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The Skeleton Key
On sale
1st September 2022
Price: £9.99
*** THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER 2023 and TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 2023 ***
A TIMES, OBSERVER, DAILY MAIL and LITERARY REVIEW BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022: ‘Flawless’ SUNDAY TIMES *** ‘A rich and fascinating puzzle’ MAIL ON SUNDAY *** ‘I completely lost myself to this book for a few days’ LUCY FOLEY *** ‘A deliciously involving page turner’ GUARDIAN
Summer, 2021. Nell has come home at her family’s insistence to celebrate an anniversary. Fifty years ago, her father wrote The Golden Bones. Part picture book, part treasure hunt, Sir Frank Churcher created a fairy story about Elinore, a murdered woman whose skeleton was scattered all over England. Clues and puzzles in the pages of The Golden Bones led readers to seven sites where jewels were buried: one by one, the tiny golden bones were dug up until only Elinore’s pelvis remained hidden.
The book was a sensation. A community of treasure hunters called the Bonehunters formed, in frenzied competition, obsessed to a dangerous, murderous degree. The book made Frank a rich man. Stalked by fans who could not tell fantasy from reality, his daughter, Nell, became a recluse.
But now the Churchers must be reunited. The book is being reissued along with a new treasure hunt and a documentary crew are charting everything that follows. Nell is appalled, and terrified. During the filming, Frank finally reveals the whereabouts of the missing golden bone. And then all hell breaks loose.
Inspired by the author’s love for Masquerade, this is a taut, mesmerising novel of danger and obsession.
‘The ultimate entertaining thriller’ EVENING STANDARD
‘With rich characterisation and intricate yet propulsive plotting’ GUARDIAN
‘Sparks the most intense of emotions’ THE TIMES *THRILLER OF THE MONTH*
‘A gorgeously intricate puzzle of a book’ THE OBSERVER
‘Pacy, brilliantly plotted, and full of complex characters and relationships’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
‘A dark treasure hunt, family secrets and plot twists’ STYLIST ONLINE
‘There’s layer upon layer of mystery in this frankly brilliant read’ BELFAST TELEGRAPH
‘Moody, propulsive, and one of the most intriguing set ups I’ve read in years’ GILLIAN McALLISTER
‘Original, suspenseful, and with complex characters that spring irresistibly to life on the page’ LOUISE CANDLISH
‘Twisted family dynamics and toxic, compelling characters’ RUTH WARE
‘Scary, moving and compelling: a beautifully-plotted, gorgeously-written triumph of a thriller’ NICCI FRENCH
‘A completely addictive story of two families destroyed by success’ JANE CASEY
PRE-ORDER THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS, available Spring 2024, NOW!
A TIMES, OBSERVER, DAILY MAIL and LITERARY REVIEW BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022: ‘Flawless’ SUNDAY TIMES *** ‘A rich and fascinating puzzle’ MAIL ON SUNDAY *** ‘I completely lost myself to this book for a few days’ LUCY FOLEY *** ‘A deliciously involving page turner’ GUARDIAN
Summer, 2021. Nell has come home at her family’s insistence to celebrate an anniversary. Fifty years ago, her father wrote The Golden Bones. Part picture book, part treasure hunt, Sir Frank Churcher created a fairy story about Elinore, a murdered woman whose skeleton was scattered all over England. Clues and puzzles in the pages of The Golden Bones led readers to seven sites where jewels were buried: one by one, the tiny golden bones were dug up until only Elinore’s pelvis remained hidden.
The book was a sensation. A community of treasure hunters called the Bonehunters formed, in frenzied competition, obsessed to a dangerous, murderous degree. The book made Frank a rich man. Stalked by fans who could not tell fantasy from reality, his daughter, Nell, became a recluse.
But now the Churchers must be reunited. The book is being reissued along with a new treasure hunt and a documentary crew are charting everything that follows. Nell is appalled, and terrified. During the filming, Frank finally reveals the whereabouts of the missing golden bone. And then all hell breaks loose.
Inspired by the author’s love for Masquerade, this is a taut, mesmerising novel of danger and obsession.
