Quiet in Her Bones by Nalini Singh is reviewed in the April 2021 issue of Gumshoe Review and is exclusive to them until May 1st, 2021. You may read the review at this link <http://www.gumshoereview.com/php/Review-id.php?id=6750>.

In this chilling mystery, a novelist investigates his mother's disappearance and death but he's hampered by cognitive difficulties and confusion as he's simultaneously recovering from a serious car accident that damaged his body and mind. Recent events aren't the only things that elude the narrator. He's also missing crucial memories and some of the gaps leave him with a hole in his sense of his self and what he's capable of (reminiscent of The Witch Elm by Tana French). As a result, the main character, who's also the narrator, is as much of a mystery as what happened to his mother. And his account is inherently unreliable, which enhances the suspense. Nalini Singh is a master storyteller who excels at character building as much as plot and at creating an indelible portrait of a fascinating New Zealand community.

I adore Nalini Singh. If she writes it I will read it. I read [book:A Madness of Sunshine|44525771] her first thriller and it was good. This book was better!

After a sever car crash, best selling thriller writer Aarav is stuck in the rich neighborhood where he grew up and his mother disappeared from 10 years ago. When her body is found, Aarav is determined to find her killer. He will go to any lengths to figure out who from the neighborhood is responsible and nothing will get in his way, even if it costs him is mind.

I got sucked into the mystery pretty fast. There are all these things happening in the neighborhood, some of them are connected to Nina's disappearance but most of them are not quite what they seem. Aarav's whole goal is to figure out who killed his mother and as his behavior becomes more erratic and he figures out his memory may not be reliable and that maybe things aren't what they seem. There are lots of side ways that get explored as Aarav searches for the truth.

The characters are multilayered and finding out what is going on with each was them was interesting. My favorite character was actually Aarav's little sister Pari. She is just precious. I also liked his step mom.

I had theories about who and why and how and I just had to know. This was a really good twisty read.

A fulminating cul-de-sac holds secrets long after the night young Aarav hears his mother’s scream and sees her car’s taillights disappearing into the stormy night many years before. Unlike what has been assumed, Nina Rai didn’t run away with a quarter million of her husband’s money, instead, her bones and car are found in the dense forest growth not far from her own home and her son is determined to get to the truth no matter how twisted it is.

Quiet in Her Bones is a standalone domestic thriller and a cold case mystery that focuses on those who knew the dead woman well as the police investigate in the background. The point of view is entirely from Aarav Rai, the son of the deceased and he is a quirky not so reliable narrator that falls under reader suspicion as much as anyone else introduced in the story.

There is a large cast of characters with most being the residents of a wealthy bunch of houses on a cul-de-sac outside Auckland. The location is tucked away in a surrounding forest and near the sea on one side so the nearby city could feel miles away. I liked how the author instilled so much atmosphere into the setting so the forest felt downright creepy and that cul-de-sac was full of people who had motive and were all hiding something. Yes, a whole neighborhood that seems sunny and glamorous until one digs under the surface and Aarav grew up there as a quiet, awkward geek so he knows them well. He spies on the neighbors and charms the gossips and those who know things to tell him for his hunt for his mother’s killer.

But, none are any more messed up than Aarav and his own remaining family. As a child he grew up in a dysfunctional household with two people in a toxic marriage. Both parents engaged in infidelity, getting drunk and verbally fighting with the frequent destruction of small objects flung at each other. Nina came from a poor Indian village and was turned into an ornamental wife though she rebels. Her replacement is sweet and biddable and lives for her daughter. Aarav doesn’t like or trust many people, but his dad’s second wife and his half-sister are sweet and he does what he can for them. He is only home because of an injury in a car accident, but usually lives in a plush city condo. He’s a world famous author who should be focused on his next book, but is compelled to get to the truth even though his mind plays tricks on him so he remembers wrong or is missing memories entirely.

The reveal was a shocker and I did not see that coming. I think I pointed the finger at several people and never had a strong feeling that I was onto the right solution. I ended up just settling back and following along as Aarav assembled his facts.

All in all, this latest thriller by Singh was an engaging page-turner that thoroughly satisfied my mystery-loving heart. Great background, character development, and cunning mystery that I can highly recommend.

