The Bone Houses is a fantastic fairy tale-esque story, though it comes at it from a slightly different direction than I’m used to. For a start it’s based on a Welsh mythos, which is one I’m not as familiar with. As such I kept getting echoes of Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain in it. Which is not a bad thing, far from it. The other slightly odd part was that most fairy tales relevant stories are either written when you’re in the middle of a world of fae and fate or when it’s a distant memory. However The Bone Houses managed to strike a balance between the two. The fae have left, the magic is draining and people are forgetting. However there’s enough left behind for some people to remember and keep to the old ways.

Ryn is the gravedigger of the village of Colbren, tasked with putting the dead in the ground. This occasionally includes the bone houses, people that have died but risen again into a cursed second life. Ellis is a mapmaker that grew up with the royal family but isn’t one of them. He’s come to Colbren to make maps of his own. But when the bone houses, that have up until now stayed to the forest, start venturing out and attacking the town both of them must team up to find out what changed and put a stop to it, if they can. It’s a good premise and they’re both strong characters that compliment each other. The world is great as well, built on a solid foundation of myth and legends.

The heart of fairy tales are that they tell truths and pass on messages, maybe not ones that we want to know. So although on the surface this is a story about zombies and adventure, it’s actually about death, pain and loss. And it tells that story so well. It’s about things that we must all face at some point in our lives, the death of a loved one or our own mortality. But despite the depressing topic the message is uplifting and the last sentence is beautifully profound.

All in all, this book was a lot of fun, with bitterly poignant bits to it. If you like fairy tales or Welsh myths then I can heartily recommend that you read it.