Our Numbered Bones

by Katya Balen

When her life is unexpectedly upended, Anna escapes London – and her husband – for a remote cottage in the wetlands of rural England. She hopes the solitude might unblock the novel she can’t bring herself to write.

Out in the marshes, the locals discover something shocking, risen to the surface after many years buried in the silty earth. Anna is drawn to the site, fascinated and shaken by what she finds there. And as researchers descend, her curiosity gives way to obsession . . .

An unsettling, propulsive and fiercely tender novel about buried loss and renewal, Our Numbered Bones explores how we must unearth the past in order to make peace with what we’ve lost.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Mental Health, British Literature, Audiobook, Grief

256 pages, Hardcover

Published February 17, 2026

About the author

Katya Balen is a British author of children's literature. She was born in 1989, in London. Her novel October, October won the 2022 Carnegie Medal. Her work has also been nominated for the Branford Boase Award and the Wainwright Prize for Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation.

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A moving, unusual perspective on grieving and the aftermath of stillbirth, this is Katya Balen’s first novel aimed at adults. Introspective, meditative, it’s narrated by Anna a novelist in her late thirties who’s utterly devastated by unexpected loss. Unable to write, unable to deal with her partner’s emotions, she grabs at the offer of a writer’s retreat, time alone in a remote cottage in the Fens. Somewhere Anna might be able to evade at least some of her myriad anxieties. A place with no WiFi or mobile signals: nobody to offer polite condolences; none of the horrors of the 24-hour news cycle or reminders of creeping environmental blight. A temporary escape too from Anna’s guilt over her mother who’s now in a care home and no longer recognises her. But not long after Anna arrives, she’s witnesses the discovery of a woman’s corpse in nearby marshland. A woman who exerts a strange pull, as if Anna somehow knows her. When Anna meets a team of archaeologists in the local village, she learns the woman’s body dates from 1200 BCE, and accepts an invitation to watch the archaeologists’ work.

Balen builds on ideas of a thin place tracing back to ancient Celtic religion. Thin places are sites where boundaries between realms, between living and dead, are thought to be porous. For Anna the centuries between her and this unknown woman fall away, as if they share a consciousness or are bound by an experience sacred to them both. This feeling invades Anna’s dreams, unearthing, as the woman is unearthed, memories she’s tried to bury. Balen uses this scenario to reflect on women’s embodiment, on male violence, on fragility and resilience. The apparent ritualistic nature of the ancient woman’s death opens up wider questions about mortality and loss in cultures that have no frameworks for mourning – in which death is still, for all intents and purposes, taboo.

Anna’s bond with the ancient woman suggests communion with a sacred, totemic force – expressed through poetic fragments, in which Anna’s thought are indistinguishable from the unknown woman’s. Anna’s then presented with a dilemma, she realises the woman’s body is an object of research, likely to end up a spectacle in a museum. A plot point which connects to the inspiration for Balen’s story, her chance viewing of Denmark’s famous Vaedbaek burial, a woman’s remains found along with the bones of a newborn cradled by a swan’s wing. Anna’s desire to leave the woman where she was buried gestures towards recent debates over whether or not bodies like this should be retrieved.

Balen’s fluid, often lyrical, narrative is keenly observed, with numerous stand-out passages. But I found the bursts of poetic prose less convincing, and the mystical dimension difficult to relate to. I was also uncertain about the perfunctory portrayal of Anna’s husband PJ. It may be that’s deliberate, highlighting how grieving can cut people off from one another, even when their loss is shared. However, this reminded me of early work by Sarah Moss and Maggie O’Farrell - there are echoes of Claire Keegan too – so for fans of these writers this is well worth considering.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Canongate for an ARC

Rating: 3.5

[Stephen the Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Katya Balen is a phenomenal writer and over the last few years has captivated younger readers( and adults) with her magical, sometimes ethereal, moving and sensitive tales of young lives going through periods of challenge and transition.

Our Numbered Bones is her debut adult novel and it is certainly worthy of attention.

Anna's life has been over turned by a personal tragedy and she cannot breathe under the pressure of the expectation of writing a new. novel and the over-powering care and love from her husband. She is offered the chance to stay in a remote cottage with the goal of starting her new book- change to escape and breathe..

