Книга Bog Queen
'SPARKLES LIKE UNEARTHED TREASURE' KALIANE BRADLEY
'A MESMERISING NOVEL' OBSERVER
'AN IRIDESCENT CONTEMPORARY FOLKTALE' LUCY ROSE
In 2018, a young forensic scientist, homesick and adrift in the North of England, is heading to a coroner's office to identify a body. But this body, found in a moss-layered bog, is not like any Agnes has seen before: its bones prove it was buried more than two thousand years ago, yet it is almost perfectly preserved.
Soon Agnes is drawn into a mystery from the distant past: the death of an Iron Age queen more like her than she knows. Along the way, she must contend with numerous groups who want to profit from the bog and activists who demand that the land be left undisturbed. Meanwhile, underfoot, there's the land itself: the wet, teeming colony of moss has its own dark stories to tell.
As Agnes becomes tangled in controversies stirred up by her own discovery, she must face the deep history of what she has unearthed. In Bog Queen, the lives of two young women separated by many centuries become inextricably connected, as each learns to harness their strange strengths in a landscape more mysterious than either can imagine.
"To this resonant mystery, Anna North brings a timely exploration of power, landscape and deep time, building a mesmerising novel" - Observer
"Two dauntless women, centuries apart, find themselves coping with shifting alliances in the changeable territory of northern England. The dual timelines unspool the stories of an awkward forensic scientist named Agnes and a young Druid priestess, whose beautifully preserved body becomes the focal point of an involving drama, as contemporary ecological woes interweave with the mysteries of the past in a mossy, seemingly sentient terrain" - Daily Mail
"A beautifully rendered tale that spans two millennia of history and centres on two very different women and their relationship with the marshes of this provincial English town . . . Thrilling" - Buzz Magazine
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Piercing . . . Part of the novel's thrill comes from the way in which North leaves the rest of the mystery for the reader to piece together . . . North reaches new heights with this brilliant novel
"A memorable tale of the unexpected linkages of history, land and female power. North widens her range with this layered mystery-meets-ancient-history mashup" - Kirkus
"A remarkably crafted tale that asks important questions about the imprint we leave on our loved ones, our culture, and our land" - Booklist
"Bog Queen offers something for true crime fans as well as ancient history buffs . . . The mystery unfolds in two timelines, interspersing Agnes' fascinating investigation and the environmental and ethical issues it raises with the story of the Iron Age people who once traversed the same land" - Bookpage