Billy Bones is a skeleton living in the skeleton's closet of High Manners Manor, home of the obsessively greedy Sir Barkley Braggety Biglum VI. Billy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bones, file and maintain all household secrets. Allowing a secret to escape can be explosive! Billy can't wait till he's trusted to begin training to become a secret's keeper himself. What he doesn't know is that some of those closely guarded secrets are his own.
After the death of her parents, Sir Biglum's niece, Millicent, must move to High Manners Manor, and is forced to live upstairs in the attic. But she is not totally alone. She is visited often by her parents, ghosts from the Afterlife. She is also closely watched by the housekeeper, Miss Hester Primly, who is not a ghost or a skeleton, but is infinitely more frightening.
Millicent, a natural explorer, finds that there are secret passages in the mansion and, as a result, learns she's not the only person living upstairs. Both Millicent and her newfound friend have the uncommon ability to see ghosts. It's not long before Millicent stumbles upon the secrets closet and meets the Bones family.
The secrets in the closet are piling up. The Bones have signed for an unauthorized shipment for Millicent, that has nothing to do with secrets, and which clearly violates rules of the Afterlife. Commissioner Pickerel, from the Investigative Branch of the Righteousness Department, pays them a visit and forces them through a glowing portal to the afterlife.
Without Mr. and Mrs. Bones to keep the mounting secrets organized, filed, and locked away, generations of Biglum secrets begin exploding at an alarming rate. Just as lies pile upon lies, one secret revealed, reveals another, and another. It's up to Billy and Millicent to discover the real truth of High Manners Manor.
BILLY BONES is a delightful, playful book. Christopher Lincoln's creativity is astounding and his knack for description is enviable. I completely enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who's ever wished they could meet a pirate, scare a ghost, or...shhh...tell a secret.
Reviewed by: Cana Rensberger
