped with nothing more than a blue bruise Danny, like his fellow stingee Howie, is changing.  His blood is running colder and colder, he’s able to see in the dark and – worst of all – he’s being stalked in his dreams by the beast itself.  Is the monster simply toying with its prey before it makes the kill or could it be, as Howie suspects, that its waiting for its injected poison to soften up their internal organs ready to eat?

Bonechiller is a cracking page turner that had me clawing the arm of my chair with fright.  I recommend it so long as you don’t have any sleeping to do in the near future.