Back in early June, Kendall Reviews held a giveaway for a chance to win a signed copy of the latest collection by Andrew Cull. The lucky winner was @Girly_Book_Nerd

I’m delighted that @Girly_Book_Nerd has written back to me with her own review of Bones.

Andrew Cull: Bones

Reviewed by @Girly_Book_Nerd

One of my favorite things about starting a new book is reading a good opening line. That first line should set the tone for the entire story. Andrew Cull is a master of opening lines. “We were both 10. But he was dead. And I sat drawing him” I mean, come on! If that doesn’t suck you right in, nothing will. And that’s just the beginning, each story in this collection pulls you in right from that first line and before you know it you’re racing through to the end to see what happens next. I’ve read a lot of horror stories in my time, but I think it’s safe to say this collection is not for the faint of heart. While each story is wildly different, they all have the same theme – death, and things that go bump in the night. And when things go bump in this book, well I found myself turning on extra lights to chase away the shadows, you know, just in case. So if you’re in the mood to get your heart pounding and your skin crawling, give this book a whirl, I highly recommend it!

Star Rating (out of 5): 5*****

Bones’ brings together four chilling ghost stories by award-winning writer-director Andrew Cull. Four monsters collected in paperback for the first time.

‘The Trade’

That summer should have been filled with laughter, with slip n’ slides in the yard, lazy afternoons lying watching ice cream clouds swirling through the blue sky, melting in slow motion. I watched a plane rising high above our house. From the ground it looked completely still, as if it hung suspended in the air, a model on a string. I wished I was on it, I wished I could escape. I was seven and that was the summer death stalked our home.

It began with the offerings…

‘Hope and Walker’

“We were both 10. But he was dead. And I sat drawing him.”

Em Walker is just like any other 10-year-old girl growing up in the small, outback town of Hope. That is, except for the fact that her Dad runs one of the town’s two funeral parlours, and the dead have just started speaking to her…

When Hope is rocked by a terrible crime, Em, stubborn, scared of spiders, and with a temper that’s likely to get her into trouble, will find herself thrust into the middle of a dangerous hunt for the truth.

“Being scared’s good,” Grandpa Walker had told me once. “Stops us from doing stupid things.” It hadn’t stopped me.

‘Did You Forget About Me?’

“He had written to me a month or so before he died. I’d ignored the letter the same way I’d ignored all the others.”

When Cam Miller returns to the town he grew up in he’s heading to clear his estranged father’s farmhouse. He’s also returning to the house he fled 23 years before. There, among the nicotine stained keepsakes and remnants of a broken life, he’ll come face to face with a horror that has waited all those years for his return.

“It’s you he wants.”

‘Knock and You Will See Me’

“We buried Dad in the winter. It wasn’t until the spring that we heard from him again.”

When grieving Ellie Ray finds a crumpled, handwritten note from her recently deceased father, hidden behind the couch, she assumes that her middle boy, Max, left it there. It has a single word written on it: WHY. But, as more and more letters begin to appear throughout the house, Ellie and her three boys will find themselves dragged into a deeply sinister mystery surrounding her father’s death.

“Dad? I looked down at the scribbled note in my hand, at the words torn into the paper. What had started as a whisper had grown louder, more desperate. The words had been screamed onto the page. Dad? Please. What’s going on?”

You can buy a copy of Bones from Amazon US & Amazon UK

Please visit Andrew’s Official website at: www.andrewcull.com/

Andrew’s Facebook page: OfficialAndrewCull

Andrew’s Twitter: @andrewcull

Andrew’s Amazon Author page can be found here