The Bone Clocks: A Novel

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, September 2014: Fans of David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet) have been salivating over the release of The Bone Clocks —and they have every reason to. This is a feast of a book—perhaps the author’s best to date—a saga that spans decades, characters, genres, and events from Mitchell's other novels. The structure is most similar to Cloud Atlas, with The Bone Clocks pivoting around a central character: Holly Sykes. Each chapter/novella is narrated from the perspective of an intersecting character, with settings ranging from England in the 80s to the apocalyptic future. Each story could stand alone as a work of genius, as they slowly build on Holly’s unwitting role in a war between two groups with psychic powers, culminating in a thrilling showdown reminiscent of the best of Stephen King. Taken together this is a hugely entertaining page-turner, an operatic fantasy, and an often heartbreaking meditation on mortality. It’s not to be missed. – Matt Kaye