Hello Ami !
Welcome to my stop on The Hidden Bones Blog tour, I heard about this book last year and I knew I wanted to read it. As many of you might know I love crime fiction, but another love of mine is history so The Hidden Bones ticked both boxes.
This is Nicola Ford first book, so I thought give you a little information about her.
- She is a National Trust Archaeologist for the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site
- Nicola Ford is her pen name she is known in the Archaeological world as Dr Nick Snashall
- Twitter handle @nic_ford
- Her archaeological research interests lie in the Neolithic (The final part of the Stone Age) and Bronze Age of southern Britain.
Clare Hills is recently widowed and is trying to start her life again without her husband by her side. She reconnects with an old university friend Dr David Barbrook, he ask if she can help her sort though the work of recently deceased archaeologist Dr Gerald Hart. Dr Hart is known for an archaeological dig that found some amazing Bronze Age piece, but he never publishes his finding, everyone believes that everything was destroyed in an arson attack. Until Clare finds his work hidden in his house. This a dream come true for Clare and David a chance to investigate the Hungerbourne Barrow dig, this is a dig of a life time for any archaeologist. Slowly this dream becomes a nightmare when Clare become the centre of a murder investigation.
Clare Hills is an interesting character, she is smart and determined to find the answers, it was fascinating to read Clare trying to find out what happened at the Hungerbourne orignal dig, while unable to deal with the answers she received about her husband death.
One of my favourite character is Jo Granski, a osteo-archaeologist that focus on ancient cremation. Jo is american and is outgoing and straight forward in her approach is a great contrast to Clare more reserved nature, especially as Clare is lacking confidence due her 15 years away from archaeology. This book has several great strong female characters both young and old.
It took me a little bit to get into the story but after a couple of chapters I was hooked, I loved the balance of the crime story with the detail of archaeology. Their was a couple of great plot twist and dangerous situation which kept me captivated with the story.
I will definitely will be looking out for book 2 in the Clare Hills series.
I give this book 4 out of 5.
Thank you Allison and Busby for sending me a copy of the book for a honest and fair review as well as giving me a spot on the blog tour.
If you are interested in visiting other blogs on this tour I have added the schedule below.
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Thanks for reading.