Bog Queen

by Anna North

The story of an anthropologist's monumental discovery and the clash of civilizations it sets off over the fate of the land that holds us

When a body is found in a bog in northwest England, Agnes, an American forensic anthropologist, is called to investigate. But this body is not like any she has ever seen: Although its bones prove it was buried more than two thousand years ago, it is almost completely preserved.

Soon Agnes is drawn into a mystery from the distant past, called to understand and avenge the death of an Iron Age woman more like her than she knows. Along the way she must contend with peat-cutters who want to profit from the bog and activists who demand that the land be left undisturbed. Then there is the moss itself: a complex repository of artifacts and remains with its own dark stories to tell. As Agnes faces the deep history of what she has unearthed, she is also forced to question what she thought she knew about her talent, her self-reliance, and her place in the world.

Flashing between the uncertainty of post-Brexit England and the druidic order of Celtic Europe at the dawn of the Roman era, Bog Queen brims with contemporary urgency and ancient wisdom as it connects two young women learning to harness their strange strengths in a mysterious and complex landscape.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Horror, Historical, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 14, 2025

About the author

Anna North is a novelist and journalist. She is the author of the novels Bog Queen (October 2025), Outlawed (a New York Times bestseller and Reese's Book Club pick), The Life and Death of Sophie Stark, and America Pacifica. She has been a writer and editor at Jezebel, BuzzFeed, and the New York Times, and is now a senior correspondent at Vox.

Follow her on Bluesky or Instagram.

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Weidenfeld and Nicholson for an ARC

Rating: 3/3.5

[Teres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anna North's new novel Bog Queen is a far cry from the Wild West of Outlawed (2021).

A woman’s body is found buried in a peat bog near Ludlow, England, in 2018.

Agnes Linstrom, a young forensic specialist in bones and teeth, discovers that this remarkably well-preserved body is more than 2,000 years old, dating back to the dawn of the Roman Empire.

Bog Queen focuses on these two smart, ambitious women born two millennia apart — a Celtic druid and a forensic anthropologist.

Alternating chapters are dated by the cycles of the moon in 50 BCE, when Romans are encroaching on the Celtic territories, and 2018 when the druid's body is unearthed.

How did she die? How did she live?

Agnes wants to excavate the peat more fully to answer these questions, but is met with two opposing forces: environmental activists trying to preserve the bog and developers eager to harvest the carbon-rich moss and build luxury apartments on the site.

The setting here is very much a character. In fact, North devotes occasional chapters to the collective voice of a moss colony that inhabits the bog.

Switching between the women’s stories allows North to transform a 2000-year-old murder into a thrilling, minute-by-minute whodunnit.

She certainly kept this reader turning pages to find out whether Agnes solves the mystery of the bog woman, and also left me pondering the impact we have on one another and on our environment.

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook review coming soon! Thank you, Libro FM for the ALC
Title/Author: Bog Queen by Anna North
Format Read: ALC from Libro FM
Pub date: October 14th, 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Page Count: 288
Affiliate Link:
Format Read: https://bookshop.org/a/7576/978163557...
Recommended for readers who enjoy:
- Bog bodies- a naturally preserved human corpse found in a peat bog, often dating back thousands of years.
- Historical fiction- post-Brexit England and the druidic order of Celtic Europe at the dawn of the Roman era
- Dual timelines
- light romance
- Science/Environmental
__
Minor complaints:
- This wasn't exactly what I was expecting/anticipating-I thought maybe there would be more mystery/suspense
- I was entertained but it was pretty slow
- I felt like I needed more from the main character

Final recommendation: 
Thank you, Libro FM for the advanced listening copy. I think I might have enjoyed and ultimately finished this book because I listened to the audiobook. I might have had a harder time staying invested if I was reading the physical book. I thought the beginning was stronger than the rest of the book--really engaging set-up. I liked the historical narrative more than the present-day one with Agnes.
I thought the POV from the peat moss was so clever--I found myself anticipating those interludes. I'm kind of a junky for bog body stories but most of the ones I have read were horror or dark & disturbing so this one left me wanting more from the mystery--some intricately plotted twists or turns--maybe something sinister? But it fell just shy of that expectation. Readers who love historical fiction and forensic science should be pleased with this one, it's well written, it just wasn't quite what I was looking for
Comps: Greater Sins by Gabrielle Griffiths, Mere by Danielle Giles

[Yume Kitasei · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOG QUEEN is a delicately wrought, quietly moving story of progress and preservation—cultural, historical, and ecological. The narrative weaves past and present in a rich tapestry that depicts two intelligent women trying to see across time, one forward and one backward.

