S.E. Reed’s latest standalone Black Water Bones spends a lot of time in and around water. Heroine Cameron St. Rose has been away from her small hometown, Chokoloskee Island, Florida, for a long time. Though she’s there to help with the search for body parts that appeared after a big storm, she’s also missed the place and especially her father’s airboat business. Cameron had a good childhood, though she still remembers the dark day her mother disappeared and found a severed arm at the same time. This is part of the reason she immediately takes off from her fancy job in a spa to help.
The other part of her reason for agreeing to help is her soon to be ex-boyfriend, Holden. He’s been working late with no explanation, and was of course cheating on her. Holden works at the same spa, and was cheating with a fellow employee, so Cameron understandably needs some distance from the place. She quickly reconnects with her former home, with all the familiar faces, and falls back into step with best friend Michaela.
However, things don’t stay calm and nostalgic for long. An entire body turns up in the Everglades, and Michaela gets attacked late at night. She is beaten so badly she’s in a coma, leaving Cameron with no answers and a burning question about whether or not Michaela’s beating was connected to the bodies. Could her best friend have ended up loose parts for the gators to find, too?
The story is told in two different time periods, with the back in time narration following Cameron’s mother. This was well done, as even though both points of view are first person, their style of talking was so different the reader could always tell who was who. Natalie St. Rose was a feisty character herself, and interesting to follow.
Black Water Bones is a ton of fun to read. There are few books I’ve ever read about people less like myself, and that was part of the charm. The mystery is good, though often the character descriptions were silly – most people are devastatingly attractive, and there are a heck of a lot of blue eyed blonds. Cameron often comes off as interested in both men and women, given how much she gushes about the hotness of people around her, and has between two and three (all male, sadly) love interests before the end of the book.
This is a cast that is unabashedly what they are – they’ve all dated, they’re all getting married after a month of knowing each other. However, with a strong mystery and an unusual setting, this book is absolutely worth the read. – Margaret Agnew