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The Bone Garden | 
 enlarge | Author: Tess Gerritsen
Publisher: Bantam Press
Category: Book
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £4.80
You Save: £10.19 (68%)
New (21) Used (16) from £1.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 53336
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.7
ISBN: 0593057775
EAN: 9780593057773
ASIN: 0593057775
Publication Date: January 14, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: mint condition
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| Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
 Well worth the read - i found it hard to put this book down! December 8, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
After reading the blurb for the book i was expecting a good book, but it was so much better than i had anticipated!
Tess Gerritsen switches from the 1830's to present day to unfold the story which i find really interesting & it works really well - i have read books before that have attempted a similar thing & haven't managed to quite nail it!
The characters & the surroundings are well described & you feel a good connection with the people & places. I found myself very interested in one of the main characters, Rose, & her story which is very moving - watching her struggle through poverty but being strong enough to look out for herself at a young age.
Really enjoyed it, would highly recommend it!
Interesting... November 27, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the second book that I have read by this author so I'm not that familiar with her work. I love books that are set in `the olden days' so I really enjoyed this read. It follows a newly divorced woman by the name of Julia Hamill as she moves into her new home and discovers bones in the garden. Julia wants to know how the bones came to be in her garden and she slowly finds clues and answers by contacting the former owner's family.
The book then goes back to the 1830's where you begin to learn about the mysterious bones. A young mother, Aurnia, is having trouble giving birth to her first child and all the other mothers around her are dying of childbed fever. She does eventually give birth but the nurse arranges to send the baby to the infant asylum because Aurnia dies but Aurnia's sister, Rose, wants to keep the baby. Someone begins killing the doctors and nurses at the hospital and suspicion soon falls to medical student Norris who finds he needs Rose's help to clear his name. They soon realise that they do not know who they can trust. Tess Gerritsen really manages to make you feel the poverty, pain and squalor in which her characters live and you immediately feel for characters such as `Dim Billy'. I found myself really moved by Rose's fight throughout the book. A good read.
Very Good Historical Thriller! November 19, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Bone Garden starts off in the present day. Julia Hammill is clearing the garden of her new house in the outskirts of Boston, when she uncovers some old bones. When the experts are called in, it is discovered that they date back to the 1830s. Through contact with a relative of the previous owner of the house, the story of how the bones got there is slowly revealed.
Set mainly in the year 1830, this novel gives a depressing and graphic look at the harshness of life back in that era, particularly in the area of childbirth, were the lack of decent hygiene, led to many, many unnecessary deaths. If that wasn't bad enough, in this story, a serial killer, is murdering nurses who have worked on the maternity ward, of the Boston hospital, were the novel is set.
I have to admit I have an interest in history, so it was the parts of the novel, that were set in 1830, that held my attention the most. The story has some very good and interesting characters, in particular, poor immigrant Rose Connolly, and struggling medical student Norris Marshall, whose lives are greatly affected by actions of the serial killer.
What I particularly enjoyed about this novel was that as it progressed, the story became more and more interesting, and the characters grew, so by the end, I did not want it to finish. Graphic, and very depressing in parts, but certainly worth a read.
 Disappointing and repetitive November 11, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I scanned the reviews here looking for someone else who found the repetition of blood spots, stains, ragged hems, cracked leather shoes and above all that, oysters, but no one appears to have picked up on that. Oysters, heaven help us, you would think people in Boston at that time ate nothing else. Buffet evening, oysters, in the scrofulous inns, oysters, way too many of them being consumed. I doubt there was an oyster bed left at that time if we are to believe Ms Gerritson.
I found the 'padding' of information about Oliver Wendell Holmes to be out of sync with the story. OK so she wanted to tell us about medical practice, but really, it was done as lectures, not as part of the story and as such stood out as padding. I am sure the editor said 'Tess, you can make this book a third as long again if you throw in all your OWH research' so she did. The strict rule is, (I know this as an historical novelist) you do not allow the reader to know how much research you have done. That is your foundation, not the backbone of your story. The story was the buried skeleton. At times that is totally overlooked. The somewhat flamboyant and OTT descriptions of the West End Reaper were suspect, the interplay between Julia and Henry in modern times at the beginning were not believable - he asked her to go, she went, they snapped at each other, no, sorry, it doesn't work like that. So, overall, the feeling was 'I need to write another book, I have all this information, I know ...' and it didn't work. This is my first Gerritson book and accordingly, it will be my last. I got it on Smiths '2 for 1' offer so my hard earned money went on a book I really did enjoy, not this one. This will hit either ebay or the charity shop any time soon.
Entertaining November 7, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
You can pretty much rely on Tess Gerritsen to weave a good tale (although I really didn't like 'The Mephisto Club) and this one is no exception. However, the theme, to my mind, is rather played out now. I had earlier read 'The Resurrectionist' and, for a while, I thought I was back into that book: student doctor finding cadavers on which to experiment back in the early 1800s, falling foul of a murky group of wealthy individuals. Then, we have the interweaving of current day events linking us to that period in 1832 by, surprise, surprise, somebody randomly digging up human remains.
Most of the story is set in the 19th. century and it's no worse for that. The characters were more sympathetic than those to be found in the other book I mentioned and it is, in its own way, an endearing story of strength and determination amidst terrible social odds. But all is not what it appears to be and it seems rather churlish for the author to kill off perhaps the most sympathetic of them all. But there we are. It's a good paperback read. I gather the next book is a return to safer ground with Dr. Maura Isles.
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