But a chance encounter whilst walking leads Anna her to the discovery of a body taking her life into an unexpected direction- the body of a young woman from centuries ago has been exposed within the bogland of the area- still preserved. A deep connection between the discovered corpse and Anna is opened - leading her to an obsession that pulls apart the fragile existence that Anna has created to survive

This is a novel that is so raw and simultaneously tender. Katya Balen's prose is at times minimal- stripped bare but so powerful - and sections are intermittently written in poetic form which add an extra depth and beauty- especially in relation to Anna's connection with the discovered young woman. Linking the personal trauma of Anna and the violence of corpse's demise- this is a story of loss and finding the peace to move forward.

Let's hope this is the start of Katya Balen's adult fiction writing ( but don't stop the writing for younger readers)

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Anna leaves London for a writing retreat in rural England, she is at loose ends—bogged down in grief, unable to do so much as start her overdue book, not sure how to move forward or if she even wants to. Then the body surfaces in the marsh—not a recent body, not something for the local police unit, but someone from a much different time. And Anna is drawn to that body, that woman, in ways she cannot explain.

I wanted to shrug off the city and slip into someone else, someone far away. (loc. 75*)

There's something about centuries-old bodies in bogs that really captures the imagination. I read this partly because of how much Ghost Wall intrigued me, I think; it was an itch that Excavations (which is not at all about bogs) deepened rather than scratched. When I visited a bog outside Tallinn a couple of years ago, with its eerily clear water and spongy soft ground on either side of the wooden walkways, my mind drifted again and again to ancient bodies in bogs.

I'm trying to think how best to describe Our Numbered Bones: eerie, perhaps, though not overly so; sharp but swathed in soft edges; theoretically fragmented but grounded in dirt, in bog, in grief.

The only story tapping its way in my brain is the one I ever want to tell. The words of it are chattering in their chains. (loc. 421)

This is an odd one (mostly for some stylistic choices) and a good one. I'll note that this one comes with a trigger warning or two around the grief part of things; it's late in the game before Anna's full backstory is told, so I'm reluctant to give details, but there are both complicated family dynamics and recent loss to consider. Approach with caution if there's been recent loss in your life, but it's a good one if you're interested in character-driven stories with interesting settings.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

[Wendy Greenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel can certainly count amongst one of the most visceral novels I have read. Whilst the spine of the story is clear - distressed and damaged author goes to a writing retreat attempting to meet extended deadline for her second book.

She is traumatised, the reasons growing ever clearer as the narrative of our protagonist, Anna, progresses/dissolves/emerges. The language pulls us in and out of episodic staccato poetry heaped by caesuras emphasising her broken-ness and her submersion. Often shifts in writing style can interrupt the reader but I found they truly pulled me in.

A nearby archaeological discovery, and the team working on the find, prove the catalyst for Anna.

This novel echoes many books I have encountered yet in a totally unique immersive way. Although themed differently I am thinking "Soldier, Sailor" by Claire Kilroy and "Ghost Wall" by Sarah Moss.

Staggeringly,painfully good

With thanks to #NetGalley and #Canongate for the opportunity to read and review

[em · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful and raw story about grief, womanhood and motherhood. The writing in this felt tender, similar to the body found in the bog. I felt that if I breathed too heavy the words would melt away. This was refreshing and heavy to read, a really fantastic experience and example of literature being a transformative experience. Stunning.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #OurNumberedBones #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

[Andrea Gagne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll write my review when I am done sobbing.

Deep breath

Ok, here we go.

This is a book about a writer, Anna, who is wracked with grief and unable to write (or talk to her husband, or get out of bed, or really do much of anything). She is depressed, wallowing, and despises her husband for being "too" caring and supportive. For a change of environment, she takes her publisher up on an offer to go on a writing retreat to a remote cabin out in the boggy marshlands of rural England. There, on a walk through the bog, she stumbles upon the body of a woman. She feels somehow like she knows this woman, even after learning her body is thousands of years old, preserved by the bog. Anna's interest grows to obsession as her mental health unspools.

During the first half of this book, I actually questioned whether I should keep reading. I am not one for "sad girl" books, and this was so sad, so woe is me, so self pitying. Honestly, I found her extremely unlikeable. I kept reading because the writing itself was pure poetry, the imagery of depression so skillful. As Anna unraveled, it was clear the author was bringing the reader on a carefully planned emotional journey, and I let her take me along.