Agnes is a forensic anthropologist called to help with evaluating a body recovered from the bog. At first, it’s assumed to be the body of a woman who went missing fifty years ago, but Agnes realizes the woman is far older: her body has been mummified by the moss and peat all this time. Agnes’s story is interwoven with the story of a young druid, trying to lead her people through a period of change brought on by the arrival of the Romans to what is now the northern part of England. And it’s interspersed with the perspective of the moss colony itself, which has endured so many centuries of ecological change.

It’s a story that combines mystery, history, and a thoughtful meditation on how we value the world and its constituent stories, so many lost inevitably to time. I really enjoyed this. Thank you to the publisher for a free ARC through NetGalley.

[Kay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love bogs, and bog bodies. I love history, and archaeology and anthropology where they concern ancient, difficult-to-know histories. I love women's stories, especially. I was so hopeful that I would love this book because it has all of these things, but I think, unfortunately, this book would have been much more fun if I didn't know anything about any of those topics.

Anna North gets quite a few things wrong, and her depiction of ancient Britain is heavily dependent on her own speculation and on the fact that she just made a bunch of stuff up. I thought the split perspective was interesting at first because it gave readers a chance to see a potential perspective for this fictional bog body, and I thought giving the moss its own POV chapters was also unique, but it all felt rather pointless and incredibly boring about halfway through. Not to mention how frustrating it was to read any of the "bog queen's" chapters and wonder, "Now why did North write THAT?"

This book was fine, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who actually knows anything about bogs and bog bodies, or to any anthropologists or anyone considering becoming an anthropologist, unless they're deliberately looking for a pretty bad depiction of anthropology. I would also never call this "historical fiction." If I could offer one piece of advice to the publishers, it would be this: change how you're marketing the book. Call it YA. Scrap the "historical fiction" genre tag. Then you're home free.

[jenny reads a lot]

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Thank you Libro.fm for the gifted ALC. All opinions are my own.

[Ellery Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book from the first page.

It opens from the POV of the bog, which set the tone for Anna North's dual timelines and her two female protagonists who a struggling to carve a place in the world.

Agnes, a forensic anthropologist, was a sensitive, flawed, and brilliant character. The respect and tenderness she shows the dead moved me, as did her struggles with her personal relationships. When she is called in to help identify the cause of death of the Bog Queen, a Bronze Age woman, she encounters more than a mystery when she is thrown in the middle of a fight between developers and environmentalists.

The dead woman is a Celtic druid who is also caught between opposing sides. She must choose between her people's long-standing traditions or stride boldly into the future by forming an alliance with the Romans occupying Briton.

The genre-blending is so well done in this novel. It's part-mystery, part climate fiction, part historical fiction and it all works. I loved the exploration of women's roles, neurodivergence, environmental conversation, and how artifacts can reach across time to influence the present. Highly recommend.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A colony of moss does not experience emotions like fondness or intimacy, but if it did, it might say this: We held her. We kept her safe under the surface, in our bath of earth, for many times her lifespan. That we give her up now may seem to be purely random, an accident of excavation. In fact, the hour of her service is at hand.”
📚
After a bog body is unearthed in northwest England, American forensic anthropologist Agnes is called in to investigate. Unlike any body she’s examined before, this one is almost entirely preserved, and the bones indicate it was buried during the Iron Age, more than two thousand years ago. What was the woman’s story, how did she die, and how did she come to be entombed beneath the peat?

To solve this ancient mystery, Agnes must excavate the bog and exhume whatever artifacts remain. The stakes are sky-high, as standing in her way are destructive, corporate peat-cutters and a group of preservationist activists. Can Agnes find her place in the world, prove her talent and self-reliance, and bring to light the land’s dark stories before it’s too late?

Moving between timelines and points of view, Bog Queen is a beautiful and devastating tale that gradually unfurls primeval secrets and ageless struggles through the past (a European Celtic druidic order at the start of the Roman era), the present (England in April–May 2018), and the unique, timeless vantage point of a moss colony. The narrative imparts an omnipresent sense of urgency, juxtaposing the heartless essence of capitalist destruction, the desperate fight of preservationism, the enduring perils of politics, and the all-seeing wisdom of nature. These elements seamlessly combine to form a storyline pulsing with weight and realism, imparted via two women attempting to navigate their lives and utilize their skills in fraught and mysterious environments.