I rec’d this book from Net Galley to read in exchange for an honest review.

TWENTY Must-Read Books of 2021 that You Need On Your Bookshelf
In 2020, I read a crazy amount of books. I doubt I will ever top the amount I read!

I’m trying to read as much as I can and just plowed through some of the best novels I have ever read. I didn’t think another year could possibly compare, but there is an absolute plethora of books that are SO GOOD coming out now and in the next few months.

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Here are TWENTY books that you will want to read as soon as they are published.

These are books that will entertain, make you think, make you laugh, some will have you biting your nails in suspense. Take a look now and let me know what you will be reading!

12. Quiet in Her Bones by Nalini Singh, perfect if you want a slow burn suspense that quietly unravels.
My mother vanished ten years ago.
So did a quarter of a million dollars in cash.
Thief. Bitch. Criminal.
Now, she’s back.
Her bones clothed in scarlet silk.

When socialite Nina Rai disappeared without a trace, everyone wrote it off as another trophy wife tired of her wealthy husband. But now her bones have turned up in the shadowed green of the forest that surrounds her elite neighborhood, a haven of privilege and secrets that’s housed the same influential families for decades.

The rich live here, along with those whose job it is to make their lives easier. And somebody knows what happened to Nina one rainy night ten years ago. Her son Aarav heard a chilling scream that night, and he’s determined to uncover the ugly truth that lives beneath the moneyed elegance…but no one is ready for the murderous secrets about to crawl out of the dark.

Even the dead aren’t allowed to break the rules in this cul-de-sac.

Out now!

Aarav is the unreliable narrator of this tale. His remembrance of his past, recent past and long ago past (10 years ago), is marked by unexpected memories clouded by personal relationships. The fact that he seems to be taking a variety of prescription drugs (and doesn’t always remember taking them) also adds to possible memory impairment.

Typically, not my favorite type of narrator, I decide to withhold judgement on this untrustworthy storyteller until I had more facts. Because this is a book by Nalini Singh.

The facts came. Bit by bit. Not in any particular type of order unless you count misorder as a type. The back and forth timeline was as untidy as Aarav’s mind. When you add the questionable memories of Aarav, there were times, when I wondered if I had really read what I thought I had read. The psychological ambiguity is what keeps the reader from coming up with a definitive answer until….well, until the answer is presented by the author.

I could not decide whether Aarav was a good guy or bad guy. His dad is a controlling misogynist and mom is/was both a loving mom and selfish. Based on this, how is a boy supposed to grow up? As personalities go, Aarav is not the person I want to hang out with, but he does have a moral center. (Thankfully.) Plus, he has a little sister to protect, so that also adds to the good-guy-ness.

There will be a point in the book when the reader learns why the narrator is so unreliable. Until that time, and even after, anything can happen. Anybody can be the killer.

Through Netgalley, the publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Like Singh’s other mystery this one feels heavier than her other series. It was good and I’ll recommend it to patrons looking for mysteries with family secrets and drama.

Nalini Singh always produces quality reads, her writing is too notch and her characters are always well drawn. With that all said, I have mixed feelings on this book. It was gripping throughout and I couldn’t put it down, however it’s not my favorite book of hers. A madness of sunshine, her previous thriller mystery, was stronger. In In her Bones the mystery is good snd the main character is complicated and an interesting narrorator and his family dynamics were dysfunctionally intriguing. The neighborhood was full of secrets but Singh included way too many characters in an effort to confuse us on who the villain was, but the characters weren’t developed enough that I could keep up and render who was who. It sometimes felt like a game of thrones of Iliad situation, so many people are mentioned and then you’re expected to recall who is who later in the book. It’s one of the aspects that made the story a little frustrating. Nevertheless I was engaged the entire time and couldn’t put it down until I finished it. Not the most satisfying thriller in the world but certainly a good read. I’ll always read everything Singh writes, she creates characters that feel so real that I can’t stop reaching for her books.

This is a fantastic thriller. Singh kees my attention the entire way through. I'm guessing and trying to piece everything together along with the main character. Lots of second-guessing, lots of twists and I just loved it!

