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Naming the Bones
First there was darkness…
Alessa Spiteri survives a bombing incident on the London Underground only to discover that the horror she experienced there is only the beginning of the nightmare.
As she struggles to rebuild her life, she finds herself haunted by grotesque, shadow creatures – monsters Alessa believes are hallucinations, born of her traumatised mind until she meets Casey, also the survivor of an Underground bombing, who tells her she can see the monsters too.
Together, the women plan their fightback against the creatures, a course of action which takes Alessa back into the tunnels beneath the city.
Back into the darkness.
Alessa Spiteri survives a bombing incident on the London Underground only to discover that the horror she experienced there is only the beginning of the nightmare.
As she struggles to rebuild her life, she finds herself haunted by grotesque, shadow creatures – monsters Alessa believes are hallucinations, born of her traumatised mind until she meets Casey, also the survivor of an Underground bombing, who tells her she can see the monsters too.
Together, the women plan their fightback against the creatures, a course of action which takes Alessa back into the tunnels beneath the city.
Back into the darkness.
- GenresHorror
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 12, 2017
2 people are currently reading
86 people want to read
About the author
Laura Mauro
38 books79 followersLaura Mauro was born and raised in London and now lives in Oxfordshire. Their short story 'Looking for Laika' won the British Fantasy award for Best Short Fiction in 2018, and 'Sun Dogs' was shortlisted for the 2017 Shirley Jackson award in the Novelette category. In 2021, their debut collection Sing Your Sadness Deep won the British Fantasy Award for best collection, and short story 'The Pain-Eater's Daughter' won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction.
They are a former PhD candidate, whose research focused primarily on a theory of spectrality specific to Japanese horror fiction.
Laura likes Japanese ghosts (especially toilet ghosts), Finnish folklore and Russian space dogs. They blog (very) sporadically at lauramauro.com and can be found on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lauramauro.b...
They are a former PhD candidate, whose research focused primarily on a theory of spectrality specific to Japanese horror fiction.
Laura likes Japanese ghosts (especially toilet ghosts), Finnish folklore and Russian space dogs. They blog (very) sporadically at lauramauro.com and can be found on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lauramauro.b...
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 17, 2017
If you put the words "Dark Minds" and "novella" in the same sentence, I can pretty much guarantee that I will be there with my wallet. So when I had a chance to review an advance copy of the upcoming novella, Naming The Bones, by Laura Mauro, of course I was on board.
There were a number of things that appealed to me about this story. First of all it was reminiscent of one of my favorite sort of urban legends, that being shadow people, spectral figures that people claim to see in the periphery, watching them from the other side of the room. I've always loved the creepy vibe from ghosts as omnipresent figures, there with you in the room even if you don't know that they are there. It makes for potent psychological drama and frankly, the fuel for nightmares that The should righty be.
The book also made me think a lot about one of my favorite horror movies of all time, Jacob's Ladder. I loved the sense that you could go either way throughout most of the book that the events being described could be actually happening or they could also be the product of this characters damaged emotional state. Mauro was skillful in her ability to keep the narrative in that position of uncertainty for quite some time and I loved it.
Overall, fantastic read. Very well paced with complex characters and great dialogue. My only complaint was that there were a few times when I was confused for a moment trying to attribute an action to the correct character. That however, was minor and I was still able to really enjoy this.
There were a number of things that appealed to me about this story. First of all it was reminiscent of one of my favorite sort of urban legends, that being shadow people, spectral figures that people claim to see in the periphery, watching them from the other side of the room. I've always loved the creepy vibe from ghosts as omnipresent figures, there with you in the room even if you don't know that they are there. It makes for potent psychological drama and frankly, the fuel for nightmares that The should righty be.
The book also made me think a lot about one of my favorite horror movies of all time, Jacob's Ladder. I loved the sense that you could go either way throughout most of the book that the events being described could be actually happening or they could also be the product of this characters damaged emotional state. Mauro was skillful in her ability to keep the narrative in that position of uncertainty for quite some time and I loved it.
Overall, fantastic read. Very well paced with complex characters and great dialogue. My only complaint was that there were a few times when I was confused for a moment trying to attribute an action to the correct character. That however, was minor and I was still able to really enjoy this.
October 11, 2018
Thoroughly excellent horror novella from Laura that's reminiscent of Gary McMahon at his best. This is the sort of dark fiction that gets under your skin (in the best possible way) and doesn't need OTT violence to pull that off. Superb stuff.
January 26, 2018
Naming The Bones is a brilliant, tense, and moving novella. The characters are well drawn and realized, London is vividly brought to life, and a chilling new mythos is introduced. Firmly grounded and superbly written. Highly recommended.
