The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. It’s gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn’t leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what’s really on her mind.
Bonesaw.
Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days.
It’ll be brutal... and awesome.
But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she’s willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules... or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her. (From Goodreads)
This book is so freaking awesome I can hardly stand it. It makes dark and creepy gorgeous and almost sensual. There are possessions, hauntings, serial killers, shadows, death, poltergeists and mean girls and this is all in one day. Even with all the things that would normally give a person nightmares, the writing just makes this book unbeliveably beautiful.
For example:
"Velvet sprinted the last few yards and threw herself at the nurse, crossing the clammy chasm of air between them and slamming into the skin of her torso, slipping straight through the flesh, and wrapping her fingers around the woman's spinal chord as though she were swinging around a pole in the school yard. She steadied herself, filling into the woman's frame and forming the link" (page 80 - quoted from digital galley).
It literally causes me to arch my back because I could swear that at this moment some noncorporeal being is swinging around my spinal cord so she can hang out in my body for a bit. This book is filled with passages like this. It amazes me how Daniel Marks could make me shiver and smile in the same stroke. The writing is just exceptional. Because even if you don't find this story is for you (I have a feeling that this kind of intense gothic thriller isn't for everyone) you can't deny that the way it's written is wonderful. He made a world that is shaded with blacks and greys into one of the most vivid in my imagination. He has an eye for details and that just makes these pages jump out at you. The world was so real to me at times, Velvet really could have been walking around in my body giving me a tour of Purgatory. It make my skin tingle just to think about it.
There's some really great dark humor in this book and just getting flashes into Velveteen's brain is entertaing enough. Sort of like one of my favorite quotes ever and the moment I knew that my feelings for this book were a deep kind of love: ""He was pirate drunk, which, everyone knows, is the drunkest you can get." (page 77). Even the way Velveteen's murderer is described is some sort of sick joke, that walked the border of being way too heavy and almost too light. Even though Velvet is finding it hard to let go of her murder, she still doesn't dwell on it as often as you'd think she would. She's finding a way to have a new life after death and she's really good at it.
This is the kind of book I could write my own novel about. I'd even say that if the book doesn't seem like your cup of tea or bag of bones or what have you, still give it a shot. This writing is fabulous. And if this kind of story seems right down your alley, you're going to love it. It's one of the darkest things I've read in a long time, it has stuck with me for months after I've read it, and I still get chills when I think about certain parts of this book. Brilliant story, masterful writing, and just all around delightful insanity. I can't recommend this book enough.
