This is the second book in the Bone Collector series, and wow, the thrill and creepiness factor just carried over from the first book. The whole time I read it, I felt unsettled and thought Brian is going to jump at me from the pages! Wow, what a thrilling read. Super highly recommended.

A thrilling read which kept me turning the pages, characters you care for and just brilliantly written. Great novel!!

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I finished this book a few weeks ago but I still remember how well written and gripping it was. The Bone Man is back and as creepy as ever.

The Collector by Fiona Cummins, this is the second novel in this series but it can be read as a stand alone there is enough background information to make this story flow and flow it does. We get various point of views in this story which makes it a bit more interesting, this was kind of hard to read as the victims of the serial killer in this story is a collector of deformities (other peoples) that being said this is definitely an interesting read! Thanks to Netgalley and Kensington Publishing for an ARC.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Kensington Books, Pinnacle and the author, Fiona Cummins, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of The Collector in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I have to admit, I'm not a fan of this book. I had a lot of trouble maintaining interest in the storyline as well as the characters. Not a book for me.

Princess Fuzzypants here: This is a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering which way the story is going to turn. There is a horrible serial killer who fancies himself a collector of deformed bones. He is following in his family’s tradition and while he has no natural son, he picks a troubled youth to be his heir and successor. He has escaped police custody. His family “collection” has been destroyed and he blames the policewoman who caught him for his downfall. So as he attempts to restart his “career” under an alias, he cannot let go of the past. He wants to finish off one child whom he abducted before his capture and to reclaim the child who escaped.
It is all very dark and tense and terrifying. The children with the deformities are more normal than the wounded and damaged “normal” adults. It seems everyone is battling their own demons and it is the children who show the greatest resilience and courage. But right to the end, the reader does not know if the collector has found his heir apparent or if the teenager will find compassion for the victims. It is pins and needles right down to the crunch.
If your nerves can handle a thriller that thrills, this is an excellant read. Be prepared for an exiting and gritty ride.
Four purrs and two paws up.

The Collector by Fiona Cummins is the 2nd in the Bone Collector series starring Detective Sergeant Etta Fitzroy.

Loving this Series!!!

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Kensington Books/Pinnacle, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Series Background:   (Warning – May contain spoilers from previous books)
Etta Fitzroy is trying to balance home and work. Etta still mourns the loss of her still-born baby boy. She is now separated from her husband, who wouldn’t consider the thought of having children. She is finally working on her relationship with her sister, and her new nephew. Her father, not so much. No matter what Etta does, even follow in her father’s footsteps, it has never been enough. She still hears his condescending voice. So she does what she does best…throws herself into her job. Unfortunately, she is still searching for Brian Howley, aka The Bone Collector, a serial killer who targets those with bone disabilities. Etta still hasn’t found 5 year old Clara either. Clara has cleft hands.

My Synopsis:
Brian Howley, The Bone Collector , who is now calling himself Mr. Silver, has moved to the seashore…to be near the boy that got away. He wants to start a new collection, and he is already considering a couple of likely candidates. He also wants to pass his legacy on, and has an apprentice in mind. But in the back of his mind, his hatred for DS Etta Fitzroy, rages on. She destroyed his last collection and took him into custody, and for that she will pay. He starts to taunt her with clues.

Jakey Frith, a 6 year-old with a devastating bone disorder, moved from London with his family for a fresh start. Unfortunately, the nightmares have followed Jakey, and now he is sure that he saw his nightmare come true outside his window. Maybe if the bad man is here, so is Clara. Jakey is sure she is still alive, and intends to find her.

Sixteen year-old Saul Anguish has had a rough life. He has been looking after his alcoholic mother since his abusive father is no longer around. He is also trying to get through school, keep his girlfriend happy, keep a part-time job, and put food on the table. Hard done-by, he seems perfect to Mr. Silver, but Saul has a secret or two himself.

DS Etta Fitzroy also has a secret. When she is given a new partner, she isn’t sure about DC Toni Storm. But when her instincts lead her to a seaside town to check out the case of a missing woman with a facial deformity, she finds her new partner to be a definite asset.