Aarav Rai comes from money but, as a famous young murder mystery writer, he has his own millions. He grew up in a wealthy enclave in New Zealand where the dense forest constantly threatens to overtake the manicured lawns, and he finds himself back at home after a major car accident that has left him on crutches and with memory loss and potentially additional brain damage. Throughout the book, both he and his neurologist struggle to determine the edges of that damage.

A remembered scream from the night his mother disappeared ten years ago is the “evidence” he starts with as he looks deeply into the background of the owners in the exclusive cul-de-sac of his home. As he digs deeper, some memories return, others are lost, and the details of what he’s finding swirl and circle around him as his ability to process the information seems to shift. Characterization is a strong element in the book, as each of the cul-de-sac’s residents comes under Aarav’s scrutiny.

This is a tightly plotted thriller and, while the reader might not anticipate the outcome, by the time the resolution becomes clear a careful reader will realize that there have been hints. The internal logic of the mystery makes sense. The beautiful writing about the dense New Zealand forest is evocative, making it entirely realistic that a body could have been hidden for so long.

Some titles and opening words have the power to propel us instantly into an unsolved mystery, as with Nalini Singh’s Quiet in Her Bones:

My mother vanished ten years ago.



So did a quarter of a million dollars in cash.



Thief. Bitch. Criminal.



Now, she’s back.



Her bones clothed in scarlet silk.

Five sentences. A child’s mother has been gone for ten years. Before she left, she took $250,000 in cash out of her estranged husband’s safe. Now her bones have been discovered in New Zealand’s Waitākere Ranges Regional Park. As with Singh’s A Madness of Sunshine, there is a perilously thin membrane between civilization and New Zealand’s primeval forest. Aarav was sixteen when his mother disappeared. One of his last memories illustrates the proximity of the woods to their home. He recalls “her dress silhouetted against the native bush that rose dark green and ancient beyond the flimsy barrier of our fence. As if the forest was watching. Waiting.”

Read: Excerpt of A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh
Aarav is the author of a fabulously successful first novel, a thriller called Blood Sacrifice. After a serious car accident, he is convalescing at his childhood home, an “unhappy place thick with ugly memories.” Unreasonably early, a plainclothes policeman, accompanied by a uniformed cop, “come to the door of my father’s subtly upscale residence of glass and polished wood.” They are there to inform Mr. Ishaan Rai that “the body of a deceased female was discovered” that morning.

“Her identity has yet to be officially verified, and normally, we wouldn’t inform you at the stage—but, given the likely publicity and attendant conjecture, the decision was made to alert you. She had her driver’s license and credit cards with her. All in the name of Nina Rai.”



Time stopped, filled with the sound of a sharp, pained scream.



Even my father seemed stunned into silence, but that never lasted long with him.

Aarav has never forgotten that scream. What happened to her? He must have been suspicious because he spirited away his mother’s hairbrush. Did he know unconsciously that someday the police would need DNA evidence? Aarav is recovering from a brutal car crash, one so medically perilous that he was in a coma for some time. His doctor says, “we’re seeing signs of minor ongoing cognitive deficiency—but before you panic, it’s early days yet. Your brain’s still repairing itself.” Ordinarily, no problem, but Aarav is concerned that his cognitive deficiencies “can affect memories,” and he desperately wants to accurately reconstruct the night his mother disappeared. It’s a clever juxtaposition, Aarav is concurrently attempting to capture what happened the night he crashed his Porsche and his memories of his mother’s disappearance. He had always held out hope against hope that she was alive but now that he knows differently, he is determined to find his mother’s killer. His father blusters that she drove off drunk into the rainy night, but the body of the dead woman was strapped into the passenger seat. If she wasn’t the driver, who was? Who left her there to die alone?

Aarav grew up in the Cul-de-Sac, an exclusive enclave inhabited by rich families who hold their secrets dear. The neighborhood butts up to the looming forest, Aarav’s childhood playground. Is there a touch Murder on the Orient Express to the Cul-de-Sac? So many residents of the neighborhood had an ax to grind with Aarav’s luminous, unforgettable mother. Even ten years later, people who knew Nina speak of her like she was still alive. Memories of his mother, happy and sad, haunt Aarav.

