“How far will you go to open The Bone Door?”
I did not need to know anything about The Bone Door for it to become one of my most anticipated releases of the year, because after loving Voyage of the Damned so much, I just trusted Frances White blindly. Although maybe that was a bit reckless considering how much she made my heart ache with that book, because she wrecked me all over again here. This fantasy horror psychological mystery thriller blend is kind of giving Gideon the Ninth meets Piranesi vibes, except make all the characters pre-teen children, and add a truly unholy amount of trauma, and somehow that becomes a magical combination.
“Hop knew pain intimately. But that was pain that he controlled; pain he inflicted on himself. Pain for the greater good.”
I will say, this was not a love at first line situation for me like Voyage of the Damned was, but I was still immediately hooked by the addictive air of mystery as Hop wakes up in an ancient labyrinth with no memories, stuck with a skull who talks to him in his mind and a girl with no eyes, all while being hunted by something whispering horrors at him. Amnesia plots can be very hit or miss for me, but I think White did something truly exceptional here and it did not feel like a cheap gimmick at all. It felt wrong, and eerie, and intentional, and the way that the mystery slowly unraveled just had me in a chokehold, even when I was still a little unsure about other elements.
Like, I will be honest, a book where basically all the main characters are children is a hard sell for me, but sell me Frances White did. Hop is honestly the most aggressively hopeful little sunshine creature I have ever met, and while it took me a second to fully click with him because my brain honestly does not operate on that level of optimism at all, I can’t deny that I was charmed from the start. His whole motto is “fear is bad, find the good,” and he really commits to that even when there is absolutely nothing good to be found. It’s honestly so sincere it circles right back around to devastating.
“Okay, so you’re broken. But I’m not afraid of that. It just means there are more parts of you to love.”
For me, it also helped a lot that the other kids he meets are not just blindly on board with his energy. They roll their eyes, they push back, and they argue to no end, and I loved them for that. The friendships are so strong, the banter is so entertaining, the sprinkles of queer romance are so tender (GIVE ME MORE!!), and I just loved how this weird group of damaged, mutilated kids slowly and begrudgingly formed this messy little found family. Especially my fierce babe Amber and my prickly menace Thistle completely stole the show for me, and the way that Hop’s relationships with them developed made my heart ache in the best ways. Sometimes I did get a bit of emotional whiplash when they acted so young and silly one moment and so mature and wise beyond their years the next, but overall I thought White did such a great job of balancing their youthful innocence with the awful brutality of this hellscape of a world they find themselves in.
Because trust me, these realms are not whimsical fun fantasy worlds, at all. Like, the fact that the spider-filled entrance room is one of the least horrible places tells you everything. The labyrinth being built from memories honestly destroyed me because those memories are so damn brutal, and I loved how themes of abuse, generational trauma, cycles that keep repeating were all woven into the world in a way that felt so deliberate and so painful. You have monsters and the God of Death and all these big fantasy elements, but underneath it is just this constant ache about survival and grief and love and what people do to each other and what that leaves behind, and I was living for the emotional turmoil of it all. Thank all that is holy for the chapters in the Respite Room with Dolores the owl woman by the way, the characters (and I) deserved those wholesome breaks.
“You can’t help anyone, because you don’t want to see. Not everyone’s lives are flowers and sunshine and fucking smiles. Until you face that, you’ll never be able to help a single person who actually needs it.”
So many things about The Bone Door surprised me so much, but Hop’s inner journey and the unravelling of his backstory surprised me most of all. I loved seeing how he held onto his optimism even while being confronted with very ugly truths and haunted by shadows and flickers of terrible memories, but what I loved even more is that it is not blind optimism either. White really looks at what happens when positivity goes too far, to the point that it becomes something harmful, and I loved how she balanced that with all the weight of trauma and self-worth and everything else these kids are carrying. It is so much and it is handled so well, and I don’t quite know how to be normal about it.
Also, The Bone Door is truly the perfect reminder that having young protagonists absolutely does not mean a book is for children, not only because its content is way too dark for that, but also because it is honestly just as complex and labyrinthine as the maze itself. I loved how it starts off feeling almost like a dark fairytale escape room and then just keeps expanding into something so layered and ambitious as the structure gets wild. I was genuinely in a daze reading those final pages, just sitting there like… what is happening, how is this happening, how do these twists keep twisting??? And I do not think I followed every single detail perfectly, but I did not care because I was too busy being in awe and crying over the emotional gutpunches. I will just say… Skully!!
“Perhaps the opposite of death was not life, but love.”
So yeah, I am very glad I did not let my biases get in the way at the start, because this book just snuck up on me and then quietly wrecked me in the best way. It is messy and chaotic and unhinged and horrifying and tender and so achingly beautiful all at the same time, and I honestly could not be more impressed with White’s wildly imaginative mind. I don’t think The Bone Door will be a book for everyone, not least because of its heavy trigger warnings, but I personally cannot recommend this unique genreblending gem highly enough. This is how you write a damn good satisfying standalone.
Thank you to the author for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. The Bone Door is scheduled for release on 7 May 2026.
