Burn Our Bodies Down

LoveReading Says

Twisty thriller, meets in-your-face horror, Rory Power’s Burn Our Bodies Down is an un-put-down-able page-turner. An ingeniously menacing family mystery with a macabre, almost mythic twist you won’t see coming - guaranteed.

From the opening pages readers are immediately enmeshed in the dysfunctional world teenager Margot Nielson inhabits with her mother, a woman who’s at once peculiarly protective of Margot, and brutally distant. And this unnerving behaviour derives from Margot’s unknown family history, which leads her to jump on an opportunity to find out more.

After chancing upon her grandmother’s number and address, she runs away to meet her, and immediately runs into a web of trouble. Another fire has broken out on Gram’s land, a girl is found dead, and the townsfolk are nervy and hostile, making no secret of the fact they think the Nielson’s “are trouble”. 

With questions arising at every turn, and the eerie atmosphere of Gram’s cornfields providing a creepy backdrop, Margot has no idea who’s telling the truth - Mom or Gram? And why has Mom always told Margot to “keep a fire burning”? Why does she insist “a fire is what saves you”? 

This sinister mystery is in a league of its own when it comes to tension and invention.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About Burn Our Bodies Down

Ever since Margot was born, it's been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot's questions. No history to hold on to. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along. But that's not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And when she finds a photograph pointing her to a town called Phalene, she leaves.

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