Book Review: "Bog Queen" by Anna North

Now this is a book I'd seen on my Amazon Recommendations list and as of writing this, I think it was £2.99 and so, I didn't think much about just buying it and seeing what it was about. I had recently read Greater Sins, a book about a preserved dead body being found in a mossy area with nobody having any idea of how it got there and yet, it is older than anyone thinks. Things begin to turn sour as the town suspects that they should've left things buried. In this book, we have a relatively similar premise in which a dead body is found preserved in a mossy area. But instead of poor townsfolk finding it, we have a whole new story filled with professionals who want to find out how and why this woman died - and what she's even doing there. I mean, they were looking for a different dead body from 50 years' ago - not one from 2'000 years' ago...

A man has confessed to killing his wife 50 years' in the past by accidentally knocking her down a flight of stairs when she was drunkenly abusing him. He felt so scared that he buried her in a moss-pit and left her there. Fifty years' later, he confesses to doing so and the forensics team, including a woman named Agnes, pull her body out and begin the process of identifying her. The only problem is that when they start to identify her, they find out that it isn't the woman at all - even though they were led to the exact place that she was apparently buried. This body is two thousand years' old and yet, has been preserved almost perfectly. Agnes' interest is already going and she wants to find out what exactly happened here and why this body has spent so long without discovery. The author sets us up for a wild, yet slow-burning ride interspersed with the failings in the life of our main character, Agnes. Honestly, I think this is a very strong beginning - it gets us directly involved in the story and makes sure that we're paying attention. Things are about to get real.

Intertwined with these chapters are chapters with titles relating to the moon. These are narrated by a woman from the Iron Age who tells us her story about mapping out journeys with her brothers. Immediately, we seem to put one and one together and make two. We think that this woman also was murdered and dumped in the moss just like the woman Agnes is looking for. But as some other chapters reveal, it is far more complicated than that. Within the book there are also chapters that seem to be narrated in a third-person omniscient perspective of the mossland. This tells us the philosophies behind the moss-lands and how powerful the natural world can be whilst it remains wholly uncaring for the wants of humans. What the author is clearly trying to set up here is the ability for nature to be a god amongst human beings - one that can get violent if absolutely necessary. This understanding is vital to parts of the story - including the Iron Age burial that is narrated early on in the book.

We can draw similarities between our Iron Age woman and Agnes and yet, they are completely different as well. They are both curious and boundless, wanting to know more and find more and yet, faltering because of their inability to see every perspective before going in. But most of all, I think what draws them to each other is their respect for the moss, and this is why the moss-land ultimately leads them to each other. The ending yes, is brilliant and heart-wrenching. But what's more is that though Agnes may feel like a failure, she has been endowed with the body of this woman, a woman she is actually spiritually connected to in some ways.

There's a lot of side-stories in this book and yet none of them feel like they are overwhelming the narrative. There's a whole host of likeable characters of which my favourite is probably the young, teenager named Ruby - this is a teenager who is wise, though has deep-seated anxiety which Agnes tries to quell even if it means sharing a bad orange with the girl. There were several moments of pause in this book but again, it is clever and it is brilliant.