Young Adult Fiction — Review

Return to Bone Tree Hill

by Kristin Butcher
Thistledown Press, 2009
ISBN 978-1-897235-58-4
$12.95, 142 pp, ages 11+
www.thistledownpress.com

A recurring nightmare prompts 18-year-old Jessica Lawler to embark on a search for its meaning in her life. She returns to her childhood home and Bone Tree Hill to recover her memory of the tragic event her nightmare tells her happened when she was twelve. Fearful that illness affected that memory and that she had been guilty of a murder, she pieces together the events of the day on which a school friend disappeared. What really happened to him? Did she attack him with a shovel? What caused all the blood that haunts her nightmare? The mystery itself makes an exciting read but the story is enriched by Kristin Butcher’s lively style and her convincing understanding of adolescents, their loyalties, vulnerabilities and friendships.

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