May 4, 2017
Alessa Spiteri is a troubled woman in her late-20s, living in the Elephant & Castle in London and stumbling through life. When she’s injured in a bombing incident on the London Underground, she becomes haunted not only by the death and destruction she’s seen around her, but also the disappearance of a fellow commuter who helped her. He wandered off down the tunnel towards a light but nobody seems to know where he’s gone. And then Alessa begins to see things in the dark, shadows and shapes with eyes and long limbs and very sharp teeth.
Naming The Bones (a practise Alessa uses to calm herself) is a dark and complex novella that pulls you deep into the story - and the struggle that she faces - whilst slowly revealing the world around her. From Alessa’s out-of-her-depth counsellor to her well-meaning sister Shannon; from Tom to the support group she tries to join; life is constantly pushing against her and the things she sees in the dark seem like the last straw. Then she meets Casey, who knows all about the shapes - she calls them Shades - and who, it appears, has a link to them. As Alessa and Casey get further into their exploration, things apparently go from bad to worse until Alessa isn’t quite sure who she can trust.
I really enjoyed this. Filled with superb writing “she felt as though she was only barely a part of the world sometimes, existing on some strange margin inhabited by the anxious and the scared and the mad” and gripping set pieces (not least the explosion on the tube that opens the book), this is written at pace and doesn’t flag at all, nor does it shy away from painting Alessa as a flawed character who is doing her best to keep her head above water. The Elephant & Castle area is used well, with plenty of landmarks and street names to anchor the story in reality and the use of the Shades - and what they can do - is both frightening and well explored. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the tube - and, indeed, Central London - is well used and becomes genuinely oppressive as the story reaches its conclusion. A fine addition to the Dark Minds Press novella line, this is original, full of tension and scary and I would highly recommend it.
Naming The Bones (a practise Alessa uses to calm herself) is a dark and complex novella that pulls you deep into the story - and the struggle that she faces - whilst slowly revealing the world around her. From Alessa’s out-of-her-depth counsellor to her well-meaning sister Shannon; from Tom to the support group she tries to join; life is constantly pushing against her and the things she sees in the dark seem like the last straw. Then she meets Casey, who knows all about the shapes - she calls them Shades - and who, it appears, has a link to them. As Alessa and Casey get further into their exploration, things apparently go from bad to worse until Alessa isn’t quite sure who she can trust.
I really enjoyed this. Filled with superb writing “she felt as though she was only barely a part of the world sometimes, existing on some strange margin inhabited by the anxious and the scared and the mad” and gripping set pieces (not least the explosion on the tube that opens the book), this is written at pace and doesn’t flag at all, nor does it shy away from painting Alessa as a flawed character who is doing her best to keep her head above water. The Elephant & Castle area is used well, with plenty of landmarks and street names to anchor the story in reality and the use of the Shades - and what they can do - is both frightening and well explored. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the tube - and, indeed, Central London - is well used and becomes genuinely oppressive as the story reaches its conclusion. A fine addition to the Dark Minds Press novella line, this is original, full of tension and scary and I would highly recommend it.
January 26, 2021
nullimmortalis October 2, 2017 at 4:14 pm Edit
ONE
“‘We’re safe now. You’re going to be fine.’ It was a lie;”
I like the way this book’s text is visually lean, but the bones of its words cannot shed the mouthing of articulates nor the overlying complicity of meaning. For me a meaning that is a uniquely striking exit from amorphous nightmare into a gradual perception of entering what seems to be a terrorist outrage on a London tube train. Then our viewpoint through Alessa Spiteri’s hindsight interpretation of those events; of the clumsy counselling she then receives, the panic attacks, the by-rote methods of making thought itself unthink by unpicking what caused the panic, the memories of what or whom did not come back into that original nightmare. And more detail than I will give you by my own rote of remembering this book. The spoiler of telling too much or too little? Or of telling not what is in there at all? Like two little fingers in a wishful tug-of-war.
nullimmortalis October 3, 2017 at 12:05 pm Edit
TWO
“I think it would be good for you, talking with people who get it.”
Alessa’s backstory in interface with versions of words for reflected panic, a panic this side of tidal anxiety, words like ‘spiral’ and ‘bolus’. Her footbone injury as a child, the telling relationship with her parents, and we experience the actual relationship with her sister in real-time. Mosquito whine and Asda wine (I had just been to Asda and bought a box of their wine before reading this chapter!) And a haunting bugbear like a Fritz Leiber monster seen from the corner of the eye or in more than one reflective window…. escaping from train tunnels by entering softer tunnels like blankets, all consuming stuff. As I expected.
nullimmortalis October 4, 2017 at 9:24 am Edit
THREE & FOUR
“I’ve tracked trickier people.”