My Opinions:  
First, you simply must read the first book in the series (Rattle) before attempting this one. I can’t Imagine not knowing the full background.

These books are a bit disturbing, a bit creepy, and rather chilling. In other words, my type of series!

The author is definitely making a name for herself. This series is a mix of suspense, mystery, thriller and a touch of horror. It has everything you need. It is a fast read due to the non-stop action and suspense. One of those books I couldn’t put down. The writing is great, the characters depth, the plot twisty, and this reader wants MORE!

Spannend bis zum buchstäblichen Ende mit einem gruseligen Höhepunkt... wenn der Meister noch nicht das Ende der Dinge ist.

In Fiona Cummins's The Collector, the second installment in the Bone Collector series, this bone-chilling thriller with leave you on the seat. This novel picks up where it left off from the debut of Rattle. For DI Etta Fitzroy, she's the lead inspector for the Metropolitan Police at the Leigh-on-the-Sea, England. It all started where five-year-old Clara Foyle have been missing since her abduction. And she wasn't an ordinary child. She was born with cleft hands. And that's something that the Bone Collector aka Brian Howley loves to collect, children with bone deformities. While the hunt is on for Etta to find Clara, she's teamed up with DI Antonia Storm as her new partner in the investigation. But for Saul Anguish, a teenager who has a crush on Cassidy Cranston, he's been a victim of a domestic household when his father had gone missing, and his mother Gloria isn't a good role model for him. But when he worked at the pet store, he befriends a man named Mr. Silver, who wanted him to be his "son" and groom him for his kidnapped kills. And when Etta learns about Sunday Cranston's disappearance, it hits closer to home that the Collector was back to collect more deformed children as his specimens for experimentation. While Saul gets closer to know the truth about him, he has a plan to save Clara and have a plan to take down the killer as we do get to know more about Howley's background in flashbacks of his upbringings. In a race against time, it's up to Etta to stop the killer end in his serial killing reign for good.

Fiona Cummins is a must read author. Her books are well researched, interesting, and hard to put down.
I especially enjoyed "The Collector" for it's unusual premise and resolution. Highly recommended.

This is the 2nd book in the series and I would definitely recommend reading them in order because it picks up pretty much where the 1st book ended. I was expecting this to be more police procedural but the story is more from the killer and victims POVs. We actually see very little of Fitzroy.

Overall the story is creepy and intriguing. Unfortunately, I just didn’t find myself itching to get back to it. It wasn’t really one of those books I’m desperate to read. There is very little character development and the only characters I actually cared about were Jakey and Clara. Although I was intrigued by Saul. It also switches POV a lot without being particularly clear.

I found the apprentice storyline wasn’t particularly believable. Would a serial killer really take on a teenage boy he hasn’t known long to be his heir? Then he expects him to fully welcome the gruesome lifestyle in just a couple of days.

All in all, this isn’t a bad book and I’m not really sure what it was that I didn’t love but it’s not one that’s going to make it to my favourites.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review

Brian Howley (The Bone Collector) a.k.a Mr. Silver is definitely a twisted, deranged killer. After having his collection taken from him when he caught and subsequently making his escape from the police Mr. Silver is now on the run and looking to start a new collection. Yet for all his morbid plans I spent much of this book waiting for him to actually behave like a deranged killer. He spent much of the book formulating plans and making preparation for the "grooming" of an heir to his collection. Unfortunately, I found this a bit lackluster at times.

Enter Saul, an intelligent teenage boy with a horrible home life and some secrets of his own. He looks like the perfect target for Mr. Silver. I have to say I truly enjoyed Saul's complex character. He has his own demons to face daily and Cummins did an amazing job of showing us his inner turmoil. He was well developed and by far my favorite character. His push and pull with Mr. Silver was a driving force of the plot and definitely what kept me reading to the end. I wanted to know what he would do. I had to find out what would become of Saul.

This wasn't a bad read by any means. I think I personally just anticipated something a bit more bone chillingly thrilling and sinister so it was a bit of a let down in that sense. I am happy to have been introduced to Saul's character and was left harboring hope that we might see him in future books.

