Book Review: Skeletal by Katherine Hayton

Title: Skeletal
Author: Katherine Hayton
Genre: Crime/Mystery
Published: Jan. 25, 2015
Pages: 268

Three months before she died Daina Harrow faced a bully at school.
Six weeks before she died Daina Harrow suffered an assault in the park.
One week before she died Daina Harrow stole a secret people had killed to hide.
That was ten years ago. Ten long years.
Now, her bones have been found on a building site. A coroner's inquest has been reopened. A parade of witnesses is about to start.
And Daina's here. Watching every day as her mother cries in the courtroom. Watching every day as her friends, and her enemies, and her killers lie about her on the stand.
Watching, and making sure that no matter what the coroner hears, you know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So help you God.

I received this book via NetGalley to give an honest review.

I was pretty taken away by this story. We are told this story through Daina who has passed away and what led up to her dying.

Daina has had it tough and I do mean tough. She is fourteen, and has a alcoholic mother who doesn't take care of her daughter. Daina tries to keep to herself as she doesn't want to be taken to a group home because that is what would happen if anyone found out about her mother and how she is not properly taken care of.

So when Daina goes to a new school you can tell right away from the first character she meets that this person is going to cause her trouble. And trouble does it cause, this young girl has it out for Daina just because a teacher "showed" interest in her. 

The bullying escalates to the point that Daina is hurt not only physically but mentally my heart broke for her. Though out the story she seems a bit off the rocks at times and I couldn't pin point what was going on until the end and it clicked. Not only does she get bullied and railroaded by her classmates but adults as well. 

I couldn't stand the way she was treated at school, and for sure got very upset with how she was treated at home. 

We get a look into the present which is where the court is dealing with her death, the past leading up to her death and the distant past how this all became. 

The story is different and I didn't want to put it down because I wanted to find out what happened to her, who did this to her.

At the end it was a nice twist and I was like oh so that is what happened. It was a great mystery.

Through out the whole story I felt for Daina it was like she was still alive even though we already knew she was dead. It was just hard to read what she had to go through and she had no one to help her. We watch her pretty much waste away and it was sad no one seemed to notice.

Now the reason I am giving this book a 4 rating. 

Sometimes I was a bit confused but it all came together eventually. 

Second the way that an incident was handled at school. I honestly could not believe that it could be handled in that way, it was too unbelievable and this bothered me. Especially because it involved raped. And that is where I am going to leave that statement.

Overall a great crime mystery and I plan on reading more from this author.

Katherine Hayton is a 41 year old woman who works in insurance, doesn't have children or pets, can't drive, has lived in Christchurch her entire life, and currently resides two minutes walk from where she was born. Fascinating, eh?
She's the author of two spectacular un-bestselling books (unless you count tiny niche genres on Amazon, which of course you should) FOUND, NEAR WATER and new release SKELETAL.
She is currently curled up on her couch with her typewriter (laptop) while she tries very hard to give birth to her next novel AS YET UNNAMED BUT PROBABLY INVOLVING GRUESOME MURDERS.