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The Bone Houses
A Young Adult Fantasy Novel by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Subgenres & Tropes:
- Historical Horror,
- Folklore,
- Fairy Tale,
- Celtic-Inspired,
- Slow Burn Romance
This book is for you if you're into...
- Celtic-flavored folklore where the dead refuse to stay buried
- Gravedigger heroines facing curses and haunted mountain quests
- Slow-burn romance woven through eerie, myth-rich worldbuilding
From Little Stack
If you love fantasy steeped in folklore, The Bone Houses offers a wonderfully eerie, Celtic-flavoured adventure that feels like stepping into a fireside tale told on a stormy night.
While owing much to Welsh mythology as much as Irish legend, it shares that same haunting, ancient atmosphere you’d find in Irish storytelling, where the land, the dead, and old magic are deeply intertwined.
The story follows Ryn, a tough young gravedigger in a remote village where corpses regularly claw their way out of the ground thanks to an old curse, sending her on a quest into haunted mountains and forests once home to the fae.
What makes the book shine is its strong sense of place and folklore-driven worldbuilding. The novel blends fairy-tale traditions, supernatural creatures, and cultural beliefs about death and memory, creating a myth-rich setting that feels authentically Celtic in tone. With fierce family loyalty, slow-burn romance, and just the right amount of dark humour, you get a beautifully atmospheric fantasy that feels timeless, heartfelt, and wonderfully steeped in old-world myth.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Sky in the Deep in this bewitching historical horror novel, perfect for fans of Holly Black and V.E. Schwab.
Seventeen-year-old Aderyn ("Ryn") only cares about two things: her family and her family's graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae.
The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don't always stay dead. The risen corpses are known as "bone houses," and legend says that they're the result of a decades-old curse.
When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good?
Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the deeply-buried truths about themselves.
Equal parts classic horror novel and original fairy tale, The Bone Houses will have you spellbound from the very first page.
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