Tall Bones

Peels back the layers of cruelty, prejudice and suffering that lie beneath the surface of an ordinary, God-fearing community.

Bailey has penned a dark and compulsive literary crime-drama about love, guilt, trauma, intolerance and the consequences of religious devotion. It’s an incredibly haunting book but a brilliant one too.

[A] compulsive literary crime-drama about love, hate, guilt, intolerance and the consequences of religious devotion. It’s a book that will stay with you.

Both menacing and haunting, it is a memorable debut.

Simmering resentments and long-held prejudices boil over in this beautifully realised evocation of small-town America. In Anna Bailey’s deft hands, brutal events are drawn so tenderly that your heart will break. I loved it.

[T]his debut … heralds the arrival of a major novelist

A mix of the Salem witch trials meets Gone Girl, this is an eerie, timeless slow burn of a book that's worth sticking with for the almost apocalyptic ending that will haunt you for weeks afterwards.

A nuanced thriller that will haunt you long after you race through its pages, Tall Bones is a novel you'll be itching for your friends to read, just so you can discuss it.

Tall Bones brilliantly conjures up the oppressive claustrophobia of the small town and I felt so strongly about some of the characters that I had to check the ending to make sure they were ok! Extremely well written... fantastic.

With Tall Bones, Anna Bailey bursts onto the scene with a wonderfully haunting debut. Small-town intrigue, exquisitely drawn.

An intricate and compelling thriller, beautifully nuanced and wonderfully claustrophobic. Brilliant.

Anna Bailey’s debut is irresistible, a compelling and nuanced psychological thriller suffused with small town prejudice and dark family secrets.

Tall Bones is as atmospheric as it gets - a stunning debut that delivers on every level. Reminded me a little of Jane Harper's The Dry.

Smart and compassionate, full of poetry and rage and shy hopes and shredded dreams and missing girls and family secrets and the dark, shameful underbelly of small town life.

A terrific debut about guilt, secrets and complex family dynamics - the writing is vivid & assured: Anna Bailey is definitely one to watch.

Brilliant! Could not put it down. It’s utterly gripping and beautifully written.

Both menacing and haunting, it is a compelling and atmospheric debut.

An elegant, mesmerizing debut—Anna Bailey explores festering secrets and family trauma with a sharp, yet tender gaze. This book reads like a whisper in the dark.

Fast-paced and moving.

Gripping and so beautifully written Tall Bones is spellbinding; dark and menacing, but also so full of love and hope. I loved it. I cried.

This is a striking first novel, a chilling insight into an oppressive world, where bad thoughts and bad deeds ripple just below the surface, out of sight.

Beautifully written and very moving, this is an assured debut.

One of the most exciting debuts of the year

This spellbinding and darkly beautiful novel... intricately plotted and exquisitely written,Tall Bones is a stunning debut.

An absolute sizzler...When I’d finished the book, I immediately re-read it, admiring even more, on a second read, the deft way in which Bailey unfolds this post-Trump American tale...An almost Faulknerian masterclass in narrative by this star writer under thirty

Cleverly written, Anna Bailey's debut shines a light on the darker and more oppressive side of small-town society.

Bristol-born Bailey, just 24, writes with perfect poise. She is destined for great things - I feel it in my bones.

Cleverly written, Anna Bailey's debut shines a light on the darker and more oppressive side of small-town society.

One of the most exciting debuts of the year...

A clever, twisting debut, about the dark side of small town America. It is packed with secrets like firecrackers ready to ignite.

Anna Bailey writes like a dream about teenage love and lust, the terror of knowledge and the claustrophobia of families and of small towns...Tall Bones is as brutal, as bittersweet, as tender and as tense as first love itself.

Bailey orchestrates with fine, meticulous touches all too reminiscent of so much that is wrong with closed societies. Bleak and haunting, Emma’s troubled path to where the truth lies will carry the reader’s soul along in both moving and compassionate ways.

[A] suspenseful whodunit told in vivid, sensory prose… Bailey successfully renders character archetypes in three-dimensional nuance… the simmering tension keeps the pages turning in this slow burn of a story.

[Tall Bones] has an almost Gothic feel, shining a light on the oppressive side of small-town society.

Chilling and compulsive. Tall Bones is a dazzling debut

[A] stunning suspense novel - perfect for fans of Megan Miranda and Celeste Ng.