EXCERPT: Detective Sergeant Etta Fitzroy. Her name rolls across his tongue. He conjures up her face, the opposing colors of her eyes. An eye for an eye. His fingers twitch.

Seven bones surround the orbital cavity. He wonders if they will splinter and break when he presses her eye from its socket.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: The Collector by Fiona Cummins is the gripping sequel to Rattle.

Jakey escaped with his life and moved to a new town. His rescue was a miracle but his parents know that the Collector is still out there, watching, waiting…

Clara, the girl he left behind, is clinging to the hope that someone will come and save her.

Life has fallen apart for Clara's mother as she starts to lose hope.

The Bone Collector has a new apprentice to take over his family's legacy. But he can't forget the boy who got away and the detective who had destroyed his dreams.

Detective Etta Fitzroy's life collapsed when the Collector escaped. With Clara still missing, and a new wave of uncannily similar murders beginning, will she be able to find him again?

The Collector is back and this time he has nothing to lose . . .

MY THOUGHTS: I was left breathless. I basically read The Collector in one sitting, interrupted only by the hours I was at work, and even then I read in my breaks.

I went cold into The Collector. I had not read Rattle. I had it on order, hoping to read it before I started The Collector. But I was almost finished before Rattle arrived. Not to worry. There was enough background information to give the reader some idea of what had happened, but not so much as to spoil it for those of us reading the first book after the second. Rattle is sitting on my bedside table ready to go.

The Collector is extremely well written. It is dark and deliciously creepy. I recommend you read it with all the lights on, and doors and windows locked. The author generates, then maintains, a high level of suspense. There is not one extraneous word in the book. The chapters are short and to the point. The characters are well crafted, their back stories cleverly woven into the fabric of the plot.

I am looking forward to more from this author. In the meantime, I have thrown my reading schedule out the window and am off to be Rattled!

😨😨😨😨😨 Definitely in my top ten books of 2018.

THE AUTHOR: Fiona Cummins is an award-winning former Daily Mirror showbusiness journalist and a graduate of the Faber Academy Writing A Novel course. She lives in Essex with her family. Rattle is her first novel.

DISCLOSURE: A huge and heartfelt 'thank you' to Kensington Books via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Collector by Fiona Cummins for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

The second of a pair of books (the first one is Rattle) about a deranged serial killer who calls himself The Collector, this one picks up apparently right after the first leaves off. First thing I have to say is that I haven’t read Rattle, but I do think you can get away with reading this one as a standalone as everything is well covered without infodumping and Fiona Cummins does a fantastic job of deep-diving into character psyches.

The Collector is obsessed with the physical deformations which can arise in the human skeleton, to the point where he needs to add them to his ‘collection’... after killing them. A little girl with cleft hands is next on his list, and a young boy with Stone Man Syndrome, who is definitely the bravest person in this story. Little Jakey faces his fate, sooner or later, with a strength most of us could only dream of.

All the characters in the story are superbly written, from the tragic young woman with facial deformities who becomes just another of The Collector’s victims to the parents of the children, dealing with trauma and shock in addition to being the parent of a child with a disability.

Fiona Cummins has not only written a darkly terrifying villain, but also masterfully woven together a whole group of different stories from vastly different characters to build up to a stunning climax. Seriously, this is worthy of one of the greats of the genre like Thomas Harris; and not only has Cummins done this, but she has written disabled protagonists with realism and sympathy, portraying not only their struggles but also their courage and them as people, as well as the emotions of their families.

This is such a good read. I’m really looking forward to seeing what this author comes up with next, because she really writes a ripper of a crime thriller! Five stars.

Detective Fitzroy is determined to capture The Bone Collector. She missed him previously and she will not let it happen a second time. Now, if she can only find him in time to save Clara. Clara has been kidnapped by The Bone Collector and time is running out. Detective Fitzroy knows she must step up her game to win this war!

The Bone Collector is enlisting some help. He has found him a young apprentice. He is planning on using this new apprentice to lure Jakey back into his web. Then there is Clara. She has been alive too long. She has to be dealt with soon.

