Overview

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.

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9781399629942

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Reviews

I can't remember the last time a novel so moved and transfixed me. Bog Queen is infused with a profound wisdom about human ambition across the millennia-how enormous it has been, and also how insignificant-that seems to transcend human understanding, as if delivered by the old gods themselves. An absolute astonishment -- Vauhini Vara, author of Pulitzer Prize Finalist THE IMMORTAL KING RAO With rich, elegiac prose, Anna North's Bog Queen travels between modern day England and the druidic order of Celtic Europe to ask what we owe the past, the earth, and ultimately, each other. A book of magic and healing -- Jenny Tinghui Zhang, author of FOUR TREASURES OF THE SKY Wise, beautifully written, and transcendent in feeling, Bog Queen is exactly the kind of novel I love. North deftly weaves between the past and present to show us the complicated and far-reaching web that connects us all through time and space -- Rita Chang-Eppig, author of DEEP AS THE SKY, RED AS THE SEA A lightning strike of a novel by a visionary storyteller. Bog Queen is an earthly meditation; a page-turning mystery; and a tale of power, profit, and dominion as old as time. Anna North is simply brilliant -- Jung Yun, author of SHELTER and O BEAUTIFUL

Bog Queen is an iridescent contemporary folktale, steeped with peat, memory and myth. Its writing shimmers with strange beauty, perfect for those who crave the haunting stories the earth remembers for us -- Lucy Rose, bestselling author of THE LAMB A page-turning mystery and a graceful, sincere evocation of internal and external power struggles in changing worlds, from Roman Britain to a climate-broken UK. Bog Queen sparkles like unearthed treasure -- Kaliane Bradley, bestselling author of THE MINISTRY OF TIME I can't remember the last time a novel so moved and transfixed me. Bog Queen is infused with a profound wisdom about human ambition across the millennia - how enormous it has been, and also how insignificant - that seems to transcend human understanding, as if delivered by the old gods themselves. An absolute astonishment -- Vauhini Vara, author of Pulitzer Prize Finalist THE IMMORTAL KING RAO With rich, elegiac prose, Anna North's Bog Queen travels between modern day England and the druidic order of Celtic Europe to ask what we owe the past, the earth and, ultimately, each other. A book of magic and healing -- Jenny Tinghui Zhang, author of FOUR TREASURES OF THE SKY Wise, beautifully written, and transcendent in feeling, Bog Queen is exactly the kind of novel I love. North deftly weaves between the past and present to show us the complicated and far-reaching web that connects us all through time and space -- Rita Chang-Eppig, author of DEEP AS THE SKY, RED AS THE SEA A lightning strike of a novel by a visionary storyteller. Bog Queen is an earthly meditation; a page-turning mystery; and a tale of power, profit, and dominion as old as time. Anna North is simply brilliant -- Jung Yun, author of SHELTER and O BEAUTIFUL Bog Queen is a story I won't soon forget: exquisitely observed and filled with details about moss, druids, and dead bodies I wasn't aware I needed to know (but am now pleased to). Daring, delightful, and moving, this novel should be required reading for all of us facing a changing climate and uncertain future. I loved being inside Anna North's curious, compassionate perspective; I'll follow her anywhere, and to any time -- Rachel Khong, bestselling author of REAL AMERICANS 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 *

Author Information

Anna North is the author of three novels: Outlawed, America Pacifica, and The Life and Death of Sophie Stark. Published in 2021, Outlawed was a New York Times bestseller and Reese's Book Club and Belletrist pick. In addition to her fiction writing, she is also a senior correspondent at Vox, covering American work and family life. Previously, she was a writer and editor at the New York Times, Salon, BuzzFeed and Jezebel. Anna North grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2009, and now lives in Brooklyn.

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