Gorgeous writing, concise chapters, and a cast of vulnerable, believable characters make for an arresting and binge-worthy account that transcends time. The gravity of each woman’s challenges feels relatable and universal. How does one balance personal struggle and aspiration amid larger issues — warring civilizations, clashing communities, dying planets — and can a contemporary society truly understand or avenge a woman who lived so long ago?

Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for sharing a physical ARC of this incredible forthcoming novel (won via Goodreads giveaway), which releases on October 14, 2025. It’s a quietly powerful, deeply resonant reading experience that utterly enraptured this reader.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read a few bog woman books within the last few years that were either horror or horror adjacent. By the time I started listening to Bog Queen, I’d either forgotten the synopsis, or else I hadn’t really read it at all, as I fully expected a creepy story here. Instead, it was a beautiful tale of two women who pushed the boundaries of societal expectations, centuries apart from each other.

Had I entered into this with proper expectations, I may have enjoyed it more. It wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but Anna North‘s lush prose sang to my poet heart. I also found all of the forensic anthropology details deeply fascinating, so much so that I’m ready to go back to school to earn a degree in that field. (My desire to go back to school for whatever fixation I’m currently stuck on is one that surfaces frequently, so don‘t get your heart set on me following through with this, haha.)

3.5 stars

I am immensely grateful to Libro.fm and Bloomsbury Publishing for my copy. All opinions are my own.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bog Queen is a two timeline novel. One timeline focuses on Agnes, a forensic anthropologist still early in her career, still figuring things out. She's been called in to give her opinion on a set of female remains that may be a woman murdered by her husband several decades ago. Agnes quickly realizes that that the remains in question are actually a bog body.

The second timeline is the story of the woman whose remains have been discovered. She's a "druid," which in this context means a healer of some sort with responsibilities to her community. She's traveling to a meeting with a king who is likely untrustworthy, but whose invitation can't be ignored.

There's a third element in the novel—the site where the bog body has been found is slated to be used for a high-end housing development and, as a result, is the site of an occupation by eco-activists. These activists are refusing to leave the site making further archaeological/anthropological investigation impossible.

That's a good bit of summary, but I'm including all of it because the potential for interesting complexities seemed inviting when I first came across this novel. Contemporary politics, forensic anthropology, a bog body—to me that sounded like a can't-miss.

I found that that can't-miss potential wasn't really fulfilled. Agnes is somewhat vague as a character; the druid narrative reads rather like fantasy; the politicking sets up familiar tensions between issues of profit and natural preservation, but doesn't offer surprises.

If the elements of the novel appeal to you, it is worth checking out. the novel's elements that struck me as near misses could well be right on target for another reader.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.

[Shirleynature · Rating 5 out of 5]

I look forward to putting this in readers' hands who love complex dual narratives with insight from thoughtful-provoking strong young women. One in the distant historical era --1st century northwestern England. Another very recent is introverted, sensitive, insightful, and determined to maintain her independence and seek the truth. Oh, and the omniscient moss may reveal many secrets from the depths.

This intricate and engaging place-based thriller offers three female perspectives -- revealing to readers the inner-thoughts of a contemporary newly trained forensic anthropologist, a young druid healer from centuries past, and a voice from the wild peat moss bog.

If you love reading literary fiction with multiple perspectives from different time periods and character-driven stories as in There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak and People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, you'll want to pick this up!

Thanks to Anna North, her publisher, and Libro.fm for early access to the digital audio for review!

notes:
mystery in both timelines
historical thriller -- sibling rivalry and Roman warlord conflict
coming of age
magical realism in getting to hear from the moss
character-centered
nature, eco-themes, herbal healing druid, spiritual leader
place-based northwest England
Celtic Europe
Roman era
dual timelines
fast-paced

[Wendy Darling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forensic anthropologist + druids + a mysterious body found in a bog. If any of that intrigues you at all, stop reading this and get yourself a copy of this book!

Very quickly:

--I rarely like historical novels told in parallel timelines, but it was skillfully and purposefully done here. I loved the writing as well.

--I liked the characters and relationships, though I think delving even deeper into the two women would have made this even richer.

--I enjoyed the choice to narrate some sections from the sorghum moss' point of view. This type of device can go so horribly wrong, but because they are short, humorous, and offer unique insights, they work in the context of this story.