In the Alessa growing trauma aftermath, of rhythm and arrhythmia, we consume it as readers as well as co-journeyers: the unruly self-consciousness of body (lungs, a body’s softness, a body’s sharp angles, plus pungency in sense and vocabulary) as well as seeking catalysts (one is randomly found, complete with pizza delivery) to complete the jigsaw of memories and transcend insanity with possible truth. Some very nice touches of detail to enhance or at least to counterpoint the journey. Or to tether it. Or as a cello’s bass-line continuo. Those who were there and those who did not come back… And am reminded, too, of my favourite writer Elizabeth Bowen 1940s London Fiction, the ‘shoals’ of her blitzed dead rising… or sinking?
“When you’re dealing with stuff that doesn’t officially exist, you sort of have to bring your own vocabulary to the party.”
nullimmortalis October 5, 2017 at 9:06 am Edit
FIVE
“I’ve cut bitches for less.”
Following fixation, now meeting up with others in the world of baristas and “marshmallowy leather sofas” and “whorls of dark coffee”… No spoilers here; they’ve cut reviewers for less, I guess, but I will allow you to follow me following Alessa and her two variously sized catalyst friends into a benighted building site, one that does remind me as a child during the 1950s of the sights of sites in London of the then still unrepaired blitzed buildings.
It is no secret that this is a Horror novella, but one where the Horror is developing as if it’s real life, something not concocted from frights, but a skilful evocation of an ensuing battle between trauma and what may be feeding off trauma. It is genuinely chilling, with ‘shades’ or ghosts hard enough to be dangerous to human bodies. Stubs of dislocated fingers, bony roots like teeth. And Alessa’s continued rite of rooted rote.
nullimmortalis October 6, 2017 at 9:22 am Edit
SIX & SEVEN
“Like a piece of modern art, all acute angles and flat planes.”
And here, too, a sense of sea-sick swells of Alessa’s anxiety, her fear of or suspicion about being ‘gaslit’ (my word). Disturbed water, turbulent water, gaps in a mental notebook to be filled by others, a notebook with an arched spine or a body, gritted teeth, Costa cups et al. ‘Ministrations’ (or a similar sounding word?) of blood like motor oil. Then ‘hogtied’ to panic as an enemy wave or a buoyant friend? Floating undercurrents like a musical continuo? One wonders if trauma creates its own monsters? Body horror or a mind’s? Pulsing like a balloon, spasmodic. A marble inside her skull. This text gets at you inside as well as out. “What truth?”
nullimmortalis October 7, 2017 at 10:02 am Edit
EIGHT & NINE
“I mean, it’s only sort of a lie.”
And if there are any lies in fiction, they are often variations of some intrinsic truth. Less is more. And we reach culmination and still dawning realisation, alongside Alessa, experiencing the battle between various polarities in her mind, co-journeying with her by means of this Platonic Form of Horror Novella (an often underrated potentiality of tactilely stylistic form in the realm of literature’s power, I maintain) reaching in these final chapters towards a nub or ‘nest’ of shades (shades of human fallibility made visceral and nightmarish) within the Bowenesque undertow of London whereby at one point, aptly, such shades emerge from a body’s becoming bonelessness. I will not give anything away, but the polarities within Alessa of belief and disbelief, sanity and insanity, loyalty and disloyalty, gradually evolve into some understanding of the mystery of motives that still bedevil those who try to fathom out the most recent human outrage in another city where they gamble on the balance of probabilities even more than in London. Polarities evolving, but not fully resolving from within my mind’s felt rite of rooted rote. I still have more about Alessa to grapple. Which is good. Even on the last page and a half “…hauling herself up…”
end
ONE
“‘We’re safe now. You’re going to be fine.’ It was a lie;”
I like the way this book’s text is visually lean, but the bones of its words cannot shed the mouthing of articulates nor the overlying complicity of meaning. For me a meaning that is a uniquely striking exit from amorphous nightmare into a gradual perception of entering what seems to be a terrorist outrage on a London tube train. Then our viewpoint through Alessa Spiteri’s hindsight interpretation of those events; of the clumsy counselling she then receives, the panic attacks, the by-rote methods of making thought itself unthink by unpicking what caused the panic, the memories of what or whom did not come back into that original nightmare. And more detail than I will give you by my own rote of remembering this book. The spoiler of telling too much or too little? Or of telling not what is in there at all? Like two little fingers in a wishful tug-of-war.
nullimmortalis October 3, 2017 at 12:05 pm Edit
TWO
“I think it would be good for you, talking with people who get it.”