‘The ultimate entertaining thriller’ EVENING STANDARD
‘With rich characterisation and intricate yet propulsive plotting’ GUARDIAN
‘Sparks the most intense of emotions’ THE TIMES *THRILLER OF THE MONTH*
‘A gorgeously intricate puzzle of a book’ THE OBSERVER
‘Pacy, brilliantly plotted, and full of complex characters and relationships’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
‘A dark treasure hunt, family secrets and plot twists’ STYLIST ONLINE
‘There’s layer upon layer of mystery in this frankly brilliant read’ BELFAST TELEGRAPH
‘Moody, propulsive, and one of the most intriguing set ups I’ve read in years’ GILLIAN McALLISTER
‘Original, suspenseful, and with complex characters that spring irresistibly to life on the page’ LOUISE CANDLISH
‘Twisted family dynamics and toxic, compelling characters’ RUTH WARE
‘Scary, moving and compelling: a beautifully-plotted, gorgeously-written triumph of a thriller’ NICCI FRENCH
‘A completely addictive story of two families destroyed by success’ JANE CASEY
PRE-ORDER THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS, available Spring 2024, NOW!
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Reviews
A blisteringly good read. I simply couldn't put it down
A dark treasure hunt, family secrets and plot twists . . . An excellent reminder of why we love reading
A deliciously involving page turner about art, ambition, toxic families and the perils of success, with meaty characters and long-kept secrets galore
A twisted treasure hunt with a fatal family secret at its heart. Powerful, playful and deeply disturbing. I loved it
A unique storyteller; impossible to predict, impossible to put down
Fascinatingly original
Imaginative, vivid, TOTALLY engrossing . . . I couldn't put it down
Scary, eerie, moving and compelling: a beautifully-plotted, gorgeously-written triumph of a thriller
A highly imaginative time-slip novel about vanity, arrogance, murder and deceit . . . Highly entertaining, in spite of the vividly described distress of many of the characters, this is an excellent psychological thriller
A rich and fascinating puzzle
A richly imagined, multi-layered story, asking some though-provoking questions about family, art and privilege along the way
A feat of real ambition and imagination - original, suspenseful, and with complex characters that spring irresistibly to life on the page, this is Erin Kelly at her finest
Although this is the kind of dark and twisted thriller we've come to expect from Erin Kelly, The Skeleton Key is also a delicious deep dive into the secrets and grievances of one of the most dysfunctional families you're ever likely to meet
An intricately plotted thriller, full of detail and invention, with impeccably realised settings and characters as monstrous as they are believable. Above all it is a completely addictive story of two families destroyed by success. Erin Kelly is a genius
An intricate book within a book, a two-family saga set across different timelines, multi-layered and with subplots galore, it is imaginative, intriguing and absorbing
By turns a dysfunctional family drama and a deliciously sinister thriller
Erin Kelly excels at twisted family dynamics and toxic, compelling characters, and this glorious slice of bohemian gothic showcases all her strengths
Erin Kelly is a key practitioner of rigorous psychological crime, and The Skeleton Key is well up to par . . . Kelly's customary aptitude with different time frames adds finesse to a forceful scenario
Every autumn needs a gothic mystery and this one is a twisty turny treat. Right up there with Kelly's bestselling debut The Poison Tree
Gloriously gothic - a richly layered, utterly compulsive read. I completely lost myself to this book for a few days. This is Erin Kelly at the height of her powers
Her skills for domestic tensions and elegant writing come to the fore . . . The story that is unveiled criss-crosses the years, and intricately unveils the tensions in the author's household and its terrible consequences in a slow burn of a story that grips hard with its tragic inevitability in which no one is to be trusted
I adored this novel. Treasure hunts, an old book, puzzles & clues, and bone hunters. What more could you want? Gothic, complex, character-driven, addictive and intense. The PERFECT bookclub thriller for 2022
Kelly's deftly etched depiction of human relations shows how our nearest and dearest often spark in us the most intense of emotions
Kelly's realisation of periods stretching back to the 1960s is flawless, and her saga of sex, art, fame, money, egos and damaged children is intriguing, but it's the psychological thriller strand centred on Frank's daughter Nell that makes it moreish
Like all Kelly's novels, it's pacy, brilliantly plotted, and full of complex characters and relationships . . . One of my favourite writers is back with a gripping thriller about two families connected by a devastating secret
Moody, propulsive, and one of the most intriguing set ups I've read in years. Erin Kelly doesn't put a foot wrong in this atmospheric, original thriller
Spearheading a new wave of Succession-esque fractured family tales . . . Erin Kelly's The Skeleton Key is the ultimate entertaining thriller
Stands head and shoulders above the rest, for its originality, its ingenuity and its sumptuous realisation of an intensely problematic family . . . A gorgeously intricate puzzle of a book
Such a clever, intriguing read . . . There's layer upon layer of mystery in this frankly brilliant read
This imaginative novel is a gripping read, full of gothic suspense
A delight, particularly the descriptions of Nell's eccentric and utterly dysfunctional family
Finely crafted . . . Moving and moreish
A twisty, inventive psychological crime novel
a compelling story of fame, toxic families and the enduring power of love