Most of all, however, I loved how Agnes approaches her job and the responsibility she bears towards her unknown bog queen. There is a solemn respect and care that I feel an affinity for (it reminds me of Cassie Raven's tenderness for her mortuary guests in Body Language), in a weird way; one of the reasons I went to the National Museum of Scotland a couple of years ago was to see the peat bog mummies. It was incredible to see them in person and take a moment to imagine these figures, transformed by time and natural elements into something both unfamiliar and recognizable, as living beings. I still haven't absorbed the enormous privilege of seeing preserved human remains that were thousands of years old.

It also moved me unbearably towards the end of the iron age woman's story when I realized what was going on and what had happened to her. I didn't expect it, and the very restraint with which it was written and the lack of definitive explanation for the modern timeline made it all the more poignant.

It's not perfect. But I loved it.

Audio Notes: Lily Newmark's narration was everything I wanted and more.

[natalie diller · Rating 4 out of 5]

bury me in the bog please

[Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked but did not love this novel, mostly because I think it failed to lived up to its premise and for a scattered few other reasons detailed below.

The story is told through three voices: 1) an American forensic anthropologist, Agnes, doing her post-doc in northern England in 2018; 2) a young Celtic woman, a Druid, from the same small town in northern England circa 50 BCE; 3) the sphagnum moss bog -- a kind of Greek chorus -- in which the Druid's body is found, which Agnes is called upon to investigate, and where there is a fight between a peat excavating company that has pretty much destroyed the bog and environmentalists who wish to protect it.

I liked these three voices -- the bog's was a particular risk, but I think a successful one -- and I liked the way the novel gradually unearthed (forgive me, puns seem to be lurking in every crevasse) information about the Druid's life through re-imagining it. I liked the links between the Druid's character and Agnes's, and between the broader themes (environmental degradation; societal change) in pre-Christian England and post-Brexit England.

There are some moments of really lovely writing, especially when North is digging into character motivations and self-reflections.

There's another body in the bog, which provides the novel with a parallel mystery to be solved / conflict to be worked through, and another set of characters who mix and match between all of these narrative streams in the 2018 timeline. I question whether this sub-plot was necessary. It stretches the contemporary timeline a bit thin leaving not a lot of focus on what is most interesting.

I think this novel is both not long enough and not well-researched enough -- the two being related -- or at least the research didn't end up on the page to provide enough world-building. This is particularly troublesome in the Druid's timeline. We needed to spend much more time with her, especially in the southern Roman town of Camulodunum, what is now Colchester in Essex. My quick search to get the spelling right just showed me how much North decided to leave out -- or rather, how much more flesh could have been put on the bare bones she chose to show us.

I imagined this part of the story, throughout, along the lines of Nicola Griffith's Hild -- it's roughly the same setting although about 600 years earlier -- and it fell short. I realize this is super unfair but there you have it.

All this to say Bog Queen needed more attention to detail, and more detail, more depth to be immersive and fully convincing. The Druid and her timeline were really interesting, but given short shrift. Agnes was a compelling character, socially awkward and an obvious child prodigy, but we didn't really get enough of her back story for the details to gel and link up with the broader narrative. (Unfortunately, we got a lot of superficial hints that were never followed up on -- which only made the absence of back story more apparent).

As one example, and one that really disappointed me, Ruby -- the daughter of an academic working with Agnes to untangle the mystery of who the bog body was and how she died -- was pivotal to the plot, and important to Agnes as a mirror of her own childhood and her character development. She wasn't featured prominently enough or woven more coherently into the narrative. Where she did appear, these scenes seemed almost random and unfinished.

There was both too much going on and not enough structure to hold it -- and it was all resolved too quickly and too neatly.

I really wish North had taken more time to develop this, with perhaps some better editorial guidance.

There is so much good here that could have been truly great.

I'm glad I read (listened) to it -- and Lily Newmark, the narrator, was up to the task of conveying the many voices and characters.

[Geonn Cannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wayyyy too many ideas stuff in here for such a brief book. Three loosely connected novellas in a trenchcoat that never gives you a chance to truly settle with any one in particular. The bog sections were interesting, but otherwise it felt like reading two not-very-interesting short stories in VERY different genres.

[Carly Friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this dual-timeline novel. It follows Agnes, a neurodivergent forensic anthropologist, who is involved in a discovery of a woman's body. As it turns out, the body is not that of a recently murdered woman but a druid-era priestess/leader. I found the Iron Age woman's storyline to be just as engaging as the current time period and Anges's research process. As a fellow individual on the spectrum, Agnes's character and difficulties with social interactions resonated.

