To see the ground stripped and laid bare like that would be like witnessing the skin peeled from a body – peeled from her body – leaving only the bones. Bones that could belong to anybody or anything. Except Billie knew those bones. Knew their bone memories. She felt the weight and angle of them, the way they’d always held her strong. That was the ache she felt now: a bone ache, like her marrow had been emptied.
About the book
Even though sixteen years have passed, Billie will never recover from the murder of her daughter, Jess, and clings to her memory — and the site of her death — like a life raft. Daniel, who was a toddler when his mother was killed, can recall little of what happened back then but knows if he’s to have any chance of a better future then he needs to move on from that defining event, if only his grandmother would let him. Meanwhile Daniel’s stepmother, Carla, also feels trapped by Jess’s legacy but has a plan that she believes will help everyone to escape from the long shadow of the past.
Deeply human, evocative and beautifully written, Bone Memories explores themes of human connection and the memorialisation of place.
Awards
Finalist 2023 Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance
Finalist 2023 The Courier-Mail Queensland Book of the Year Award
Longlisted 2023 Dublin Literary Award
Longlisted 2023 Davitt Award
Reviews
Bone Memories is a deeply considered and multi-layered examination of the way trauma is held in Australian soil. Through the prism of one near-shattered family, the novel shows that healing is possible when radical listening is at the heart of what we do, so we might move towards radical living.
- Judges’ comments: 2023 Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance
At the heart of Bone Memories is landscape: the inner terrain of memory and grief, and the physical landscapes upon which Piper’s characters memorialise their grief and reach for healing. A meditation upon scarring and beauty, this is a novel of rare power and grace.
- Judges' comments: 2023 The Courier-Mail Queensland Book of the Year Award
…deftly combines a meaningful meditation on our connection to land and place with a spine-tingling story of grief, loss and ultimately hope…powerful and deeply thought-provoking.
- The Australian Women’s Weekly
…a poised, perceptive and exquisitely written meditation on grief and the emotional legacy of trauma.
- CAMERON WOODHEAD, The Sydney Morning Herald
Bone Memories is a tender, wise and forensic look at what the earth holds — the roots of the living, the secrets of the dead, the memories of all who came before. It is a celebration of the power of witness, as well as the power of nature — and an elegy to its loss.
- KRISTINA OLSSON, author of Shell and Boy, Lost
Sally Piper’s writing goes straight to the heart of things; how we grieve, love, survive, and remember. Her fiction asks fundamental questions about nature, earth, and our bodies: where does trauma and memory live and linger? How do we memorialise what we cannot bear to forget? Bone Memories is a powerful exploration of conflicts, common ground, and what it means to own our stories.
- HOLLY RINGLAND, author of The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding and The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
Bone Memories got right under my skin … Tense and compelling, Piper has written a page-turner that is also an elegant meditation on memory and grief and the ground we tread.
- KATE MILDENHALL, author of The Mother Fault and Skylarking
At the heart of this moving and beautiful book is the tender exploration of a family and the love that holds them together, and their reckoning with unspeakable grief. Piper is such a vivid and acute observer of people and place that Bone Memories seems both perfect and, when it ends, a personal loss. I loved it.
- LUCY TRELOAR, author of Wolfe Island and Salt Creek
BOOK LAUNCH
Avid Reader Book Launch YouTube link here.
WHERE YOU CAN PURCHASE THE BOOK
At all good bookstores or online at booktopia.com.au (Australia).
Also available as a Bolinda audiobook.
BOOK CLUB NOTES
Can be found here.