Absolutely loved the back and forth between the moss chapters and the mystery of who the bog body belongs to. What could have been confusing actually paints a broad and interesting story for the reader. Nature lovers, history buffs, and mystery readers will all enjoy.

A very unique story that captivated me at the start but lost me by the end. I felt that the ending was really rushed and didn't have the impact that it could have had. That being said, I did mostly enjoy the book and found the story quite emotional.

I enjoyed this book. Very unusual voice, I couldn't quite work out the personality of the main pov, but I loved the writing. I would say I thought the ending was a bit rushed and unsubstantial, I was left not quite satisfied, but on the whole I would recommend.

3 stars. This was good but I got a little bored by the end. Agnes, a forensic anthropologist, is called to investigate a body found in a bog in England. The bones prove the body was buried more than two thousands, yet the body is almost completely reserved. We get two timelines, one which is current and is Agnes trying to respect the dead and figure out more information about her, and a historical timeline, which is about the body found in the bog and what she went through and how she died personally. This was interesting it just fell a little flat for me. As always, thank you Orion Publishing Group for the earc.

Budding forensic anthropologist Agnes is nearing the end of a research project in England. She’s weighing up her future options, reluctant to return home to America but not confident she can secure a permanent footing elsewhere. The discovery of an eerily well-preserved body, in a bog close to Ludlow in Shropshire, presents an unexpected opportunity. Agnes is called in to aid in its identification. At first it seems the body is that of a woman missing for decades who may or may not have been murdered. But Agnes rapidly challenges that assumption, believing the body to date much further back in time. As Agnes becomes part of a wider investigation into the body’s origins and cause of death, Anna North’s narrative moves backwards and forwards in time. She primarily alternates between a distanced representation of Agnes’s experiences and a more intimate first-person account by the long-dead woman who once inhabited this newly-uncovered body.

The woman buried in the bog was a druid priest during the later stages of the Iron Age - but well before Boudicca’s time. She travelled between nearby communities providing counsel and performing ceremonial rites. As North’s story unfolds, she parallels the druid’s and Agnes’s experiences. The women are both portrayed as socially awkward, isolated and grappling with difficult family dynamics. Neither find diplomacy and negotiation easy. Both are living through periods of change, confronted by forces beyond their control. The Iron Age woman is invited to meet with a ruler based in Camulodunon (present-day Colchester); a Briton allied with encroaching Roman interests. As a result of which she’s caught between warring tribes and competing ambitions – those who want nothing to do with the Romans and those who do. Agnes meanwhile is living in an England in the throes of Brexit. Agnes also comes into contact with opposing interest groups: environmentalists concerned with the destructive impact of digging on endangered land and companies seeking to profit from peat harvesting.

Into this mix, North inserts a third perspective, that of the sphagnum moss essential to the formation of the wetlands which provide a unique habitat for a diverse range of species. The moss operates as a collective chorus, a networked organism that’s witnessed centuries of human activity, including those that threaten its continued existence. Its gnomic, lyrical pronouncements reminded me of Seamus Heaney’s memorable poem Bog Queen – which may well be an inspiration. Here it highlights historical continuities as well as issues around conservation, climate change and devastating corporate practices – the urgent need to ban the use of peat, to preserve and restore wetlands have been significant talking points in the UK in recent years. Like her earlier work, North’s intent on disrupting genre boundaries mixing the oral/poetic and eco-fictional with traditional historical fiction wrapped up with a play on the conventional murder mystery. All of which combines to form a broader cultural and political critique.

North is a skilled, fluid storyteller. I liked her careful reworking of events surrounding the discovery of Europe’s bog people. Her plot intersects with aspects of the real-life unearthing of Cheshire’s so-called Lindow Man which became entangled with an inquiry into the disappearance of Malika de Fernandez – prompting a spontaneous confession by her killer. But I wasn’t entirely taken with Agnes’s character, she fell a bit flat for me, her backstory didn’t mesh well with her forensic investigations. There was a tendency to fall back on stereotypes at times – why are environmental activists so often portrayed as inherently belligerent and spiky? I found the druid’s sections far more compelling and atmospheric – although I wish the timeline and historical context had been a bit less hazy. North raises some fascinating ideas around our duty towards the past, historical research versus the ethics of disturbing the dead. She also gestures towards intriguing tensions between archaeology and conservationists - which I’d liked to have seen explored in more detail. I was also uncertain about elements of the connections being traced between the Iron Age woman and Agnes’s circumstances. Opposition to the Iron Age woman’s support for closer links to Rome was suggestive of Brexit and resistance to sustaining ties to Europe. If that connection was intentional then North’s arguments seem a bit muddled - there’s a not-insignificant asymmetry between modern-day ties to Europe and an Iron Age in which Rome was essentially a colonising, imperial force. But, although this wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for, I still enjoyed it, it was immersive, innovative, often entertaining, frequently informative.