Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Widow's Bay meets Haunting Adeline in this standalone dark gothic horror romance from the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of Blood Orange, Grave Matter and Realm of Thieves.
When Iris Galloway inherits her great-aunt's cottage on a remote Scottish loch, the terms are live there one year, and it's hers.
She doesn't know about the disappearances yet, nor does she know about the handsome man who swims in the loch at night, who watches her cottage from the dark water, and who appears at her door very wet, very naked, and asking to come in.
Meanwhile, the locals warn her about a murderer on the loose, the police are in over their heads, and her aunt's letters say to keep the salt lines around the house and the doors locked after sundown.
And never, ever invite him inside.
But Iris has spent her whole life being careful.
And this wicked stranger is going to ruin her for it.
Bonetide is a dark gothic romance that’s tinged with horror. While this book starts off almost like a cozy gothic mystery, it does pivot later into darker territory. Which also gets a little weird. If you’re here for the cozy, know that it doesn’t stay cozy. If you’re here for the dark romance, know that it’s coming. Please see inside the book or author's website for the content warnings.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Playlist
Below are some songs that I either listened to while writing or songs that encompass the vibes of the book.
“Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn” - The White Stripes
“DNA” - The Kills
“Soothe My Soul” - Depeche Mode
“Initiation” - +++(Crosses)
“Castle” - Halsey
“Loverman” - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
“Fortress” - Queens of the Stone Age
“Vivien” - +++(Crosses)
“Kraken” - Florence & The Machine
“Bells in Santa Fe” - Halsey
“Ghost Ride” - +++(Crosses)
“Don’t Say You Love Me” - Depeche Mode
“Into the Void” - NIN
“Before We Drown” - Depeche Mode
“Drag Me Under” - Sleep Token
“La Mer” - NIN
Prologue
She comes in the late afternoon, in a dark jacket too thin for the weather, dragging a suitcase that catches every uneven stone on the path. She’s not alone, she has the solicitor with her—a portly man who smiles too much. It’s a smile that most give around these parts, nervous and wary, as if they believe all the sordid tales that abound in this region but don’t want others to know.
I’m used to those looks and those smiles.
They no longer bother me, if they ever did.
I’ve been waiting such a long time.
Neither of them can see me. I’m across the water—half in shadow—and she’s still looking at the cottage as if she can’t believe her eyes, perhaps thinking it’s bigger or smaller, more well-kept or less well-kept than she thought. Her hair is darker and longer than her great-aunt’s was, her face shaped like a doll, but there is something of the old woman in the line of her jaw. A stubbornness. A way of standing as if she is alone in the world and has decided that is fine.
I knew Eufemia Galloway for a long time. I know that jaw.
The new one, the one the people in town called Iris when I was last eavesdropping, sets her suitcase on the step and looks behind her at the solicitor. He had been standing there staring at the loch with a look on his face one can only describe as frozen, his mind perhaps torturing him with stories of the drowned wives. Then he snaps to it and hands Iris a key which she accepts with some reverence. It makes me glad to see that she already respects the cottage.
She fits the old key into the lock. She has to lean her weight into it. The door has always been stiff. Then she is inside, and I lose her to the windows for a while, only her shape moving room to room as she opens curtains and cupboards, learning the bones of the place that is now hers.
She comes back out at dusk—the solicitor long gone—and stands at the edge of the water with her arms wrapped around herself.
Now I let her see me.
Not all of me, though—not at first. Just enough that I’m a mere shape across the bay where there was nothing before. A stillness in the dark that her eye catches and holds. I watch her register me. I watch her go very, very still in the way a rabbit does when they know they’re being watched; that primal instinct that knows before the mind does.
Like the rabbit, she does not run unless she has to. I won’t give her a reason yet.
I want her in a way that will terrify her. I want my mouth on the soft place beneath her ear where the pulse runs close to the skin. I want to know what sounds she makes when she is afraid, and what sounds she makes when she is not. I want her on her knees in the salt grass with her hands fisted in my shirt, telling me to stay. I want—and this is the older want, the patient one, the one I have nursed through every long winter on this loch—to take her apart slowly, in the way only she will let me.