Alessa’s backstory in interface with versions of words for reflected panic, a panic this side of tidal anxiety, words like ‘spiral’ and ‘bolus’. Her footbone injury as a child, the telling relationship with her parents, and we experience the actual relationship with her sister in real-time. Mosquito whine and Asda wine (I had just been to Asda and bought a box of their wine before reading this chapter!) And a haunting bugbear like a Fritz Leiber monster seen from the corner of the eye or in more than one reflective window…. escaping from train tunnels by entering softer tunnels like blankets, all consuming stuff. As I expected.
nullimmortalis October 4, 2017 at 9:24 am Edit
THREE & FOUR
“I’ve tracked trickier people.”
In the Alessa growing trauma aftermath, of rhythm and arrhythmia, we consume it as readers as well as co-journeyers: the unruly self-consciousness of body (lungs, a body’s softness, a body’s sharp angles, plus pungency in sense and vocabulary) as well as seeking catalysts (one is randomly found, complete with pizza delivery) to complete the jigsaw of memories and transcend insanity with possible truth. Some very nice touches of detail to enhance or at least to counterpoint the journey. Or to tether it. Or as a cello’s bass-line continuo. Those who were there and those who did not come back… And am reminded, too, of my favourite writer Elizabeth Bowen 1940s London Fiction, the ‘shoals’ of her blitzed dead rising… or sinking?
“When you’re dealing with stuff that doesn’t officially exist, you sort of have to bring your own vocabulary to the party.”
nullimmortalis October 5, 2017 at 9:06 am Edit
FIVE
“I’ve cut bitches for less.”
Following fixation, now meeting up with others in the world of baristas and “marshmallowy leather sofas” and “whorls of dark coffee”… No spoilers here; they’ve cut reviewers for less, I guess, but I will allow you to follow me following Alessa and her two variously sized catalyst friends into a benighted building site, one that does remind me as a child during the 1950s of the sights of sites in London of the then still unrepaired blitzed buildings.
It is no secret that this is a Horror novella, but one where the Horror is developing as if it’s real life, something not concocted from frights, but a skilful evocation of an ensuing battle between trauma and what may be feeding off trauma. It is genuinely chilling, with ‘shades’ or ghosts hard enough to be dangerous to human bodies. Stubs of dislocated fingers, bony roots like teeth. And Alessa’s continued rite of rooted rote.
nullimmortalis October 6, 2017 at 9:22 am Edit
SIX & SEVEN
“Like a piece of modern art, all acute angles and flat planes.”
And here, too, a sense of sea-sick swells of Alessa’s anxiety, her fear of or suspicion about being ‘gaslit’ (my word). Disturbed water, turbulent water, gaps in a mental notebook to be filled by others, a notebook with an arched spine or a body, gritted teeth, Costa cups et al. ‘Ministrations’ (or a similar sounding word?) of blood like motor oil. Then ‘hogtied’ to panic as an enemy wave or a buoyant friend? Floating undercurrents like a musical continuo? One wonders if trauma creates its own monsters? Body horror or a mind’s? Pulsing like a balloon, spasmodic. A marble inside her skull. This text gets at you inside as well as out. “What truth?”
nullimmortalis October 7, 2017 at 10:02 am Edit
EIGHT & NINE
“I mean, it’s only sort of a lie.”
And if there are any lies in fiction, they are often variations of some intrinsic truth. Less is more. And we reach culmination and still dawning realisation, alongside Alessa, experiencing the battle between various polarities in her mind, co-journeying with her by means of this Platonic Form of Horror Novella (an often underrated potentiality of tactilely stylistic form in the realm of literature’s power, I maintain) reaching in these final chapters towards a nub or ‘nest’ of shades (shades of human fallibility made visceral and nightmarish) within the Bowenesque undertow of London whereby at one point, aptly, such shades emerge from a body’s becoming bonelessness. I will not give anything away, but the polarities within Alessa of belief and disbelief, sanity and insanity, loyalty and disloyalty, gradually evolve into some understanding of the mystery of motives that still bedevil those who try to fathom out the most recent human outrage in another city where they gamble on the balance of probabilities even more than in London. Polarities evolving, but not fully resolving from within my mind’s felt rite of rooted rote. I still have more about Alessa to grapple. Which is good. Even on the last page and a half “…hauling herself up…”
end
September 3, 2017
As with all good horror stories, Naming The Bones isn't about the what's in the dark, it's about what's in our heads. And Laura Mauro deals with this in spades. Alessa,who survives a bombing on the London Underground, starts unravelling as she starts to see things in its aftermath.
