'Long ago Miren O'Malley's family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer: safety for their ships in return for a child of each generation. But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and have fallen into decline. Miren's grandmother is determined to restore their glory, even at the price of Miren's freedom.
'A spellbinding tale of dark family secrets, magic and witches, and creatures of myth and the sea; of strong women and the men who seek to control them.'
Mermaids, kelpies, and ghosts, oh my! All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter is the latest fantasy book to be released by Titan Books, and is full of dark and Gothic atmosphere.
The book tells the tale of Miren O'Malley, a young woman who's grown up in the sheltered confines of Hobs Hallow, the ancestral home of her family, the once rich and powerful O'Malley's. When the family was young they commanded fear and respect, their vast wealth and fierceness making them one of the strongest groups around; but over the years their bloodline has dwindled, and with it their fortunes.
Miren is the 'last' O'Malley, the last member of the family born with the name, and the strongest claim to the blood. Over the centuries the family has expanded and the bloodline diluted, and whilst there are many who can trace their family back to the O'Malley's, Miren is the last of them. With her parents dead, she's been raised by her fierce and at times uncaring grandparents, but when her grandfather dies it begins to unravel things.
With their debts mounting and their home falling into disrepair her grandmother, Aoife, hatches a plan. Miren is set to marry her cousin, Aidan Fitzpatrick, a rich merchant who has promised to clear the O'Malley debts and restore the family to a position of power. The only problem is, Miren doesn't want to marry Aidan.
The initial set up to All The Murmuring Bones is an intriguing one, and readers are introduced to this ancient family when they're at their lowest point. Once commanding great power, able to oppose the will of even the church, the family is a shadow of what it once was. Despite this, we see some of the greatness they used to have in Aoife, an imposing woman who still acts like she power and position to command anything.
Despite having grown up under her influence, Miren is very much unlike her grandmother, and is used to the somewhat simple life she has. She doesn't crave power, or want the finest things, and sees the last remaining servants at Hobs Hallow as friends, if not family. She's a kind and decent person despite the things she's been through; and because of this those around her consider her weak, an easy pawn in their games.
This is one of the things that I really loved about Miren, the fact that at the beginning of the book people like Aoife and Aidan believe that they can do whatever they want, that they can force Miren to be anything they want, but are so wrong. The readers quickly get to discover that there's a whole lot more to Miren than we first realise; and it's little surprise considering the woman who raised her. Miren knows when to fight, when to deceive, and when if necessary strike out at others. She has a strength that she likes to keep hidden, one that makes her dangerous.
When events begin to spiral out of her control we begin to see this power that she has when she confronts her grandmother, when she defies Aidan. We see the defiance that lies beneath the surface, the woman who has learnt from her grandmother to never be a pawn in another's game, and who chooses to take matters into her own hands. Unfortunately, she's never fully in control, and when Aoife is killed and she's trapped in her home with her future husband she takes the only course of action she can, fleeing.
This is when the book takes a very different turn, as Aoife sets out to track down her parents, who she has discovered never actually died. From here the book becomes a story about her journey, and the dangers that she encounters on the way. Not only is this one of the more exciting parts of the book, and further continues to show the strength that Miren has, but has some incredible world building in it too.
We'd had hints of this before this, of some of the creatures that inhabit this world, but it's not until Miren sets out to find her family that we really get a sense of the kinds of creatures that are out there. Mermaids, kelpies, ghosts, and the undead are just some of the creatures that she encounters on her journey.
There's a constant sense that we're only ever seeing the very surface of what this world has to offer, that there's a lot ore hiding in the shadows, just out of sight. Thanks to the things that Miren comes across, and the stories she tells along the way, we get a bit of a hint of just how frightening this world is. But it's not this that does the most world building, but the fairytales we hear along the way. Occasionally recounted by Miren to others, and other times simply remembered from her childhood, we get to see glimpses into the dark and twisted tales that she grew up with.
Where other books are happy to let readers discover things as they are encountered, or perhaps offer reams of background information and expository narrative All The Murmuring Bones takes a different, much more interesting approach. By showing us the stories that Miren, and others, grew up with we're seeing not just the kinds of things that inhabit this world, but the way people there are raised. They grow up hearing these stories, learning about these creatures. It's no surprise then that it feel like a much darker and more dangerous place, where everyone seems to be on their guard; it's because they've been raised since childhood to fear what lurks in the waters, the forests, and the dark corners of the world. The casual way that we learn there's a kingdom of vampires in a neighbouring country isn't even shocking come that point, because of course there are places like that in this world, where the dead and the monstrous rule all.
I adored the way that Slatter interwove these moments of history with the narrative, and it meant that you never knew what was coming next, or what was important. Were these simply stories being told to pass the time, to reflect on this history of this world, or were these things that Miren was going to encounter and have to deal with? The book always managed to keep me guessing what was coming next, and the fact that by the time Miren manages to find the village where her parents settled there was still a good chunk of the book left took me by surprise. I was so sure that the book was going to be about her journey, the adventures she had on the road, that I never expected that there was going to be so much more to it than that; and that the dangers and mysteries had only really just began.
All The Murmuring Bones managed to pack in a ton of content, it wove a story that kept evolving and changing, yet never felt too ridiculous or far removed from what came before it. We got to know an incredibly strong and interesting female lead who demonstrated a variety of guises over the course of the story, who was able to demonstrate all of her strengths and prove that she was more than worthy of being a hero to aspire to be. It was a book that I was sad to see finish, because I'd come to love every moment of it.
Check back later today to read my interview with Angela Slatter.
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