The writing is beautiful and I thought the pacing was very strong. I did not feel bogged down or bored at any point. The audiobook narration was good. Highly recommended!

[Z.Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars.

First, thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing and Goodreads for the free ARC and opportunity to read this book!

I was really impressed with this book and hope it gets a lot of attention when it releases! Part mystery, party historical fiction, part eco-lit, Anna North is extremely effective in her effortless blending of genre and style here. The story is presented in a dual narrative, switching between an ancient druid woman's story in roughly 50 BCE and present day forensic anthropologist who has unearthed the body of the druid, which has been preserved in a bog.

The discovery is used as a touchstone to bring multiple parties together and is the main source of conflict. You have the pro-environment protesters who are fighting to protect the bog alongside the competing corporate interest who are extracting the peat and causing ecological destruction in the area. I am a sucker for books that weave in environmental issues, particularly without being heavy-handed, and the commentary in this book is insightful and engaging.

I highly recommend Bog Queen and am excited for what Anna North does next.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agnes, a forensic anthropologist, is called to northwest England to investigate a body found in a bog. She arrives to find a group protesting any disturbance of the fragile wetland. There is also concern that the body is that of a woman who disappeared some fifty years earlier.

When Agnes finally gains access to the body, which, though over two thousand years old, she finds that it appears much younger thanks to the bog.

Anna North not only gives us Agnes' PoV, but we also meet two others. One is a young Celtic woman, who is a druid, living in a land just on the cusp of the Roman takeover. There is both fear and curiosity about the Romans, and the young woman must help her people navigate the tricky interface between the two peoples.

The other is seriously intriguing: it's the moss, an aggregate being who has been watching events in that part of the world over millennia.

The story is full of mystery, interesting personalities, the way stories are integral to our understanding of each other and the world, and loss. The

Agnes is a bit hard to understand, while the druid is wonderfully compelling. The moss was the best!

[Hank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initially I was not enraptured with the story. The historical part didn't really fold in well and the present piece of novel was generic. I did eventually start to enjoy Agnes and her life and understood the function of Celtic Europe, I just think it was poorly fleshed out and kind of a weak setup of the central mystery.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read two of Anna North's previous novels, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark and Outlawed, and it's impressive to see how she continually reinvents herself as a writer. Bog Queen is no exception. This novel flips between the contemporary perspective of Agnes, an American forensic anthropologist, who discovers an ancient bog body near Ludlow in Shropshire, and an unnamed female Iron Age druid newly come into her role and trying to guide her village through the upheavals caused by the arrival of the Romans. (There are also short sections from the point of view of the peat moss in the bog, but although I found these inoffensive, I wasn't sure what they added; I felt North was trying too hard to tap into the recent trend for literary eco-fiction novels that look beyond the human, such as Sarah Hall's Helm and Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds. ) Agnes is a tricky protagonist; in her twenties, she is young and inexperienced, but comes off as even younger, to the point when I became frustrated with her rigid thinking. She has a tantalising backstory that suggests an inner strength that is not conveyed in her interactions on the page, but this thread is dropped as the story unfolds. In contrast, I felt the challenges faced by the druid were genuinely difficult, although we also see how they are linked to her own character flaws, and our knowledge of her impending death gives that thread a tension that Agnes's story lacks. I enjoyed reading this but I felt, by the end, that it had all fallen a bit flat, gesturing towards a bigger story that it never gets to tell. I wondered if shrinking Agnes's sections into more of a framing narrative for the Iron Age drama might have given us something more arresting. But I'll continue reading North. 3.5 stars.

I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.

[Cate - Catethereader · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sad, yet beautiful book. It made me think of so many things about the past, how we got here and how lucky we are that we live in this time.

I really recommend it, it was intriguing, mysterious but not scary. I loved the FMC as well, loved how hard she tried to find out who this woman was and how was she killed.

Enjoyed it a lot.

[Saltygalreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the northwest of England, a body is uncovered in a peat bog. Work is halted while an expert, an American forensic pathologist, is called in to examine the body to help determine how old the body is and how she died. The woman’s body is remarkably well-preserved, and Agnes becomes drawn into her story and the secrets of her life and death contained in her remains. While the experts search for answers, controversy simmers in the town over the future of the peat bog. Environmentalists want the bog left intact to regenerate, while the harvesting company wants to dig it up. Meanwhile, the bog quietly sits and awaits its fate, as it has done for centuries.