I am so, so, so glad I did. This was a catharsis of grief, a paradox of death and life, a book thst lives in the thin places between the two. It speaks of motherhood and loss in a way that is incredibly hard to read about (content warning for miscarriage). But just as Anna can only heal by facing her grief head on, the reader must go on that journey with her through the darkness to see the glimmer of hope in the dawn.

5 stars 🌟

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for this ARC to read and review.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was Balen’s adult debut after many works for children. Anna is stuck on her contracted novel when she gets a place on a retreat for writers who are struggling financially. Her struggle is more against despair, though: her mother is disappearing into dementia, and she recently had a stillborn daughter. The latter fact is not fully revealed until maybe halfway through, despite some heavy foreshadowing, so until then we are left to wonder why Anna left her husband, JP, who seems like a great guy (a considerate French chef, what’s not to like?), and why she is so inept and bent on sabotaging her own life.

When a bog body is found near the cottage where she’s staying, Anna becomes imaginatively and emotionally involved in the ensuing exhumation. As in Bog Child and Bog Queen, the corpse is that of a woman and it becomes clear that she was executed – punishment for a perceived social infraction, but also emblematic of the systemic misogyny of the time. Anna becomes enmeshed with the archaeologists, especially Jen, who wears a custom ring as a tribute to each woman she has found dead.

While the content of this novel ticked a lot of interest boxes for me, I didn’t particularly enjoy the style. The attempt to wring poetry out of a mental health crisis too often results in pretentious fragments.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every now and then a book creeps up on me, and hits hard. I’d picked this up in proof form at my local literature festival, six months before it was due out, and having heard the author speak and read from it, and respecting Canongate as a publisher of literary fiction, it made its way into the to-read pile. Anna, the novel’s traumatised (by what is unclear at the outset, and slowly unfurls, until it quickly unfurls) central figure, escapes London, home, hubby, cat, and a deadline to retreat to the Fens – Norfolk, maybe, or Lincolnshire – to write, to engage at least with the deadline.

Soon after arriving, in the marshes, the Fens, a body comes to the surface, quickly revealed to the more of archaeological interest than relevant to the police – marshes having preserved the body well – Anna finds herself drawn into the archaeologists’ circle, supporting the dig at the insistence of the group’s middle aged leader. It is here that Anna begins to feel an affinity with the Bronze Age corpse, and her control of her trauma and grief begins to crumble as she collapses into a profound state of loss and the beginning of restoration.

The upshot is a tale of loss, of grief, of trauma told through Balen’s sparse text, which despite its intense control also manages to be both poetic and poetry – the corpse speaks in verse forms – evoking Anna’s sense of profound loss and despair that comes with it. It’s hard to write too much without giving it all away; it seems important that all the core characters – Anna and archaeologists – are outsiders in the small community and that no-one else seems all that interested in their ancient well-preserved corpse, which seems to intrude into established ways of being and disrupt them – except in the place she is. That is to say, this is very much a story of outsiders intruding but not really engaging: in this Balen has built a multiply layered story of absence and alienation, perfect for Anna’s circumstances, but a place that no longer works as her restoration grows.

Evoking both loss and quest, building around a central bereft character Our Numbered Bones draws out a sense of place and mindset, of recovery and restoration, through a recognition across the eons to be a gorgeous suckerpunch, and all the more beautiful for it.

[Itzy Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, this was emotional and incredibly tender.

We see at the beginning that Anna is struggling with a personal tragedy but you don’t know what that tragedy is until the end. We just know that because of this event that had occurred, she doesn’t feel like herself and is constantly weighed down by societal pressure, familial pressure, and work pressure. She truly cannot breathe and doesn’t know how to cope with her loss.

When she finds a body that comes up to the surface that launches an archeological digging site, she automatically feels a kinship to the body. This deep connection prompts her to navigate her grief at her own pace and eventually come to terms with it. It’s hard to say any more without giving too much away but it was truly exceptional.

[Caleb Best · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful yet haunting look at grief and the damage it can do both emotionally, mentally, and physically if not processed. Balen's use of language and sentence structure leads to an eerie read. The main character truly feels as if they don't care, and the prose mirrors this. Very excited to follow Balen's adult fiction career!

[Scott Baxter]

Our Numbered Bones is a story about a writer living in London named Anna Mendelson. Anna is supposed to be working on her next novel, but is having a hard time concentrating on her work, partly because she is also caring for her aging mother with dementia. Her agent is aware that things are not going well.

