Wow, wow, WOW. The last 100 pages of this book had me in an absolute chokehold. Even as I sit here, writing this review, I’m still trying to process all the nuances of the ending, the experiences of the characters and just the overall journey that I was taken on through this read.

My Sister’s Bones follows Kate, a successful war reporter who returns to her small hometown when she gets news of her mother’s recent passing. Not only does this return home bring back memories of a damaged childhood, but they also cause Kate’s path to once again cross with her sister, Sally’s. Unfortunately Sally’s life has become ridden with alcoholism, and so, it goes without saying that the relationship between these sisters couldn’t be more strained. On top of the complexities that come with estranged family dynamics, upon her return to her hometown, Kate also starts to hear and experience unexplainable events. At first, she thinks they’re a nightmare, but when they continue on, she knows she’s not imagining them.

I can’t divulge into the plot anymore than that without giving anything else away, but I really, REALLY enjoyed this one. Once I got to those last 150 pages, there was no putting it down. As a debut novel, this was fantastic and it’s really made me excited and curious to explore more reads from this author.

Kate is a war reporter who has just returned to her home town after her mother has passed away. She has a bad relationship with her sister, who is an alcoholic, so instead asks for her brother in law to pick her up. Taken to her home, Kate reminisces about her childhood in this house with loving mother, abusive alcoholic father, and younger sister who always sided with her father. She also can't put the images from the war in Syria out of her mind. In the middle of the night, Kate thinks she sees a young boy in the garden, but the neighbour next door says she has no children. Is Kate going crazy?


She ends up in custody with the police, as they run a psychiatric evaluation and we learn all about Kate's past. Anything horrible someone can endure, it seems that Kate has had to endure it. This is pieced together for us, interspersed with the events leading up to this evaluation.


We get the story from both Kate's side, and her younger sister Sally's side. There are lots of mysteries to solve in this one: what happened to Kate in Syria, what happened to Sally and Kate when they were children, and is there really a boy next door. This results in an absolutely thrilling read. I stayed up pretty late to finish this off so I could find out the answers to all of this mystery.


This book had a bit of everything: family drama, mystery, the consequences of war and living with post traumatic stress disorder, and telling the story in different states of time and from different points of view. I'll definitely be recommending this to friends.

Don't think this is a trivial little suspense novel. There is real guts to this one that takes your heart out and stomps on it. So many horrible things are happening in our world, and it's the children paying the price. This books speaks to those horrors. It doesn't flinch, and it doesn't candy coat things. At the same time, it is a successful suspense as well. So I encourage you to read it and think about it.

This book was tough to stomach for me with graphic scenes of war, miscarriage, and animal cruelty. And it’s one of those infuriating psychological thrillers where the main characters keep getting drunk when they need to keep their thoughts straight. I’ve had it on my TBR forever and I kinda wish I had just gotten rid of it, but I guess the twist at the end was worth powering through.

My Sister’s Bones was one of those reads where you’re glad you have a safe job to go to every day and don’t put your life on the line. At times, reading about the characters time in Syria and the death she encountered made the story hard to read. The book was an ok read and I will look out for future work by Nualla Ellwood. 3 stars

The cover of the copy I read has a blurb from the Observer that My Sister's Bones is like the Girl on the Train but more substantive and I think that's a pretty accurate summary.

A little slow to begin but it does have a twist at the end. 👍

I won this as part of a Goodreads giveaway and I'm really glad I did. This book had a slower start, but after the first half I couldn't put it down.

It was a look into a seriously dysfunctional family combined with PTSD and I can't say much beyond that without giving away the plot.