Bog Queen alternates between the England of two vastly different times – 2018 and 2000 years previous to the early days of the Roman occupation of England. In 2018, Agnes, intelligent but socially awkward and naïve, struggles to establish an independent life and career in the north of England. The possibility of neurodivergence is hinted at, but never explicitly stated. She desperately wants to be successful on her own terms and not have to return to her father’s house. Meanwhile the reader learns about the Bog Queen, also struggling to find her power and lead her people with confidence, while the Romans encroach on their lands and other aspiring leaders scheme and plot to gain power.

Interestingly, the peat bog is a character all its own – quietly bearing witness to the petty human triumphs and tragedies playing out around it. It bears a ceremonial and religious significance to the druids and reverently holds the body of the Bog Queen until she is discovered. The story of the peat bog is the story of our planet and all its wild green spaces, awaiting their fate at our hands.

[Angela Lashbrook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and wise.

[Sierra Klawitter · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟
Growing up, I wanted to be a paleontologist or anthropologist, and this book reignited all those old nerdy feelings all over again.
Socially awkward female scientist? ✔️
Atmospheric rainy setting? ✔️
Alternating POVs with a historic storyline? ✔️
Focus on science rather than romance? ✔️✔️
Might not be my favorite read of the year, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Will be going to rewatch Bones immediately.

[Mary Camille Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bog Queen is one of the reasons I go to Portland BookFest: to discover new authors and books I might not otherwise come across. Granted, this beautiful cover would likely have caught my eye in a bookstore, but hearing Anna North speak on a panel clinched the deal. It’s a satisfying mystery/historical novel — parallel stories take the reader back and forth in time from 2018 and a young forensic anthropologist researching a body discovered in a bog in northern England to the Iron Age with a young Druid negotiating the promise and peril of dealing with the Roman Empire. What lifts it into the realm of literary are short chapters from the point of view of the moss. This might like sound unlikely, but these passages were my favorites in the book — the voice of the moss is knowing, wry, and offers a long perspective I found reassuring.

[Becky Trefethen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked the pace of this book as someone who is an anthropology / climate science and history nerd - some excerpts I had to reverse the audio book and relisten to bc I missed it. I actually wish it was longer / that there were more books coming. Overall a really great book that made you think about what life is like for those that are different than you and your place in this world.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but much preferred the historical storyline to the present day one. It felt like too many heavy issues in the current time that never really got fully explored and I feel so many things happened off-page.

[Christy]

2⭐️ I think it was me- not the book. I should have DNF it. I probably would have liked it more if I had read it at another time.

[Sarah Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel really mixes it up with three narratives; one of the struggling neurodivergent scientist in the now, a Druid leader in the early contact with the Roman Empire and a voice representing the mossy British bog that ties the story up in one big big knot. I found this one super entertaining and paced well. I also found the voice of the bog intriguing as our book club was reading the book Moss by Klaus Modick at the same time. (Loved rereading that one!!)

Characters who are neurodivergent seem to be in vogue these days. Those quirky super smart scientists or doctors who see the world in ways so different from the average intelligent person as to appear super human, despite their challenges. Starting to feel like a trope perhaps.

[Nicole W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

TL;DR: this is a lovely dual narrative that looks at a historical time period I didn't know much about, and has unique characters. however, the plot just didn't really do much and felt mildly insubstantial.

there were a lot of moving parts to this, and individually they all moved well. they were interesting pieces to a puzzle and I enjoyed them all separately. but all together they created a narrative that didn't feel cohesive.

Let me start by saying I enjoyed Agnes a lot, and I thought she was a fantastic anthropologist narrator. I learned a lot from her story line. the druid storyline also felt rich and had a ton of potential.

But Agnes never really .... developed for me. and the druid story never really felt fully explained. and while the way the two come together was interesting enough, it didn't really strike me as any sort of literary stand-out or twist or reflection. the story just sort of happened.

it happens beautifully and it is well written for sure. it's interesting and the research is lovely and it touches on great issues that could have a lot of depth to them. but it just sort of felt like the book and the story in it existed. and then it just sort of ended. it never had a clear climax, which I didn't love.

if you're interested in moss or anthropology or the early roman dealings in Scotland, this is a great book. if you just want to lose yourself in nature prose, pick this up. but if you need a plot with nice tight points and solid development, you might not love this.