Once, she’d thrown together a pizza from scratch—adding fresh green chilis and crushed garlic because “otherwise it will have no flavor”—and chucked it in the oven. While it cooked, filling the kitchen with scents that made my stomach rumble, we’d played a card game she’d learned as a child.



I’d pretended to be bored, but I’d been . . . happy.



Plain old happy.



“I love you, Ari.” She’d always kissed me on the cheek before I headed off to bed. “Tu hai meri zindaggi. Always remember that.”

What wouldn’t Aarav give to have his mother speaking Hindi to him again? He won’t be happy—or rather content—until he can unlock the mystery of his mother’s death and hand the villain over to the police, wrapped up in a tidy package of motive and proof.

Janet Webb’s Review of A Madness of Sunshine
Quiet in Her Bones is part Bildungsroman, part thriller, all wholly absorbing as Aarav relives the months and days before his mother’s death, while contending with a debilitating brain injury (which may or may not be abetted by persons who want him to stop investigating). Nalini Singh owns this subset of the thriller genre: a pairing of an unsolved crime and a forbidding landscape.

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run



When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun



Long before the white man and long before the wheel



When the green dark forest was too silent to be real



When the green dark forest was too silent to be real



And many are the dead men



Too silent to be real

The concluding lyrics of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” encapsulate the visceral power of New Zealand’s forbidding, mighty Waitākere Ranges forest, a character to be reckoned with in Nalini Singh’s latest tour-de-force.

I'm a big fan of Ms. Singh's Psy-Changeling series and enjoyed her other mystery (A Madness of Sunshine) set in New Zealand, but this was a more difficult read for me. I appreciated the Hindu culture and beautifully written description of New Zealand, but I had a hard-time keeping up with the story-line and felt off center with the many twists and tangents that took me in multiple directions (too many maybe, even for a mystery). Though I did enjoy the surprising ending, which makes this a good mystery to read.

**I received this from Net Galley for review.**

Ten years ago Aarav’s mother disappeared. So did $250,000. For ten years no one knew what had become of her. Then, she is discovered in her car less than five miles from her home and her son is determined to find out what happened to her.

Quiet in Her Bones is a story about the search for the truth. Aarav, a famous novelist, is recovering from an accident and he has come back to his father’s house to heal. When his mother is found, he begins to investigate her death and reconcile what he remembers from that last night. Their neighborhood is rich with suspects and witnesses, as well as many secrets.

Nalini Singh is a talented author and her latest book is well-written. While I enjoyed it, I found the pace to be uneven at times, with many characters flowing in and out of the story. A majority of these characters were unappealing to me and the main character was sometimes a bit irritating as well. Nevertheless, the plot was well-crafted and descriptive, although the ending seemed to be a bit abrupt. All in all, it was a good read, but I had anticipated it to be better.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

This is one of the hardest review to write.

I love the author, her Changeling and Guild Hunter series are some of my most favourite, but although I usually love her writing, I actually struggled with this book. I ended up listening to the audiobook but still couldn't connect with the story. The plot was compelling and well done, but the many sub characters as well as suspects confused me instead of pulling me into the story. I had a hard time keeping track of who was who, and soon after I stopped caring about the overall story. In the end the audiobook became background noise.

Nalini Singh is a true master of her craft. Quiet in Her Bones is deep and thrilling. It will resonate with readers long after they've finished the last page. Will be purchasing for the library's fiction collection.

Oh goodness! I’ll admit, this book was a bit slow to start for me, but once it got going, it really got going.
I’m generally “over” the unreliable narrator trope, but in this case it was done very well, and I had trouble deciding at first whether he was actually even unreliable at all, and why.
I had just as many theories as he did about what happened to his mother, and I didn’t figure it out until he did, which is unusual for me- I typically figure out the “twist” in books fairly early on.
All in all this was a highly enjoyable book and I’d definitely recommend it!

ONE SENTENCE SUMMARY: What happened to socialite Nina Rai who disappeared without a trace one stormy night?

