Needle and Bone - Tonya Mitchell - ★★★★.½

AUTHOR: Tonya Mitchell

GENRE: Historical Suspense.

PUBLICATION DATE: August 19, 2025

RATING: 4.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A historical suspense with mild elements of thriller, paranormal and romance. Fabulous storyline, great characters, excellent historical content, outstanding atmosphere. Medium-paced for the most way. Though a couple of things could have gone better for me, I enjoyed this read. Gripping all the way. Much recommended! DON’T READ THE GR BLURB!

Plot Preview:

1841. Philadelphia. Seventeen-year-old Annis has had to flee from New York with her younger brother Ben, though she doesn’t reveal the reason to him. With no family alive, all Annis has is a possibly-cursed family heirloom and her artistic talent to survive. When, after an accident, she is offered work as a medical illustrator by the awe-inspiring Dr. Mütter, Annis hopes that she can leave the past behind and finally secure their future. However, a ghost doesn’t let Annis forget what happened in New York. She can only hope that the other monster doesn’t know her new whereabouts.

The story comes to us in the third-person perspective of Annis and another key character.

PSA: Please do NOT read the GR blurb. It reveals almost the entire plot, including details of the final confrontation.

Bookish Yays:

👻 The chilling prologue. I love it when prologues do exactly what they are supposed to without rehashing a scene from the main chapters.

👻 Annis as the lead. Given that she is so young, she can be terribly naïve at times. I often felt like shaking some sense into her. But her behaviour, a mix of reliable and reckless, comes across as believable considering her age and family circumstances. I loved her gumption and her independent spirit.

👻 Dr. Mütter. What an outstanding character! And to learn that he is the fictionalised version of on an actual doctor in 1840s Philadelphia whose work can still be seen in a museum – wow!

👻 The antagonist – Brrrr! So creepy! I had to push myself through some of their chapters because they gave me the jitters.

👻 Most of the other characters, whether in major or minor roles, still come across convincingly. Even if their scene lasts just a few paragraphs, we can easily see what drives them. They weren’t too layered and most were easily classifiable into good/bad slots, but such an approach works well for the plot-driven story.

👻 The wide range of genres: historical, Gothic, medical, crime, paranormal (totally non-scary), suspense, thriller, and romance. Ambitious, and yet, so well-woven into the plot without feeling like an overkill.

👻 The medical content, be it surgery in that era or the medical research or the training approach. Fascinating!

👻 The pacing – mostly steady and medium, with a rev-up at the end. I appreciate how the momentum keeps going ahead even if at a slower pace sometimes.

👻 The historical feel, from the complex themes such as the social attitude towards women and the disfigured and the constraints on women when it came to work to the simpler inclusions such as the clothes worn or the entertainment available. Ensures that we never forget the time setting.

👻 The atmosphere, especially in the paranormal and suspense scenes. Some scenes are really disturbing but the writing does justice to the same without sensationalising anything.

👻 The romance. As many of you know, I am not fond of romance entering non-romance genres. So I loved that this book never allowed the budding relationship to take centrestage at the cost of the core plot. At the same time, the connection was slow and sweet enough to warm this Grinch’s heart.

👻 The author’s note. Excellent and detailed. Loved knowing the truth behind some of the fictional elements of the story. Her research is always stunning!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

👺 Each chapter has a clear timestamp about when and where it is set. This is indeed helpful in keeping track, but the proceedings also get confusing at times as every single chapter, whether from the present or from the recent past, is written in the simple present tense.

👺 Annis has a bad habit of keeping secrets. While she has her reasons for this, and the reasons are even understandable, the overdose of secret-keeping does get irksome after a point.

Overall, though Annis did frustrate me with her reluctance to seek help, I still enjoyed most of this gripping book. It incorporates so many distinct themes and historical bits within its plot and does justice to almost all of them.

This isn't my first experience of this author’s writing. I had read and enjoyed ‘The Arsenic Eater's Wife’, her sophomore novel. It also so strong on history and research that I kept the author’s name in mind for future reference. With this new novel of hers, she enters my must-read-authors list and I will happily grab anything she writes.

Much recommended to all historical suspense fans.

4.5 stars, rounding up! (I was a bit confused about whether to give the book 4.25 stars or 4.5 stars. But It is a truth universally acknowledged** that the rating of a book depends greatly on how it makes the reader feel at the end. And I absolutely enjoyed the end.)

My thanks to Bloodhound Books for a complimentary copy of “Needle and Bone” at my request. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

**If this isn't a universally-acknowledged truth yet, it should be. 😁

The digital version of this book is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.