#Titanuary ‘In Her Bones’ by Kate Moretti

About the book…

New York Times bestselling author Kate Moretti’s (The Vanishing Year) latest novel follows the daughter of a convicted serial killer who finds herself at the centre of a murder investigation.
Fifteen years ago, Lilith Wade was arrested for the brutal murder of six women. After a death row conviction and media frenzy, her thirty-year-old daughter Edie is a recovering alcoholic with a deadend city job, just trying to survive out of the spotlight.

Edie also has a disturbing secret: a growing obsession with the families of Lilith’s victims. She’s desperate to discover how they’ve managed—or failed—to move on, and whether they’ve fared better than her.

She’s been careful to keep her distance, until the day one of them is found murdered and she quickly becomes the prime suspect. Edie remembers nothing of the night of the death, and must get to the truth before the police—or the real killer—find her.

This brilliant novel of crime, suspicion and accountability was published in paperback and ebook in 2018 by Titan Books, ‘In Her Bones’ follows Kate’s other books by being compulsively readable and unforgettable.

The novelty in her mother’s case is explored from daughter, Edie’s perspective intertwined with excerpts from the book written about Lillith Wade. The personal and professional intertwine to give the reader the picture of a woman haunted by the acts of a woman she barely knew, obsessed with the outcome of what her mother did on other women’s children.

She uses her job to track down and follow the survivors of her mother’s actions on social media, spies on their inboxes and forum chats with frightening ease, goes home to a lacklustre apartment, and, when she is drunk enough, has sex with her neighbour Tim that she cannot quite commit to.

This is a life filled with self recrimination, regret and self abuse, a seeming punishment which has the double edged function of blotting the past out with alcohol whilst leaving her unaccountable for her actions. What could make her an unlikable and unreliable narrator, makes her, in this reader’s eyes, vulnerable and open to abuse.

Following a night out where her use of alcohol has rendered her making more unwise decisions, the detective involved in her mother’s case rears his head again when forensic evidence places Edie at the scene of a crime, the murder of the husband of one of Lilith’s victims.

A raid on her apartment uncovers all her notebooks and her tracking which, in the wrong hands, looks suspiciously like stalking, and on the run, Edie now faces the impossible-clear her name, find the murderer and face up to the choices which have led her to this point.

There are many interesting subtexts to this plot where the mistreatment and keenness of the medical profession to get the truth -as well as multiple diagnoses-out of Lilith reflects the patriarchal society which not only abandoned her to an abusive father, left her afloat in the care system and is now incarcerated and an object of attraction to psychologists.

The role of women in mothering and raising children itself, raises interesting questions-does the ability to nurture come innately or is is taught? Can it be taught? Even with a father present in Edie and her brother Dylan’s life, was the path for them written at birth due to the neglect and abuse that Lilith endured ? Is Edie ‘conditioned’ from birth to repeat the behaviour patterns of her mother or is there room for redemption?

And the name, Lilith, is such a link to the perception of women being inherently ‘bad’ and not listening to men, the Biblical and societal meaning could not be clearer about the way in which women who do not toe the line bred into them are discarded, villified and held up as examples of what happens when they ‘go wrong’.

Another stunning thriller, I am so excited to carry on reading more from Titan who publish exemplary thrillers which get you thinking long after finishing them.

About the author…

Kate Moretti lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, two kids, and a dog. She’s worked in the pharmaceutical industry for ten years as a scientist, and has been an avid fiction reader her entire life.