A pool of thick, tarry matter began to bleed out, long black fingers slithering along the rails, prying blindly at the brickwork as they sought their way towards her. She took two faltering steps backwards, eyes fixed on the tunnel, tongue thick and dry in her mouth. In the depths, something seemed to pull, to twist, separating itself from the blackness around it as if the shadows were thick, viscous matter. It fell out onto the tracks writhing and maggotlike in the catchpit.
Occipital, she thought. Parietal, frontal, temporal...
A pair of pale eyes flickered open.
"Naming The Bones"
November 28, 2018
Incase you haven't heard of Laura Mauro, allow me to introduce you to a name that will surely pop up more frequently as time passes.
Naming the Bones is a story about a woman who finds herself in a world of confusing shit after surviving an explosion in an underground train station. This tale is a mix of a psychological thriller mixed with strange creatures that could very well exist in any part of the world.
Mauro's choice in phrasing as well as specific vocabulary throughout the book was absolutely satisfying to any book worm. But the thing that sold me and turned me into an instant fan was that ending...WOW.
Mauro NAILED that ending to the point where my mind can't stop looping through the final sequences.
Simply put, if you enjoy reading a good story, this is the book for you!
Naming the Bones is a story about a woman who finds herself in a world of confusing shit after surviving an explosion in an underground train station. This tale is a mix of a psychological thriller mixed with strange creatures that could very well exist in any part of the world.
Mauro's choice in phrasing as well as specific vocabulary throughout the book was absolutely satisfying to any book worm. But the thing that sold me and turned me into an instant fan was that ending...WOW.
Mauro NAILED that ending to the point where my mind can't stop looping through the final sequences.
Simply put, if you enjoy reading a good story, this is the book for you!
August 29, 2020
A well paced and creative story
This psychological horror novella is worth the read. It really does keep you in the dark, allowing the reader to see just enough in front of his or her stumbling feet to catch glimpses of the hungry danger that awaits them. Interesting character development kept me invested in the protagonist to the very end. I look forward to reading more from Laura Mauro.
This psychological horror novella is worth the read. It really does keep you in the dark, allowing the reader to see just enough in front of his or her stumbling feet to catch glimpses of the hungry danger that awaits them. Interesting character development kept me invested in the protagonist to the very end. I look forward to reading more from Laura Mauro.
November 15, 2020
Alessa survives a bombing incident on the London Underground. As she tries to recover and move on, she feels like she's losing her grip on her sanity when she starts to see sinister, shadowy creatures which seem to feed on her fear. Until one day, trying to confront her trauma and take back control, she encounters Casey and discovers she's not the only one who can see them. Together the women realise that it's down to them to do something to stop the monsters.
July 18, 2017
Laura Mauro turns in a cracking debut novella with 'Naming the Bones'. She manages to thread dreamlike and visceral together seamlessly, which is no mean feat. The characters are sharp, realistic but never dreary, and she clearly knows her setting. Well paced and possessed of many a wonderful turn of phrase, this is a very tasty bite of dark British horror. Recommended!
February 10, 2018
I absolutely loved Naming the Bones. The novella's protagonist, Alessa, is a fully-fleshed character battling trauma-induced anxiety and panic-attacks, an experience which Mauro conveys perfectly. The story is extremely well-written, and the pace is at turns tense and fast. This is a superb mix of the psychological and supernatural. I will definitely be reading more of Mauro's work.
August 14, 2017
Another excellent addition to the burgeoning Dark Minds novella series. A pretty cool concept, with a rather snazzy little twist in at the end. Having read a few of Laura's short stories, it was good to read something of length, and was not disappointed at all, definitely worth a read.
August 23, 2017
a powerful intro, and well-crafted prose.
June 13, 2018
[review to be added]
March 16, 2024
Oh I loved that! Dark and creepy with such a vivid portrayal of PTSD and that ending! Delicious
October 7, 2024
Chilling tale of PTSD, or perhaps something beyond. The writing in this truly disturbing novella is absolutely beautiful.
November 1, 2025
A short novel of trauma and alienation, taking the facelessness of London and the fearful mystery of its Underground and weaving a dark fantasy of disengagement and horror, right up to a haunting ending.
April 22, 2020
A complex and powerful novella about coping mechanisms and post-traumatic shock. Mauro does a masterful job underpinning her story - which centers on Alessa, a survivor of a terrorist bombing - with a profound allegory of proletariat alienation and loss of hope in today's contemporary society. Richly textured characters, moments of genuine dread, and confidently architectured prose you can truly hang your hat on. Laura Mauro is an unbelievable writer.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews