Chilly and creepy, disturbing and twisty: a dark story that kept me enthralled and turning pages. Great storytelling and atmosphere, well plotted characters
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A chance meeting cracks open a dark past when Lizzie, unloved wife of a local gentleman meets Johnny Nicol, charismatic farm worker with a wandering past.

It is a very dark and disturbing story, set in the backdrop of uninviting scottish hills at the start of the first world war. The discovery of a woman's body, perfectly preserved by the peat bog, brings Lizzie and Johnny together and also stirs up superstition and mistrust from the local farming population.

The novel cuts the present of 1915 with the past of 1905, and events in the past do not stay buried but return to haunt both Lizzie and Johnny as a gruesome and connected story starts to emerge.

Beautifully written, chilling and disturbing, the book is an engrossing read from start to finish.

Greater Sins is a story of repression, misjudged alliances and relationships set in the early 1900s. Finding a woman’s body in the peat bog creates much soul searching for the young wife of a local landowner, away at war. Reflecting on past relationships, she is stuck in a cold marriage and overruled by his sister, who comes to keep an eye on things and run their home. Lizzie is cowed by those around her, repressed and set apart from the superstitious small community. After the gruesome discovery Lizzie, with the help of farmhand Johnny, begins to embrace life and take part in community events, much to the disapproval of her stern sister in law and the community who believe that the body in the bog is an ill omen.

It takes a while to warm to Lizzie, she is so beaten and accepting of her situation that it is hard to connect to her, but once you get enough of her back story she makes more sense. The story then becomes a relationship triangle between Lizzie, her husband William, and Johnny, with secrets from their pasts interconnecting. I thought that the end was rushed, there has been so much interplay to get to the revelation, that it was settled far too quickly. I didn’t understand the hints about the bog woman’s identity, it seemed like an afterthought.
But the story has lots of tension between locals in the small community, travelling labourers, and the landowners at the big house. There is a great sense of suffocation. As the novel ends in 1915, we know what is around the corner; conscription, broken families, women working in new ways and industries. A mixture of despair and hope at what the world will be once the guns have stopped. Perhaps Lizzie will rise to the new world and meet its changes and challenges head on.

In Greater Sins, Gabrielle Griffiths takes us to Moray in northeast Scotland, where the weather is harsh and farming life is hard. With writerly magic she introduces a character in a few lines so well that I feel I know them. Their language is sprinkled with dialect words but not so richly that it seems affected or becomes difficult to read. In a small community everything is seen, sometimes misconstrued. In a time of war, everything is off-kilter; some boys and men are away fighting, others wondering whether they should enlist now or wait to be called up. It doesn’t take much for tongues to start wagging and straightforward explanations to be replaced by paranoia and talk of the devil.
Johnny provides entertainment for the farm workers but they don’t quite see him as one of their own. When someone from his past turns up he’s reminded of things he thought he had forgotten. Lizzie is keen to muck in but the farming folk assume she’s a snob, coming as she does from a well-to-do family in Elgin and married to William in the big house. Even after ten years, he still treats her as beneath him, distant even before he joins up to fight and fails to write home. Affection is absent. If only his sister were too.
I really enjoyed Greater Sins and would recommend it for its great characterisation and sense of place. The language is gorgeous too. Add to that the mystery of just what did happen ten years previously and you’ve got yourself a cracking read.

In 1915 rural Aberdeenshire a woman’s body is found in a peat bog. She is from an age long forgotten but rising fears and tensions soon surface as the locals blame the body for strange occurrences. Unhappy Lizzie finds herself in the midst of the swirling rumours and finger-pointing as she finds a willing partner in Johnny, an itinerant farm hand and stranger to the Cabrach, where the book is set. This is a slow but well-written novel with ratcheting tension and a brooding atmosphere. A good debut novel from Gabrielle Griffiths.

A Scottish historical fiction with quite a gothic and supernatural feel. It covers the stories of Johnny a farm worker and Lizzy from the manor house who's husband had just left to fight in WW1. Both characters find their lives and secrets blown open when they discover an ancient body buried in the peat bog in their remote village.
Superstitions, paranoia and rumours takeover the town, with disastrous consequences. The author cleverly creates a tinderbox atmosphere with residents caught up in the horrors of the first world war, the hardships of trying to keep the farms running and preserving morality at a time of great change.
I found this a slow start but soon found I enjoyed the Scots prose, the turmoil of the characters and the way the story developed especially towards the ending.

This is dark, and slow paced, which is a perfect pace for the story - set in a rural, suspicious, traditional setting where the devil is feared and reputation means everything.

I found this story to be very sad, depressing - but in an enjoyable way if that makes sense. I felt the weight of this book, I felt amongst it, and very connected to the atmosphere.

I liked it, and I didn’t expect it to come together as it did. It’s left me rather sad, but I think maybe that’s the intention.

My thanks to Netgalley and Transworld, Penguin Random House for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very good story, beautifully told. The landscape is incredibly evocative and helps create the sense of time and space at the start of World War I. The peat moors in this remote part of Scotland are perfect for giving a sense of foreboding, remoteness and superstition. The main characters are perfectly created with depth and sensitivity that you just can’t help but care for them. I loved the way the story gradually comes together as everyone’s secrets are revealed.

The book begins in 1915 but goes back to 1905 to give context. Lizzie falks head over heels in love with James but he ruins her reputation and leaves her in disgrace. He rapidly gets engaged and marrued to a more advantageous partner.
To avoid further disgrace, Lizzie is married off to William who is older than her and both cold and unfeeling.

When William goes off to war along with other men from the area, local farmers are left short handed and reliant on occasional labour from itinerant men.

When Johnny comes to the neighbourhood d, he and Lizzie form a bond despite te their differing backgrounds.

Events take a dark turn when Lizzie finds a body in the local peat bog and superstitions surface. Lizzie and Johnny joim forces to investigate what they believe to be a murder but just what is the secret Johnny is hiding from his past.......

1915 - The Cabrach, Aberdeenshire - when the body of a young girl is found buried, but beautifully preserved, in the peat bog, the camaraderie of a small farming community is torn apart by superstition and heightened imaginations.

Men tomcat around with the women and brag about it, however, for the women with status or their family/father has status, it's all about reputation. Lizzie - wife of a wealthy local landowner currently at war - tries to maintain her status in his absence. But by moving the body with Johnny - charismatic farmhand and singer/storyteller - she's struggling.

As the past slowly drips into the present, the reader is enticed with snippets of backstories until the past catches up, and full knowledge is achieved.

I enjoyed this book very much and, being Scottish myself, adored the occasional use of the Doric vernacular. Do not be put off by this, please. There's nothing you wouldn't understand. This is a wonderfully atmospheric, easy-to-read, authentic, and descriptive DEBUT novel, and I'm so looking forward to reading this author's second book.

I chose to read an ARC of this work, which I voluntarily and honestly read and reviewed. All opinions are my own. My thanks to the author, publishers and NetGalley.

Absolutely loved this book! It's set in a remote Scottish community in 1915 as the men begin enlisting in WW1. Two characters - one, an itinerant worker ignoring pressure to enlist for war, and the other, the bored wife of a rich man - are connected when a body is discovered, preserved in peat. As life in the town gets harder, the locals begin to blame the body, believing she's a witch. Through glimpses into the past, a relationship begins unfolding that will threaten the balance in the village. It's a moving love story, a portrait of three outcasts, and a lovely historical fiction piece. Highly recommend. Thank you for the review copy!

I have so enjoyed this book. It’s a story, set in Scotland at the turn of the 20th Century. I enjoyed the detail of how life was then, for those men who worked the fields from morn to night and without any particular machinery to make life easy. As the story unfolds, we get an insight into how superstition had such a sway on the people of that time. I also loved the frequent use of old Scottish words - even if I didn’t understand most of them! This book is so well written it really conjures up an image of life for those in the story. So many of them have secrets. Secrets they don’t want to share but these things have a way of coming out.
By this time, the Great War has begun and our main character decides to sign up. On the way however, he meets love on the road. Maybe he’ll tarry awhile? Great book. Has a bit of everything. Well worth reading.

Not really a mystery story but ideal for fans of literary character studies in historical settings. The writing is fluent with a good nod to the dialect of rural Aberdeenshire in 1915 but still accessible to a wider readership.
With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an independent review.
On publication, I will post this review on my blog and GoodReads.

1915 in the Cabrach - an isolated Aberdeenshire community, the women who arte gathering moss find a boxi n a cleft in the peat. Johny, a farmhand leaves the harvest to help the pull it out and they discover that it contains the body of a woman, well preserved by the peat. Lizzy, who found the box, is the wife of the wealthy local landowner,doesn't want to bury the body until she can find out more about who it might be. But then a series of mishaps starts, Heavy rain ruins the harvest. A local boy return from the war, badly wounded and shell-shocked. An event from Johny's past which he had hoped to leave behind, threatens to be exposed. Dark, a superstitious community, and the sins of a past life come together to make a gripping tale.

'Greater Sins' is a phenomenal piece of storytelling. Absolutely brilliant! Immersive and atmospheric, creepy and dark, it will stay with me for a very long time.

