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Behold the Bones (Beware the Wild Book 2) Kindle Edition
A haunting, chilling, and atmospheric southern swamp tale—perfect for fans of Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver.
In this companion to Beware the Wild, the book New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White called “American myth at its very best,” Natalie C. Parker takes readers on a journey back to an eerie Louisiana swamp town.
Candace “Candy” Pickens has been obsessed with the swamp lore of her tiny Louisiana town for . . . forever. Name any ghostly swamp figure and Candy will recite the entire tale in a way that will curl your toes and send chills up your spine.
That doesn’t mean Candy’s a believer, however. But with swamp haunts appearing in town every day, a suspicious new family in town, and her own mind starting to betray her, Candy must come to terms with the one piece of swamp lore she’s never heard before. It’s a tale that’s more truth than myth, and may hold all the answers . . . and its roots are in Candy’s own family tree.
- Reading age12 - 18 years
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade level6 - 12
- PublisherHarperTeen
- Publication dateFebruary 23, 2016
- ISBN-13978-0062241559
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Practical motivations combine with a witty, inventive narrative voice, creating one heck of a heroine. Shines with spooky Southern charm.” — Kirkus Reviews
“The creepy, oppressive atmosphere from the first book is just as well drawn here, and folklore weaves with horror to create a gripping read.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
About the Author
Natalie C. Parker is the author of Beware the Wild and Behold the Bones and the editor of Three Sides of a Heart: Stories About Love Triangles. She is also the founder of Madcap Retreats and works at her local university coordinating programs on climate science and indigenous communities. She lives on the Kansas prairie with her partner and a requisite number of beasts. Learn more about her at www.nataliecparker.com.
Product details
- ASIN : B00YMS15OG
- Publisher : HarperTeen (February 23, 2016)
- Publication date : February 23, 2016
- Language : English
- File size : 2.6 MB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Print length : 360 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,234,860 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Natalie C. Parker is the author and editor of several books for young adults including the acclaimed Seafire trilogy. Her work has been included on the NPR Best Books list, the Indies Next List, and the TAYSHAS Reading List, and in Junior Library Guild selections. Natalie grew up in a Navy family finding home in coastal cities from Virginia to Japan. Now, she lives with her wife on the Kansas prairie.
Customer reviews
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 20164.5 stars, actually.
I'm still liking this series. The first book was tied up so well with all evil vanquished and swamp magic contained and love achieved provisionally, that I had no idea how the author could keep interest going.
Foolish me to doubt. The first book introduced Sterling and her two friends, Abigail and Candy. This book includes Sterling & Heath in supporting roles, but its all about Candy. And how she still can't see Shine-- the magic of the swamp-- and now ghosts are appearing all over Sticks and she can't see them, either. Well, except for one. Who happens to share a dark secret with Candy. And then there's Candy's...female....troubles, and some new, ghosthunter family moving into the old house Sterling used as a sanctuary and Candy figuring out how to deal with various boy-types in her life.
But its mostly about Candy kind of confronting her own life as well as maturing a little bit within the context of her friendships with Sterling and Abigail-- which is why I love this series. So the swamp magic haints and stuff are a creepy icing, but they are only the icing. The "meat" of this cake, if you'll allow me to mix metaphors, is the compelling, self-doubting, sometimes-arrogant voice of Candy and how she deals with everyday stuff.
And as other reviewers probably mentioned, in this book they aren't all white and they aren't all straight. And while these things aren't used overly to generate angst and drama, they are mentioned and dealt with in the context of a Southern town, which I appreciated. No white washing here.
My only quibble (and the loss of .5 of a star) is that the ending is abrupt. Major, major trauma goes down at the end of the book. I felt like we didn't get a chance to understand and deal with Candy's reaction to what happens to her in the swamp as well as what happens to her relationship with the ghosthunter eyecandy. It's all just suddenly okay.
Can't wait to find out what happens to Abigail in the third book.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2016I've gotten used to the depressing way Hollywood depicts the Deep South as a land of exoticized red neck halfwits who spend their days wrestling alligators and fiddle-dee-dee-ing, but I hadn't realized how acclimated I'd gotten to seeing that same overwrought cliche in fiction until I read Behold the Bones. Natalie Parker's Louisiana bayou is ghost-filled and creepy and thick with tradition, but her characters aren't the Southern simpletons you so frequently see depicted, and the fact that they grew up mudding and on moonshine doesn't make them less complex human beings. Even protagonist Candy Pickens, whose main objective is to get out of the backwoods, respects the way of life around her.
