Many folks seem to have discovered TJ Klune with his novel The House In the Cerulean Sea. I haven’t read that one yet, although it is in my TBR stack. As usual I blame all the fabulous authors out there. Too many books, too little time. No, my first experience with Klune’s singular talent was the novel In the Lives of Puppets. Here’s what I said about it in my review:

… it’s in the small strokes, the fine details, that In The Lives of Puppets truly sings. It’s about the importance of found family, and the power of loyalty and love. It’s a tender, sensitive exploration of Ace and LGBTQ representation. Perhaps most surprisingly to me, it’s laugh-out-loud funny. 

If that little snippet doesn’t make it clear, I absolutely loved the novel.

Now comes The Bones Beneath My Skin, a welcome reissue of a novel first published in 2018. This one is once again concerned with found family, loyalty, and love, and if anything it digs deeper—what exactly makes us human, and what are we prepared to do when all hope seems lost. I loved this novel just as much.

Nate Cartwright is estranged from his brother, and his parents have died, leaving him only a dilapidated truck and the remote lake cabin in Oregon his family visited in happier times. When he loses his Washington D.C. journalist job, he retreats to the cabin, hoping for solitude to lick his wounds and do a little bit of soul searching. Instead he finds squatters—An armed man named Alex, and his charge, a strange young girl named Artemis Darth Vader. Neither of them are what they seem.

What follows is a small miracle, a story that starts out strong and gets better and better as it goes. Part road trip, part government conspiracy, part—nope, that’s all I’m telling you, this novel has secrets you should discover for yourself. It’s a heart stopping roller coaster of action, mystery, and emotion, but more than that, much more, The Bones Beneath My Skin introduces three characters that I would gladly follow anywhere. In particular, Artemis Darth Vader is a delightfully unique, original character, full of love and loyalty and more than a little snark. Klune has created someone truly special here.

Klune masterfully combines breathless suspense with large dollops of humor and a tender slow-burn romance. The Bones Beneath My Skin is a wild ride that’s well worth taking. It debuts on February 4th 2025, and is available for pre-order now.