“My editor found the retreat for me when yet another deadline slipped by and I’d stopped lying about delivering the manuscript in a few weeks. She emailed the link and there was a line about understanding my difficult circumstances but she’d bolded the new delivery date. Her thoughts were with me” (location 162).

While at the retreat Anna comes across a woman’s dead body. Let me just pause for a moment and say that there is quite a bit of grief and trauma in this book.

Here is the narrator's description of her attempt to make progress on her manuscript at the retreat:

“I am not connecting with nature. I haven’t found joy in a leaf. I haven’t thought of the perfect way to describe a cloud. I haven’t stumbled across my novel. Of course I haven’t. I am stuck. Still” (location 476).

The publisher tells me that this book is literary fiction. At least in my opinion, one of the necessary but not sufficient characteristics for this genre of novel is well crafted sentences that impress. I am not sure about this part.

Katya Balen has previously published at least seven books for children; Our Numbered Bones is her first adult novel. I found a copy of her first book, The Space We’re In, and found a lot more humor and heart in just the first few pages of that book. I would like to read more of that book.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy of this book via Net Galley. All opinions are my own.

epub. 256 pgs. Scheduled for publication 17 February 2026. Finished 27 August 2025.

[Silv · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 🌟
I received this ARC from the publisher, HarperVia and enjoyed every bit of it. This story was absolutely beautiful and equally devastating. The author’s writing is personal and gripping. It is so easy to feel empathy for the protagonist.

Anna is a writer who is selected for a writing retreat in the middle of nowhere. She brings with her nothing but writer’s block, immense grief, and a bag of clothes. Anna has no inspiration and lack of overall interest, until she sees a face in the bog outside her cabin.

The police are called by a neighbor, speculations arise that it’s a murder scene, but Anna knows something. She can sense the woman’s history. She knows why she was brought here.

A team of archaeologists arrive to excavate the body from the dirt, Anna befriends them and they guide her through their process. The careful extraction of the body from the ground. One of the archaeologists, Jen, believes that Anna was meant to write the story of the woman in the bog. She can sense the connection between the two women, and knows that the universe brought Anna here for a reason.

The story is beautiful, it is dark and it is powerful. I am so grateful that I was gifted a copy of this, because I probably would have not discovered it otherwise.

[Geertje Bluekens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katya Balen, oh, ze doet het weer en vindt ook dit keer zichzelf helemaal opnieuw uit. Met 'October, October', 'Ghostlines', 'The light in everything',... veroverde ze al een unieke plaats in de kinder- en jeugdliteratuur. 'Our numbered bones' is haar eerste roman voor volwassenen en ook dit boek is poëtisch en strak gecomponeerd. Het geeft op een heel unieke manier inkijk in ervaringen, gedachten en gevoelens van de personages en laat zien hoe dit alles invloed heeft op wat er speelt in verleden, heden en toekomst.

Welke uitgeverij vertaalt haar boeken eindelijk eens in het Nederlands?

[Rita Egan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Visceral and urgent. I hear influences of Sarah Moss in the writing.

Themes of femicide, still birth and empathy.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. Great read that hits hard and fast. Not a long book but will stay in your mind for days. Easy to digest and enjoyable to read despite the topics.

[Katie Holloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

A long time since something has made me feel like this. I read this with silent tears slipping down my face. Rare for me! I found this kind of purifying, cathartic, raw and honest. Big trigger warning for stillbirth.

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quiet, devastating study of a woman piecing herself back together in the wake of monumental loss, told in assured, visceral prose. Full review posted at BookBrowse.

[Chel (chel.chapters) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you so much to HarperVia for sending me a copy of this novel.

I definitely recommend checking the trigger warnings before going into this one, as it explores heavy themes including grief and infant loss.

The writing is incredibly beautiful, poetic, and intentional. While I don’t think this book will be for everyone, readers who love lyrical, deeply emotional stories will likely connect with it. It felt moving and profound, saying so much with very few words.

Personally, I tend to prefer books that are more plot-driven, and this one is very much a “less is more” kind of story. Still, I can absolutely appreciate how well it was written. 3.5 stars for me based upon preference.

[Sally]

I have read several of Katya Balen’s children’s books and been enthralled by her beautiful writing and her powerful stories. I wondered how she would transfer her art over to adult fiction.