It's set mainly in 1915, in a remote farming community in the wilds of Scotland. When a woman's body is discovered in the marsh, a series of strange and sinister events occur. The two main characters, Lizzie and Johnny, are both strangers in a strange land. And both at risk of dark and dangerous forces.

This is historical fiction at its absolute best. I will definitely be reading anything Griffiths writes next...

This was a slow burn read that gradually pulled me in as Lizzie and Johnny, wife of the local laird and farmhand respectively, are drawn together over the discovery of an ancient body in a peat bog. Who was she? What happened to her? The superstitious Scots of their small Highland community begin to blame her for everything from the rain to the death of a local boy wounded in WWI, which is raging far away.
As the story unfolds, we learn the back stories of both Lizzie and Johnny, the coincidences that draw them together, and the tragedies that may ultimately pull them apart.
I liked the feyness of this story, the suggestion of superstition and witchcraft that pervades the pages. The unfolding plot pulled me in and kept me reading. But it was the characters of Lizzie and Johnny that really made me stick with the story. They're both so complex, flawed and vulnerable that you cannot help but let your heart go out to them and hope for a happy ending for them both.
The story is peopled with other characters, too, all trying to lead their best lives but distracted by challenges, petty differences, jealousies and resentments. They all add to the reality of the community and give a real sense of life in a small Highland village in the early twentieth century, portrayed without sentimentality or overegging hardship and poverty.
A really good read.

In 1915 Aberdeenshire, an isolated farming community find their hard lives complicated further by the discovery of a woman’s body in the peat bog.

Perfectly preserved, the peat woman sparks superstition and fear in the locals, especially as uncanny weather draws.

Lizzie, the neglected wife of a rich landowner gone to war, and Johnny, a nomadic singer and farm hand hiding from a past where he was called Jack, are thrown together by their discovery.

I had originally expected a crime novel from the premise. However, the story isn’t about the peat bog body at all but rather Lizzie and Johnny’s pasts.

A character-driven novel set in an eerie and desperate part of the land.

What an astonishing first novel! I absolutely loved ‘Greater Sins’ by Gabrielle Griffiths. Set during the early years of the First World War the novel conveys the tense brooding atmosphere of the highlands and a community where superstition is deeply embedded. It is community also where classes divisions are tightly drawn and the crossing of these divisions is frowned upon. All these factors combine and come to a head in a story that will draw you in.

Greater Sins by Gabrielle Griffiths is a haunting and atmospheric book that masterfully weaves together history, mystery, and the supernatural. Set in 1915 in the remote Scottish community of the Cabrach, Aberdeenshire, the story begins with the discovery of a perfectly preserved body in a peat bog. The body is unearthed by Lizzie, the wife of a wealthy local landowner, and Johnny, a nomadic singer and farm hand, setting off a chain of events that will unravel deep secrets and challenge the boundaries of right and wrong.

For Lizzie, the discovery brings long-buried questions about her own past, while Johnny, whose past is clouded with its own darkness, finds himself threatened by the unearthing of a history he has tried desperately to leave behind. As the two of them navigate their increasingly entangled lives, a series of eerie and unsettling events occur. These events seem to mirror the haunting echoes of the First World War, casting a long shadow over the already strained lives of the community. The isolation of the town, the harsh weather, a damaged soldier, and inexplicable occurrences all contribute to a growing sense of unease.

Griffiths has created a vivid and evocative tale that immerses readers in the time and place of early 20th-century Scotland, capturing both the beauty and the brutality of the community. The book takes on a gothic tone, exploring the darkness of human nature, the prejudice of an isolated society, and the damage caused by men’s bad behaviours. At its heart, Greater Sins is a story about the supernatural and the horrors people inflict on each other, set against the backdrop of war and societal constraints.

This powerful and thought-provoking book blends folklore, psychological horror, and a sense of creeping dread, making it a compelling read for those who enjoy dark, gothic fiction with layers of historical depth. The atmosphere is thick with tension, and the book's unsettling pace keeps readers captivated until the very end, leaving them questioning the line between the horrors of human actions and the supernatural forces that may haunt them.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

Greater Sins by Gabrielle Griffiths
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1915 an isolated Scottish community has been disturbed by the discovery of a perfectly preserved body in a peat bog. Lizzie the wife of a wealthy landowner and Johnny a farmhand are the ones to find her. A series of events occur ruined crops a young soldier returns home seriously injured, and stormy weather. Lizzie and Johnny try to quell the rumours that this has something to do with the body they discovered as the community look for someone to blame.

Suspicion, romance, and rumours. The atmospheric writing was intriguing as well as unsettling at times. Told from two points of view and two timelines we jump back and forth between 1905 and 1915 as we discover the past and present of the two main characters.

A great gothic debut by Gabrielle Griffiths!