Review: The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly

I’m getting to that age, and I may be getting to it prematurely. No, not the menopause. That age when the relationship of responsibility between parent and child switches. All my friends are having to deal with aging, cantankerous, increasingly conservative parents. But for some of us, this balance of responsibility has been skewed almost their entire lives.

Enter Nell, the protagonist of Erin Kelly’s latest novel. Nell, like me, comes from a bohemian hippy family where the parents grow their own pot and aren’t particularly discrete about their extra-marital sex. Unlike me, Nell’s family is also at the centre of an international treasure hunt, prompted by a picture book her parents wrote in the 1970s.

I had come into this book expecting something of a treasure hunt for the reader, along the lines of Alexandra Benedict’s The Christmas Murder Game or Janice Hallett’s The Twyford Code, but to the best of my knowledge this is not the case (Although it’s perfectly possible this book is full of acrostics that went right over my head!). What I got instead is what I was so badly wanting from Eve Chase’s The Birdcage: a properly twisty family story, spanning generations and delivering plenty of shocks along the way.

In this, Kelly absolutely delivers. There is a mystery at the heart of the story that has both Nell and the reader reaching down wrong turns almost all the way through. But at the same time, the narrative darts back and fore into the past, laying context on key moments, giving deeper insight into Nell’s family. And let me tell you, some of it is not pretty! This is a warts and all look at family interactions, and the quiet neglects and traumas of those of us who were brought up ‘to be independent’.

At the same time, we’re presented with kids who fell into (or through) the system. The hardships faced by those with no parents, whether that be because of absence or death. Kelly doesn’t seem to judge one side as worse-off than the other, but rather reveals the myriad ways in which we are all, as Larkin has it, “fucked up” by Mum and Dad.

Besides the brilliant twists and heart-breaking secrets, the book is a really nice read. Nell is an easy character with whom to spend the majority of the novel, and the writing is very smooth – I got through the book quite quickly.

All in all, one of my favourite books of the year. Definitely come to this book if you’re looking for a mystery that will keep you on your toes, and an authentic and sympathetic look at that true step into adulthood: realising your parents are the real kids!

The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly is out now and available to buy here.

Review written with thanks to Netgalley.co.uk and the publishers for providing an e-advanced review copy.