The story..well I am not sure what the story is here. The author is deliberately vague and sets up, as writers do, a lot of questions which her reader will hope to find answered. Who is she? Why did she need to get away from her partner/husband who clearly adores her? What has happened to her? She is clearly torn apart by grief. Has she lost a child? The author throws us little titbits of information - references to a hospital; we see her counting her chips (eating disorder?) And then, close to where she is staying, the body of a bog-preserved woman is found. There seems to be some kind of connection between Anna and the woman..

Balen’s beautiful imagery and poetic lyricism are here in abundance as are the scenic descriptions which are so abundant in her middle grade fiction. However, I think that the main difference is that Balen has swapped external landscapes for internal ones.

This book was quite eerie. I felt wrapped up in the metaphorical and physical landscape - inside Anna’s head and in the bogs where she is staying. I was curious and hypnotised, but also frustrated, discombobulated and marooned. Whilst Balen sets up so many questions, in a comparatively short work, we wait a long time for answers. I am not entirely sure what I think and maybe having read Balen’s children’s fiction, I had expectations of more story. I believe that Balen has written that this book is not for her children’s book readers and perhaps that is why this sadly wasn’t for me. However, I think that this book will find be warmly greeted by many who will enjoy its lyricism and introspection. I am not sure how many stars to give this. At times I thought is was beautiful, at others I had to skim ...I felt so disconnnected.

[Marie Pouwels · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say I read this book with bad intentions. We received a proof copy in the shop I work in. I did not like the front cover, did not like the back cover, hated the layout of some pages. I read the synopsis and thought the author must have some nerves to basically write a lame modern version of "Blood On Her Tongue". After seeing there was no review here yet I thought it'd be a great opportunity for me to write a nasty one.
I started reading and that was so easy to read I had to hold myself back so I wouldn't finish it in less than a day. Turns out I am really glad I read it. I am still not 100% sold on the layout of Anna's writing and she should really see a mental health professional but in the end everything makes sense, it's very raw, very intense and heartbreaking.
I hope everyone likes it as much as I did. Maybe I should pick out more books to read out of spite.

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley for this Arc.
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝙃𝙚𝙧 𝙢𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙣. 𝙇𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨 𝙬𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚. 𝙄 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙮𝙤𝙪.

Anna is a novelist struggling to write, but the reason she cannot seem to get thoughts and words to stick are tied up in her relationship with JP, and earth-shattering loss. She is both broken and numb, she longs for the days when she could go about her day like everyone else. Her editor sends her to a retreat, hoping this escape from life will help her finally finish her manuscript. When she arrives, she isn’t the only thing lying in the dark, twisted and rooted in old aches. What she left behind follows her, like the painful thoughts of her mother’s declining memory, and the unbearable desire wishing she could forget everything too. On her walk from the cottage, into the bitter cold, she comes upon a man and a face in the marsh. It isn’t a statue, it’s a body. As she looks, she feels a bone deep familiarity and so begins the real story.

Throughout the tale, Anna feels drawn in, haunted, obsessed and protective over the body, almost like love. Anna befriends the archeologists working at the site, even inviting them into her cottage to eat, but she is torn between wanting to learn what happened to the woman in the marsh and that it is a violation to take her body from the earth. She is swallowed up by the group, listening to them talk about cold facts of life and death, thin places, whether it’s wrong or right to bring the past to light. Jen, isn’t nearly as coldly scientific as Anna thinks, she has her reasons for unearthing the ‘girls’, as she refers to her sites/work, the women buried in the earth, their sacrifices, murders, untold. She too is driven to tell stories. Jen tells her there is a reason Anna found the girl, that she was called to her. She and Anna aren’t so different. But Anna’s past is mixed up in the wounds of this ancient woman found in the marsh and the grief that arises with the discovery leads to Anna’s much needed unraveling. It is an emotional story, one that I didn’t expect to stir me as much as it did. She hasn’t felt this awake since before arriving at the cottage. But now that she is opening, the things she has been trying to bury inside herself are making their way through. She must confront her trauma. A story of loss and all the things that slip from a woman’s hands, mind and body. It is about death and rebirth, the things we must shed to survive. Yes, read it.