I have not read the first book in this series. I would recommend reading it first. I would have understood Jakey’s plight a little sooner. It took me several pages to figure out…he was the one that got away.

This tale started out fairly slow. I almost bailed. But then it picked up and turned into pretty fantastic read. Once the anticipation kicks in, this novel becomes riveting. Not sure I want to ever encounter the pure evil of the Bone Collector —-SHIVER!

I received this novel from Macmillan Publishing via Netgalley for a honest review

Let me being with the disclaimer that I have NOT read the first book. And honestly, after reading this one, I don't feel like I needed to. There is enough backstory woven in to this one that it was easy to understand what motivated these people. I can even praise the fact that this story moved at a very steady pace.

However. I just never got into it.

To begin with the points of view changed in such a way that it was sometimes hard to figure out who you were reading. I found myself having to go back and re-read sections to figure it out. This is a story that has been published before, and to be honest, the original synopsis was better than this one.

My main problems with this story was not only the implausible story-lines but the seeming lack of real character development, and characters acting well, completely out of character as well.

Instead of being the main character I expected DS Fitzroy to be, she more or less faded into the background. Then you expect me to believe that someone as cunning as the Collector is going to pick a random TEENAGER to "mold in his image"? Get out of here! There is no way someone like Howely would ever bring another person into his inner circle. I also found it hard to believe that Jakey's parents wouldn't have listened to their son when he told them that Ol' Bloody Bones was back.

Overall this story had the potential to be amazing. Instead it was a seemingly thrown together mishmash of characters and stories that just fell apart.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

The Collector by Fiona Cummins continues the story of the "Bone Collector" introduced in a previous novel which I haven't read. Brian Howley (the Night Man/Mr. Silver/the Collector) is a serial killer, and not just a serial killer, but one who collects physical anomalies.

Ok. Evil serial killer thinks he has found an apprentice and an heir who will help him recapture the six-year-old boy who got away and who will appreciate his murders and fetish-like collection of oddities.

Young Saul Anguish (how's that for a name?) is an intriguing character, but it seems far-fetched to believe Howley could target a teenager and groom him as an apprentice in such a short time.

Saul has enough emotional and personal problems to make the corruption possible, but he does have a sense of right and wrong despite the complications in his life--and to pervert him completely in two or three days created a problem for me. Brian Howley's father had years to make his son, a captive audience, into a serial killer, so expecting a teenager to be converted overnight is a bit much to ask.

Strangely, the detective Etta Fizgerald, the protagonist of the first book, has a relatively small presence. She's important, but she doesn't have that much time in the plot. The children, Jakey and Clara, are sympathetically rendered.

The book had a lot of possibilities to be something more, but makes the bizarre and gruesome the main interest. (I just looked at the reviews on Goodreads, and they are all very positive. However, I'm not a fan of making grisly and macabre the basis of a plot.)

NetGalley/Kensington Books
Serial Killer. Dec. 18, 2018. Print length: 400 pages.

I will be honest I wasn't a fan of the first book in the series I found the story telling basic as well as the characters very flat.
I decided to try Finoa Cummins one more and I have to say I like this book better. The author created it as a stand a lone story for readers just starting the series. The characters had a little more dept, the story was more detailed and had me excited to read. The story is slow once again but it was used to create the world and the characters and less details that were useless.
The author uses different points of review that help readers understand the who why where when and how.
I think fans of the series Bones will find this series someone they cam sink there teeth into.
Thank you Netgalley and the Publisher for the advance copy of Fiona Cummin The Collector.

This is book two in the Bone Collector series by Fiona Cummins and it can be read as a stand alone. It was very dark and chilling, filled with tension and quite a chilling read. Fans of creepy thrillers will love this book and I would recommend it to lovers of the genre. A very talented author who gets right into the mind of a twisted killer. Thanks to Net Galley for my copy. Reviews on Goodreads and Facebook.

The Collector is a gripping, horrifying, and spellbinding read. Cummins has hit it out of the park with this one!