by Anna North
Bloomsbury Publishing
10/14/2025, hardcover
SKU: 9781635579666
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's ever seen. Though 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's 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's 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 across time two gifted, farsighted young women learning to harness their strange strengths in a landscape more mysterious and complex than either can imagine.
Reviews:
"Anna North's new novel captures attention even before the first page." -- Scott Simon, NPR "Weekend Edition"
"An intricate work of historical fiction, a tightly woven mystery reminiscent of the police procedural Bones, and perhaps most of all, a transfixing excavation of the competing interests converging on the natural world in our present moment of ecological devastation, economic precarity, and historical forgetting . . . This expansive tale is about much more than a battle among scientists, environmentalists, and corporate interests. In confronting questions of duty, ambition, and community, North's magical novel renders the world-both ancient and modern-mysterious to us again." -- Foreign Policy
"A remarkably crafted tale that asks important questions about the imprint we leave on our loved ones, our culture, and our land." -- Booklist
"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 Reviews
About the Author:
Anna North is the author of the instant New York Times bestseller and Reese's Book Club pick Outlawed, America Pacifica, and Lambda Literary Award winner The Life and Death of Sophie Stark . She is a senior correspondent at Vox. She lives in Brooklyn.