Publication Date: February 17, 2026

HarperVia

[Divya Shankar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating 4.5 stars
Review - Katya Balen, a Carnegie medal winner, is a much loved author of children’s fiction. Our Numbered Bones is her debut adult novel. Anna Mendelson, the book’s protagonist, in a bid to escape her life in London, a past puckered with guilt, loss, grief, trauma moves to a quaint cottage in the rural wetlands. Her editor suggests the change of place hoping she can get over writer's block and complete her novel. But when locals discover a woman's body that's risen to the surface in the bogs, Anna’s curiosity to know about the dead woman turns into an obsession. It pushes her to confront her past head on rather than run away from it. A group of archaeologists are out to investigate for the dead woman is a relic from a bygone era carefully preserved under marsh, not a victim of some recent crime. Who is the dead woman, why does Anna feel she knows her? The earth is alive with dead, alive with stories; as both are exhumed, Anna finds a closure for a past that’s been haunting her.

Having read the author's books for children - Nightjar, Little House and Birdsong and finding comfort and joy in her bright and beautiful, crisp and hopeful world of words, it really took me time to accept the unsettling and triggering environs of this novel. Short chapters, a mix of prose and verse, bursts of razor sharp sentences, the protagonist’s obsession with death, her wallowing in depression and refusal to accept affection and care- for a good first half of the novel, I yearned for the author I was familiar with, even as I was glad that she adopted different strategies in writing for children and adults. Archaeologists - Jen and Lilly are firm feminists are favorite characters apart from Anna’s extremely supportive husband JP (Men like him are easier to find in fiction than in real life). The denouement strongly reminded me of the Hindi movie Talaash starring Aamir Khan. Our Numbered Bones is a near-perfect novel that clearly conveys the message - that one has to make peace with one's past to thrive in the present.
Thank you Netgalley and Canongate books for the ARC.

[Shannan · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars - Our Numbered Bones is the adult fiction debut of Katya Balen, and it is breathtaking, in many of the ways something can empty the air from your lungs. The writing was unique in that it was sometimes detailed, sometimes clipped, and often poetic, which fit the tone of the story at every stage.

I cannot give much of the story away, but I will touch on it. Anna is a writer struggling to start her second novel after some sort of trauma, which has debilitated her physically and emotionally. She is forced into a writing retreat for which she must leave her London home, attentive husband, cat, and mother, who is in a nursing home.

On a walk through the bogs of rural England, Anna comes across the bones of a woman just recently uncovered by a man and dog also walking. When the police decide the bones are way too old to be of interest to them, a group of archeologists are called in to study, remove and preserve the ancient female’s body. As the scientists are discovering clues to the woman’s history, Anna assists on the investigation and uncovers painful details of her own past.

Our Numbered Bones is an exploration, a prodding of tender places within the reader that evokes strong emotions. It’s not always pretty or easy, but it is all part of the process of healing. “Archeology is the dead talking to the living. …She’s talking to us. She’s going to talk to us. She came up for something. She came looking. I can feel it. She wants something.”

I recommend this novel with the caveat that the beauty of this story comes from harsh and ugly realities of pain and healing.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the opportunity to review the e-ARC of this novel. Our Numbered Bones will be available in February 2026.

#OurNumberedBones #KatyaBalen #HarperCollins #NetGalley #books #bookreview #nerdventureswithbooks

[Miki · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ENTHUSIASTIC 3.5 stars!!! Please note that this review contains spoilers.

For readers who enjoy a remote, countryside setting (Norfolk), a slow burn, and a story that opens with a lot questions (Why does Anna have writer's block? Why is there tension between her and JP, her husband? What traumatic experience has Anna recently experienced that is impacting her?), Katya Balen's debut adult novel Our Numbered Bones may be for you!

For readers who aren't fans of reading about motherhood and loss of a baby, heterosexual relationship issues related to grief, the understandable difficulty of women coping with unwell parents (Anna's mother has Alzheimer's) while simultaneously processing the trauma of losing an infant child), then this may not be for you.

When I requested this book, I didn't know that it included loss of a child, and to be quite honest, I wish I had. I'm not a mother. I have never lost a child. I have no understanding of what it is to lose a child, so I feel that-at least in theory-this plot line shouldn't have hit me so hard, but it did. I wish that there was actually a trigger warning for this plot point.

