The Unquiet Bones
A Novel
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Buy Now for £22.99
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Narrated by:
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Carly Robins
About this listen
A shocking discovery of human bones reopens an almost fifty-year-old cold case—and rips apart the lives of a group of friends—in a riveting novel by Loreth Anne White, the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Maid’s Diary.
When human bones are found beneath an old chapel in the woods, evidence suggests the remains could be linked to the decades-old case of missing teen Annalise Jansen.
Homicide detective Jane Munro—pregnant and acutely attuned to the preciousness of life—hopes the grim discovery will finally bring closure to the girl’s family. But for a group of Annalise’s old friends, once dubbed the Shoreview Six by the media, it threatens to expose a terrible pledge made on an autumn night forty-seven years ago.
The friends are now highly respected, affluent members of their communities, and none of them ever expected the dark chapter in their past to resurface. But as Jane and forensic anthropologist Dr. Ella Quinn peel back the layers of secrets, the group begins to fracture. Will one cave? Will they turn on each other?
The investigation takes a sharp turn when Jane discovers a second body—that of the boy long blamed for Annalise’s disappearance. As the bones tell their story, the group learns just how far each will go to guard their own truth.
©2024 by Cheakamus House Publishing. (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Critic reviews
“Fans of Louise Penny should try this gripping story from White that combines the best elements of a cold-case investigation with a well-developed suspense novel.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“[A] thought-provoking cold-case mystery.”—Manhattan Book Review
“A deftly crafted and simply riveting read from fist page to last…”—Midwest Book Review
But here’s where my enthusiasm crashes headlong into reality: Carly Robin’s narration nearly made this unlistenable for me. Look, I don’t expect audiobook narrators to be accent virtuosos- most of the time, a decent attempt or just sticking to their natural voice works perfectly fine. But Robin’s Scottish accent for Dr Ella Quinn is so painfully off-mark that it becomes distracting. As someone from Dundee, I can tell you this sounds nothing like any Scottish accent I’ve ever encountered - it’s this bizarre, inconsistent attempt that seems to shift between Irish, vaguely a cockney and something that might charitably be called “generic Celtic.” It’s honestly one of the worst accent attempts I’ve encountered in audiobook narration.
What makes this particularly frustrating is that the character of Dr Quinn actually serves an important role in the story’s psychological framework but everytime she speaks, I’m jolted out of the narrative by what sounds like someone doing a bad impression of Groundskeeper Willie. Why attempt an accent at all if you can’t pull it off? Just use your natural voice - we’re intelligent enough to imagine the characters background without needing this painful auditory reminder.
The rest of Robin’s performance is serviceable but unremarkable. Her pacing works well enough, and she manages to differentiate between the various members of the Shoreview Six reasonable effectively. There’s decent emotional range when the story demands it, particularly during the most intense confrontation scenes.
It’s such a shame because the story deserves better treatment. The way White explores how secrets calcify into something toxic over decades is genuinely brilliant. The multi-perspective structure, which could easily become confusing in audio format, actually works quite well - each characters voice feels distinct enough that you’re rarely lost about whose head you’re inhabiting. The psychological complexity of how guilt shapes these characters entire adult lives comes through beautifully, even with the narration issues.
The ending still lacks a punch, even when filtered through mediocre performance. Whites ability to plant clues subtly enough that the revelation feels both shocking and inevitable translates well to audio - maybe even better, since you can’t flip back through pages looking for hints you might have missed.
But honestly, if you’re interested in this story, I’d recommend grabbing the print or ebook version instead. The narrative deserves to be experienced without constantly wincing at attempted accents that sound like they were learned from a phrase boom. Sometimes the best narration choice is simply knowing your limitations and working with them.
When great story meets grating narration
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