This review originally posted at More Than Just Magic 
 Despite having only read a couple of Mitchell's novels I have no problem referring to him as one of my favourite authors. Just recently I was tagged in a Facebook post and asked to share the top ten books that influenced me most. Cloud Atlas was one of the first books that popped into my head. I know Cloud Atlas is a rather polarizing book - people either love it or hate it - but its story and the journey of the characters over generations really spoke to me. I was a little worried that The Bone Clocks wouldn't live up to my expectations but I ended up loving it just as much as his previous work (if not a little more). 
 Like Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks also takes place over a long period of time. But this time it's slightly more contained - jumping in intervals of ten years, rather than entire generations. Each part focuses on a different character but there is a common thread drawing them all together - Holly Sykes (the focus of the first part). In many ways what happens after part one is simply the ripple effect of Holly's life. Through her relationships with other people they too are able to become subjects of this story. Underneath the more science fiction elements of this novel it is about how people are connected to one another - which is a theme you may be familiar with if you've read Mitchell's earlier work. 
 But this isn't just a novel about interconnectedness. It's also a story of redemption. Everyone in this story has something they feel guilty about. Crispin Hershey feels bad about sending a book reviewer, Richard Cheeseman, to jail in Columbia. Ed, Holly's husband, feels guilty about the deaths of his photographer and guide in Iraq. Even Holly herself lives with the guilt of her younger brother's disappearance. It's a feeling every character struggles with at one time or another, and it informs the decisions they make from that point on. And whether they realize it or not they are all trying to make up for it in their own way. Holly writes her book as an attempt to reach her brother, Ed heads back into the danger zone and Crispin starts the "Friends of Richard Cheeseman" group to try and secure his release. 
 All of the characters in this novel were incredibly fascinating, complex individuals. They all had a unique story to tell. And what made them even more unique was, due to the format of the novel, the reader gets to know them over time. We get to see how much things have changed for them and how much things have stayed the same. In a way we become Horologists ourselves when reading this novel. They are born over and over again witnessing different stages of the world. While reading The Bone Clocks you get to experience the same thing, but without the forty-nine days in the Dusk. 
 The icing on the cake however is Mitchell's prose. I tried to describe what his books were like to a friend and found it a near impossible task. He has a style all his own. A little bit of this. A little bit of that. A lot of things you would never expect. It is criminal how easy it is to slip into the universe he has created - a universe that spans not only years but his books as well. For anyone that loves compelling stories and authors that aren't afraid to push the envelope, The Bone Clocks is the one book you need to read this year.