A Bounty of Bone

“The Bottom Line: A jaw-dropping suspense thriller that is unlike anything you’ve ever read.”

From the US

Eunis, a 39-year-old albino Minnesota woman, bears the “mark of the devil” - a brown birthmark on her left cheek that runs from her eye to her chin. A Bounty of Bone is the captivating story of how Eunis goes from someone whose appearance repulses people to someone who is hunted for it.

Through a series of events involving Eunis’ intuition about weather, she is recruited by friends to a weather channel in New York City. Told in the first person, Eunis’ story of transformation in the book’s first act is both compelling and heartfelt. But the book becomes truly unputdownable when a work trip takes her to Africa.

The journey begins as scheduled in South Africa, but in the tradition of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, author PG Lengsfelder creates a journey that takes her into truly dangerous geographic, physical, and psychological territory. Danger comes quickly as Eunis decides to look for Kyra Nafasi, a missing albino girl who has been abducted for her albino body parts.

Kyra is the niece of one of Eunis’ friends, Ruthie, to whom Eunis feels deeply indebted. Early on, Eunis acknowledges the naivete of the decision (What did I really think I could do - with no language but my own, one shitty map, no knowledge of Mozambique or Tanzania). Nevertheless, she’s pushed onward through a series of increasingly terrifying events, all the while understanding she could easily fall victim to the same perpetrators.

Lengsfelder, the award-winning author of the crime thriller Our Song, Memento Mori, demonstrates his significant range in A Bounty of Bone. Long before Eunis sets off for Africa, Lengsfelder uses frequent references to superstition, myth and psychic phenomenon to create a spooky atmosphere that pays off handsomely in later scenes (“witch doctor” - need we say more?). To reveal more about what happens in Africa would spoil the fun, but let’s just say that Lengsfelder walks the blurry line between magic and reality in a number of hair-raising situations that may keep readers up long past their bedtime.

In this day and age, it’s incredibly difficult to create characters, let alone stories, that seem original and fresh. Here, Lengsfelder has managed to do both. Highly recommended.”

—BestThrillers.com

“An intense journey for both Eunis and the reader . . . [with a] climax . . . astonishing in its audacity and daring.”

From the US

“EDITOR’S PICK: Lengsfelder (Beautiful To The Bone) crafts a thrilling story about a woman haunted by her past who undertakes an incredible journey in order to save a young woman's life. Eunis’s albinism draws many looks from strangers, and she also has an uncanny connection with the weather—and to rain in particular. That curious skill informs her work at the Weather One TV channel, who dispatches her to South Africa on an assignment that, for Eunis, is soon overshadowed by her discovery that the niece of her surrogate mother has been kidnapped and maimed in Tanzania. Circumstances separate Eunis from her workmates, so she decides to try and find the girl and help her.

What follows is a crisply told seat-of-the-pants adventure with welcome environmental and humanitarian concerns. [SPOILER] Eunis gets mixed up in the ramifications of the illegal timber trade flowing out of Tanzania and becomes reluctant allies with an enigmatic man named Mr. Ngowa. Though viewed as bad luck in most places, in Tanzania, she learns the shocking truth, ripped from real-world headlines, that people with albinism have been butchered for supernatural reasons. Lengsfelder introduces a host of inventive dangers [SPOILER] (plane crash, sharks, deprivation, disease, and much more) as Eunis pursues the thinnest of threads in her search for the girl—and discovers her own power.

A Bounty of Bone keeps the reader off-balance with a series of jolting events, riding the edge between coincidence and the supernatural. The climax, which builds to near-Biblical proportions, is astonishing in its audacity and daring. While kept off-balance for most of the story, Eunis is far from a victim, and her ultimate triumph against a mysterious hunter called the Hyena is cleverly written. The result is an intense journey for both Eunis and the reader, as she sheds her reticence and fully embraces her true self for the first time, and the reader is treated to a visceral adventure. 

Takeaway: Intricate mystery plotting, and supernatural surprises make this Tanzanian adventure stand out.”

— BookLife Reviews

"A BOUNTY OF BONE runs the gamut of emotions; tender and terrifying, heart-breaking and hopeful. A fast-paced thriller with an ending totally satisfying and shocking.”

From India

“There are moments when reading a book makes you feel like you're right there with the characters, sharing their lives and experiences, having tea and biscuits with them, and cheering them on as they go through their trials and tribulations. And when you realise that you've reached the final page, the last phrase, you're left with a strange feeling because you know it's time for you to say your goodbye to the characters. A BOUNTY OF BONE, written by PG Lengsfelder, is an example of one of these types of works.

