#15. Part Of A Duology – Deeper Than the Dead by Debra Webb (Kindle)

This was my selection from my Amazon Prime First Reads UK options for July 2024. At the time it was stated that this was the first book in a duology, and I thought the blurb sounded interesting enough for there to be a second book and that I’d read it once it was released. It now transpires that this is the first book in a new detective series, but I’m keeping it here under the #15 as I began reading it when I was under the impression there were only going to be two books!
 
“Crime analyst and newly disgraced deputy police chief Vera Boyett doesn’t visit home often, and she certainly doesn’t venture back into the cave on her family land. But when the remains of her long-missing stepmother are discovered, Vera will have to face a past that threatens all she is. She and her sister Eve had a fairy-tale childhood: good until it was tragic, with a stepmother they never found a bond with. At least they had each other, a baby half-sister, and a mutual devotion that would have them do the unthinkable. It’s a summer in small-town Tennessee, so thick with humidity it could drown you and so rife with secrets it could smother you. And deep beneath the surface, there are more bodies than you’d think….”
 
Twenty-two years ago, Vera Boyett's stepmother Sheree disappeared, it was presumed she had run away with her lover.  Human remains have now been discovered in a cave on the Boyett land in Fayetteville, and Vera's sisters need her to return home as the remains belong to Sheree. 39-year-old Vera has spent fifteen years working with the Memphis Police Department, working her way up to her current role of Deputy Chief in a specialised unit. Unfortunately for Vera, everyone on her team has been suspended, following a horrific shooting that claimed the lives of two of her officers. Vera is to be the scapegoat and the unit that she helped to create will be disbanded. With her career in tatters and the recent unearthing of human remains where she grew up, she is eager to head back to see her younger sister Eve and half-sister Luna. 

As with many novels focusing on domestic drama, families often have skeletons hidden in the closet, and Vera and Eve are no exception to this rule; although their skeleton is literally in a cave they used to play in as children. Twenty-two years ago, a family drama that they would prefer to keep hidden is about to be unearthed, but unknown to them both, there wasn't just one body hidden in the cave. Further remains are soon discovered in a deeper part of the cave system; some remains were deposited before Sheree's body was dumped there, and others were deposited after Sherree. Who else knew about the complex cave system and why was it chosen to dump the bodies in? 

#4. Lowercase Letters On The Spine – The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton (Paperback)

I remember reading "Sister" by Rosamund Lupton in about 2010/2011 and being haunted by the ending; it was proper hairs on the arm tingling good. So good in fact, I immediately bought the next novel "Afterwards"…and then Lupton didn’t publish anything for a couple of years. Somehow, I missed this book when it was released in 2015 and it was only when I was searching through my bookcase and I spotted her two previous novels that I thought I would do a quick online search. I realised that two further books had been written, this one and one called "Three Hours." I bought them both and decided they would be shoehorned into this challenge because I was so excited to read them!

 

“On 24 November Yasmin and her ten-year-old daughter Ruby set off on a journey across Northern Alaska. They're searching for Ruby's father, missing in the arctic wilderness.

More isolated with each frozen mile they cover, they travel deeper into an endless night. And Ruby, deaf since birth, must brave the darkness where sight cannot guide her.

She won't abandon her father. But winter has tightened its grip, and there is somebody out there who wants to stop them.

Somebody tracking them through the dark.”

 

I genuinely could not put this book down. There really is something engaging about Lupton’s writing that engulfs you with a curiosity to know more from the moment you pick the book up. Just before chapter 1 starts, Ruby introduces herself. "My name is a shape not a sound. I am a thumb and fingers, not a tongue and lips. I am ten fingers raised old - I am a girl made of letters R-u-b-y And this is my voice." Immediately I was compelled to think about how different the world must be to a deaf person. This simple statement transported me into the world of how a deaf 10-year-old girl viewed things and I wanted to know more about her.

Ruby does not want to speak with her voice, however much her mother tries to encourage her. Instead, she prefers to use her voice-generating laptop, or to use her hands to sign her words. She understands others who use sign language, or if they articulate properly, she can read their lips. This means that in the dark, Ruby is effectively deaf and mute. Something to consider as the central characters move further and further north in the constant darkness of an Alaskan winter.