Candy, whose friend Sterling's story was told in Beware the Wild, has seen things she can't explain in the tiny town of Sticks, but lately she's more concerned about what she's not seeing - namely, the ghostly apparitions that have taken to appearing to the rest of the populace. Word of the hauntings spread, and a TV ghost hunter comes to town along with his family, including his disturbingly hot son and a daughter who's trying a bit too hard to be friendly. As the ghostly activity continues to escalate, Candy and her friends must once again uncover the secrets buried in the local swamp.
Parker's tale is spooky without ever truly being scary and comes with a bit of a moral lesson, like any good Southern ghost story. Better than that, though, it continually works to subvert your expectations, of Southerners in general and of her characters in particular, in a way that left me cheering. It's enough to make you want to raise a toast with sweet tea - or it would be, if I drank sweet tea.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2020Great narrator/voice. Great story.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2016Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales
Quick & Dirty: A decent companion novel set in a small Louisiana town.
Opening Sentence: Grandpa Craven kicked it the day I was born.
The Review:
Candy Pickens lives in the tiny Louisiana town of Sticks. She’s never believed in the swamp lore that is spoken like religion, but she is about to face a surprise when ghost sightings appear everywhere. Except, she’s the only one who can’t see them, and apparently her touch chases them away, as well as the magical Shine that wreathes through the swamp. When a TV producer moves through town to film their ghost stories, his intentions are anything but innocent, and its up to Candy to figure them out and solve her ghost problem.
This novel was a companion to a previous installment, Beware the Wild. Instead of focusing on Sterling, the story followed Candace, or Candy, as she journeyed a very different adventure. For the most part, I really enjoyed the originality of the story and how the Louisiana swamp factored into the mythology and folklore of the town. Sticks was just your average tiny Southern town – with a nice heaping of ghosts and magic. Again, the rich Southern atmosphere could have been translated a little stronger, but I still really enjoyed how the author played with such eerie swamp elements.
Candy is a very different character than Sterling was. Sterling was more reserved, but Candy is the rebellious one, the one who shakes things up a bit. Her bravado and confidence tended to hide the softer parts of her. I did enjoy how the writing style diversified with a different character, because I hate when one point of view sounds exactly like another character’s (like in Allegiant by Roth). Over the story, Candy grew as a character, and became more selfless and more able to see other’s points of views.
As for the love story, I really don’t know how I feel about that. There wasn’t much focus on the romance, more on the immediate plotline, which I enjoyed. The romance was kind of built in bits and pieces, but wasn’t altogether unexpected. In all honesty, I was entirely uncaring toward the love interest. His character and the romance felt very subpar to me. There was kind of a love triangle, but never a legit one. And then, the ghosts: I liked the idea of Mad Mary. I think the first book carried a more original plotline, and more interesting one, but this second installment managed to take the world from the previous one and expand on it. This helped to explain certain things from the first book so I liked drawing these connections.
Altogether, I enjoyed the characters and development of this story. The plot was interesting and the setting was nicely done, although the tone and atmosphere could have been a bit stronger. It was a decent companion novel, with one of my bigger complaints being the romance, which didn’t interest me at all. I still think the first was better but really liked this one, and I’d recommend fans of the first to go ahead and check out this awesome book!
Notable Scene:
And here I am, the North Star. Brilliant and isolated, orienting everyone but connecting to no one. I am all I’ll ever be and I don’t know what that means anymore.
I’ve never been the girl who imagines her wedding, or anticipates a family like it’s a given I’ll have both, but I’ve never considered that neither were in my future.
But I’ve also never imagined myself alone. And right now, that’s all I see in my future. Me.
And me alone.
FTC Advisory: HarperTeen provided me with a copy of Behold the Bones. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2020Loved it!
Top reviews from other countries
- E O'NeillReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2016
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book overall!
Good book, but slow in some places but there are a lot of twists and turns throughout and the ending is definitly not what I expected!