In the first book of the trilogy, BEAUTIFUL TO THE BONE, we were introduced to Eunis Kindsvatter, an albino girl with a grotesque brown birthmark staining her left cheek from eye to chin. She experiences unpredictable hypersensitivity to people and places. Even before clouds form, she can smell the moisture in the air and anticipate a storm by its aroma, and she can hear its thunder before the sky strikes white. She is able to sense the wind before it caresses a tree. A BOUNTY OF BONE opens with thirty-nine-year-old Eunis trying to get a job at Weather One TV with the assistance of Gordon Mingle, her high school friend and a meteorologist.

Soon after, she learns that her friend Ruthie Bluestone's twenty-year-old niece, Kyra Nafasi, has been kidnapped somewhere in Tanzania. When Kyra was on her way home from school one evening, she was kidnapped by unknown individuals. Four days later, a fatally injured Kyra was discovered propped up against an alley wall with both hands severed. She had first been transported to a doctor's residence, but later she was relocated to another unknown location. No one could be certain of her whereabouts. In Jamaica, Ruthie's sister hadn't heard anything about Kyra in days, and they were becoming worried. There is no way to find out if Kyra is still in danger, whether she is receiving the appropriate treatment, or if she is still alive.

Through her cleverness, Eunis, along with the TV Producer and on-screen talent, will be traveling to Africa for an assignment. Ruthie approaches Eunis with a request, asking for her assistance in locating Kyra. As Eunis travels throughout Tanzania in search of Kyra, [SPOILER] she stumbles into an environmental conspiracy, further endangering her safety.

Eunis is a wonderful character whose maturation is a fundamental part of the series. Her backstory and ongoing character development provide the reader with a rich understanding of the issues that she faces as a child with a physical trait that distinguishes her from others. It was impossible not to care about Eunis and admire her strength of character to endure the bullying and ridicule she experienced because of how she looked as the result of being born with albinism. She encountered way more than her fair share of cruel people in her lifetime. There are other extraordinary characters who embody what unconditional love is, what friendship truly means. It is a story of fate, of faith, and of friendship, and how all of these things make us who we are, not how we look. These characters are introduced as Eunis embarks on a journey to find Kyra.

A BOUNTY OF BONE runs the gamut of emotions; tender and terrifying, heart-breaking and hopeful. This book does a wonderful job of exploring a number of important themes, including acceptance, loss, and loneliness. PG Lengsfelder delivers a vivid, descriptive, and well-written story here with some unforgettable characters. The tale is narrated in the first person from the point of view of Eunis, a young lady who is exceptional for her many unique qualities. The most compelling aspect of this book is Eunis' journey as she works through her own problems while also looking for Kyra.

To sum it all up, it was heart-wrenching, hopeful, and a compelling, fast-paced thriller book with an ending that I found to be totally satisfying and shocking. Mr. Lengsfelder tells the story with a brisk writing style using short chapters. It is a beautiful book that can be finished in a short amount of time and manages to tap into every emotion. My imagination and senses were very much engaged. It makes some very poignant points about faith, love, and forgiveness. If you are in the mood for a book that is very different from your normal read, I recommend you give PG Lengsfelder's A BOUNTY OF BONE a go.”

— TheBookishElf.com

“A great mix of thriller, magic, superstition, and adventure with the beautiful backdrop of Africa. A real page-turner."

From the UK

 “Eunis Kindsvatter gets a job with Weather One due to her ability to sense changes in the weather. She moves from Minnesota to New York and stays with her friend Ruthie. Ruthie's niece, Kyra, has gone missing in Tanzania, and when Eunis is offered the opportunity to travel to Africa with work, Ruthie persuades Eunis to track down Kyra. Both Kyra and Eunis are albino girls. Albinism in Africa carries its own superstitions with the local tribes who believe the body parts to be Muti medicine by the local witch doctors.

Eunis travels to South Africa, ditches her colleagues, and so begins a whirlwind of a cross-country adventure to uncover the truth about Kyra's whereabouts. This adventure stars a host of characters, mostly untrustworthy and mostly trying to kill Eunis! There are planes and cars, sharks and dogs, spider wasp infections, Danish tourists, double-crossings, trade-offs, kidnappings, chases, storms, near drownings galore and a hunt for the 'Hyena', leader of the Albino hunters.

This is a great mix of thriller, magic, superstition, and adventure with a beautiful backdrop of Africa. Eunis is a tenacious character who doesn't give up, even when told to by everyone around her. There is a chorus of fantastic, colourful characters. A real page-turner of a book.”

— LoveReading.co.uk