The ending felt a bit rushed considering so much of the story is a bit slower (I love slow burn stories!), and although Anna wasn't a likeable character, I enjoyed my reading experience overall. I loved the relationship between Anna and Jen; I actually wish more stories highlighted the importance and strength of women's relationships the way that Balen's shorter novel does!

I would happily read Balen's next novel for adults and can't wait to see what she writes in the future!

Many thanks to both Canongate Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of Katya Balen's novel, Our Numbered Bones!

[Resh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raw, poetic, haunting, and visceral! I cannot believe this is an adult debut! Thank you HarperVia for the gifted copy.

Anna is an author and is struggling to write her next novel. Believing that a retreat will help with her writing, she escapes into a cottage in a secluded area. This journey makes her confront the exact thoughts and feelings she’s escaping from bringing her face to face with trauma, guilt, fear, and sometimes hope when a woman’s body was discovered (a bog body). Anna is entranced, terrified, and struggling as she connects herself psychologically to this unknown woman.

I honestly don’t know how to really describe this story’s essence because I think it’s something that should be experienced. The writing is very unique. It’s fragmented, pose like, and heavy and light at the same time. Sometimes it feels like we are seeing the story through a veil or a curtain. Greyed, faraway, out of reach. It took me time to understand what Anna’s actually going through and the backstory which I think was brilliantly bought in by the author. The psychology, and instances where Anna envisions and sometimes hallucinates dreams and the past were very well captured too. I adored her husband and his unwavering support and devotion to her amid her struggles which ironically is one of the reasons she feels she’s suffocating.

This book is an amazing adult debut about grief, pain, psychological distress, motherhood, ethics, history, love, injustice, and family. The depth of life captured in these 237 pages is hard to put into words so I invite you to experience it yourself.

Please take care while reading and please check content warnings (as there’s a few).

All thoughts and opinions are of my own.

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Our Numbered Bones’ was really a book of two distinct halves for me. For the first half of the book I found our narrator intensely dislikable and irritating and I found the attempts at humour, both dark and light, didn’t work well for me at all. The portrayal of trauma and grief here sometimes felt a bit flat, particularly the parts focused on suicidal ideation.

The second half however completely turned this around for me, the pain was tangible, and the grief was so real and so raw that I sobbed the whole way through. I’m left wondering if this makes up for the first half or not, and I can’t quite make my mind up. When I started putting together this review I was certain that it didn’t, that whatever Balen was trying to achieve simply wasn’t enough to make up for a boring and irritating whole half of a novel, but I think that I was wrong. I think that the irritation and bitterness that Balen made me feel in that first half is the same bitter, tedious trudge that our narrator Anna is feeling, trying her hardest to forget the awful thing that has happened to her. Things only open up and feel real and intense and tender once Anna has told her story and allowed herself to feel its full force.

‘Our Numbered Bones’ explores a very difficult topic and I think that the author does this with incredible sensitivity and a level of emotion that touched me right to my core. I loved the way that Balen uses the bog body to link all women together, all connected by the beautiful power and love that we carry and by the trauma that our bodies can hold. The humanisation of people, particularly women, throughout our history was done phenomenally.

[Amy Burnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This read is a raw and encompassing view into the mind of a woman processing devastating grief in real time. This novel unfolds in first person, and at times in verse, pulling the reader into the spiraling thoughts of our protagonist, Anna.

Anna is an author, and still in the throes of grief, she is past-due on the deadline for her next novel. Her editor offers an opportunity for a change of scenery to a remote cabin. Not long after her arrival in the wetlands, a body is discovered in close proximity to where she is staying. Anna feels a deep connection to the deceased, and through that connection she is at last able to process her loss.

This is a short read and is beautifully written. The author’s shift from first-person narrative to first-person verse creates a dynamic blend of prose that draws the reader more deeply into Anna’s inner thoughts and emotions. I found it to be an extremely powerful technique and it had me finishing this book in a single sitting.

This book does deal with a traumatic loss. You may wish to check your content warnings if that could be difficult for you. I found the reveal of the loss as the story unfolded to be powerful, but would not want someone who had experienced something similar to be caught unaware.

Thank you to Harper Via for a #gifted copy of this beautiful book. I also found the cover to be captivating. All opinions shared are my own and are given freely. For my personal reading preferences, this book was a 4.25/5 star read.