BRIEF REVIEW: Aarav was sixteen years old when his mother Nina disappeared along with $250,000 from a safe in the home. Even though his parents had a rocky marriage, he and his mother had a special bond. Aarav has been obsessed with his mother's disappearance from their wealthy enclave ever since that stormy night a decade earlier. He recalls a few details from the night she disappeared: his parents argued, there was a loud scream and he heard two slams of the front door before her car drove off. Now ten years later, Aarav 26, is a successful thriller author and living back at the family home while recovering from multiple injuries after a car accident. His father, step-mother and half-sister also live in the house. As he is settling in the authorities show up saying they've discovered Nina's car, a green Jaguar, her ID, as well as her bones along with the clothing she wore the night she disappeared. Still obsessed with knowing more about what happened to his mother, he begins his own private investigation.

So what really happened to Nina Rai, a woman who drank too much, had problems in the marriage, engaged in extramarital affairs and had multiple enemies?

This story drew me in early on and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. The New Zealand setting was gorgeous and interesting to read about. Told mostly from Aarav's POV, the problem is is also an unreliable narrator and self-proclaimed sociopath. He's on pain meds for migraines, a recovering alcoholic, has confusion from a head injury and is in psychotherapy as well. In addition to Aarav's POV, he conducts numerous interviews with neighbors and their hired help to aid in his private investigation. I found everyone in this story unlikeable with the exception of the stepmother and half-sister who I felt badly for as Mr. Rai is a piece of work himself. It's seems the wealthy neighbors have plenty of secrets as well. There were plenty of red herrings to throw the reader off track and while this story started out strong, it slowly got bogged down with too many people being questioned and a good deal of minutiae. I had high expectations for this one but, in the end I found myself a little disappointed.


RATING: 3.5/5 stars

first encountered Singh through her romance series Psy-Changeling. I really enjoy her writing style so I was interested in this book. The heart of this story surrounds the Rai family. They are a wealthy family that had their world shattered 10 years ago when the Matriarch of the family fled in the night with a satchel full of money.


Aarav Rai remembers a scream and a shattering of glass the night his mother left and has been haunted by it every sense. When AArav is forced to have supervision after a major surgery he finds himself haunted by the memories of his past and the discovery of his mothers car and corpse reopens several old wounds.
This book is very much a slow burn. Every time I would pick it up I would be engrossed in it. Aarav is our narrator and he is highly erratic and untrustworthy. As he start to intrude into the lives of his neighbors in the close knit community Aarav spirals emotionally. This book kept me guessing to the very end and I found the conclusion satisfying, however I think a tighter edit of the book, maybe cutting a 100 or so pages would have made it a more taut , experience.
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probably 3.5 but rounding up because i do so love nalini singh. had high expectations for this one. I wouldn't say I was disappointed, but. Blergh. I feel like the meat of the story was good but the pacing was a bit off. I didn't see the whodunnit coming, but it was all just a little convoluted to me.

*****
Welcome to March Mayhem Bookstagram Fam! I have some incredible books that will blow your socks off today. But nothing compares to QUIET IN HER BONES. I literally have a feeling like I’m Oprah now and if I could I would give you all a copy. “You get a copy & you get a copy”.

“Over and over again, the same dreams. Always about her”

This book had me glued in place and I was so engrossed with the mysterious & psychological mind twisting plot. It is fast paced, easy to read but difficult to forget. The story is told from the viewpoint of an unreliable protagonist, Aarav that has had memory lapses and he isn’t sure if it’s the past trauma when his mother went missing or from the car accident he was in. He seeks help from a therapist and trying to dislodge possible repressed memories. But not everything is what it seems and an explosive finding of his mother’s car with her bones near the neighborhood they live in; 10 years later.

Aarav remembers hearing the scream from that night and the fighting between his parents. But their were other elite neighbors that would want to seek vengeance on his mother. His mother known as a fierce force, bitch, cheating wife but a loving mother. And Aarav will stop at nothing to find out who is responsible for his mother’s death & goes to extremes to get answers.

The Author’s vivid language instantly transported me into the world and had me guessing at every turn. This will be a book that will have you thinking about it way after it’s is finished. It is hands down the best thriller I’ve read this year. I recommend it wholeheartedly.