[Josie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a hard one to rate, because while the emotional themes were really powerful, the writing style didn't work for me. I think this is one of those books that you have to be in the right mood for, and I just wasn't feeling it. The dialogue is all in italics instead of quotation marks, and the prose kept veering into poetry-ish snippets (separate from the actual poetry, of which there is an abundance). For example, this segment happens in the middle of ordinary narration:

I don't want to go back in. I have to go back in. The pull of the dream. Of the line between us. I want to snap it. I want to follow it.

Onwards.

We go out into the air.

We go back into the dark.

Swallowed by the blue tent mouth.

There she is.

Burning sense of something. Relief. Hope. Pity. Love. Grief.

She looks bizarre. That poor face. That slashed neck. Poking through the ground. Out of place. Out of time.

My brain couldn't settle into the rhythm because of how jerky the writing was, and maybe that's the point, but from a personal perspective I just didn't enjoy it. Again, the author writes really well about grief and loss and "madness" (aka being traumatised), but the story itself was thin. In essence, it's about a bereaved writer who gets obsessed by a bog body that's been found nearby, and... not a lot really happens. I don't necessarily need heaps of plot in a story, but I mostly found myself either irritated or bored whilst reading. It did get better towards the end, but I didn't connect with the MC or feel the level of sympathy that I wanted to.

Oh, and normally I love a good dollop of magical realism but I wasn't sold on the vague way that they just ~knew~ why the woman had been killed. (These people are scientists! Why are they jumping to conclusions with such certainty when all they have are ~~feelings??) Anna's decision to bury her baby daughter's ashes with the bog body was moving, but I found it difficult to believe that archaeologists could just reinter a body without permission, in the same place, and have it be safe. (Like... at least move her to a proper cemetery so she won't get dug up again??)

[Paul Wagenbreth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stories are not so much creations, Stephen King asserted in his meditation on craft, “On Writing,” as they are “found things, like fossils in the ground,” a notion that gets physical substance as well as express character articulation in Katya Balen’s “Our Numbered Bones,” in which the remains of a thousands-of-years-old woman have somehow made their way to the surface of a bog in rural England.
“She came up for something. … why would she push herself up if she wasn’t trying to find something?” the on-site chief archaeologist remarks, adding elements of mystery or even perhaps the supernatural to Balen’s already beguiling story of a blocked writer who has taken to a remote cottage in an attempt to rekindle her writing and happened upon the discovery.
Saying more would give away too much other than to say that the discovery of the corpse, particularly after it’s found that her throat had been cut, proves especially traumatic for the author, who finds in the discovery reverberations of a recent devastating event in her own life.
Enthralling enough a story it was for me, Balen’s debut adult novel, that I finished the book in an afternoon, my appreciation enhanced by lyrical, even at times poetic prose which, together with the absorbing story, made for a reading experience remindful of such notable literary works as Julian Barnes’ “Flaubert’s Parrot, “Graham Swift’s “Waterland,” or perhaps most apposite here, Vendela Vida’s “The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty.”

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started this book last night in bed and finished this morning with coffee in hand. Not an all-nighter, but one I could not put down, but not for my usual reasons.

A huge Thank you, first to @harperviabooks for immediate access to 𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑵𝑼𝑴𝑩𝑬𝑹𝑬𝑫 𝑩𝑶𝑵𝑬𝑺 𝒃𝒚 𝑲𝒂𝒕𝒚𝒂 𝑩𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒏, coming February 17th.

This is a story that follows Anna in her writer's blocked grief from London to a remote retreat in the countryside at the behest of her editor & encouragement from her husband. She finds not the quiet for inspiration, but rather a terrifying space for her thoughts to invade until she spies an unusual event of an ancient bog woman. Anna is drawn to this woman in ways she cannot explain, and just as unexplainable, one of the archeologists is drawn to her. As the dig progresses, the grief of Anna is further explained and processed, culminating in a cathartic act.

This is a gorgeously told exploration of one of the most profound levels of grief. There are multiple places where Anna is experiencing loss, and she simply cannot endure, yet she must. Her husband is trying, but recognizes his inability to reach her, at least until she allows him, speaking to the difficulty of both the personal and communal need to grieve. Told in stark, lyrical prose, the language and use of it made the grief visceral and encompassing.

This will not be a book for everyone given the heavy topic (dm me for spoiler triggers) and the sparse writing style, but I was drawn to the emotional rawness. I loved it.