Bog Queen – Anna North
.Some books grab you by the throat, but “Bog Queen” aims to pull you slowly into the mud.
Anna North’s latest blends murder mystery, myth and environmental tension into something that’s part archaeological thriller and part exploration of land and legacy. It’s beautifully written but also oddly paced, making it a story that feels both historic and contemporary, though not always cohesive.
After a perfectly preserved body is found in an English bog, American forensic anthropologist Agnes is called to investigate. As she works to determine who the woman was and how she died, the novel slips between her modern-day perspective (2018) and that of the Iron Age woman whose body she’s studying, a Druid Queen navigating betrayal, politics and faith in a world on the brink of Roman influence.
Lily Newmark’s narration is stellar. In her debut, she moves effortlessly between American and British accents, between scholar and sovereign, giving the illusion of a full-cast performance. It’s one of those rare audiobooks where the voice acting feels essential to the experience.
North also takes creative risks that mostly pay off, including interludes from the perspective of the moss itself. What could have been kitschy turns unexpectedly poetic, revealing the bog as both witness and grave, a living archive of memory.
The novel’s best tension lies in its competing claims to the land: protestors who want it restored, developers eager to drain it for luxury housing and scientists like Agnes who view it as both research and opportunity. The book asks, without ever moralizing, who really owns nature – and who has the right to disturb it.
Still, the pacing drags. There’s just so much story crammed into less than 300-pages.
While the Iron Age sections are immersive, Agnes’s chapters feel thin, especially when the personal drama (an overbearing father, an ex who managed her life) starts to overshadow the mystery. The story never fully commits to being a page-turner or a character study, and as a result, it ends up somewhere in between.
By the end, I admired the scope more than I enjoyed the ride. North clearly did her homework, and in a recent talk I attended, she admitted she struggled with Agnes’s voice — which tracks, since those are the sections that never quite click.
Still, the ambition and craft are there. “Bog Queen” worked for me more than it didn’t, though outside of Newmark’s phenomenal performance, it’s not essential reading.
Thanks to Libro.fm, Bloomsbury Publishing and the author for an advanced listener copy in exchange for my honest review.
Rating (story): 3/5 stars
Rating (narration): 5/5 stars
Format: Hybrid read/listen (personal library)
Dates read: October 13 – October 17, 2025
Multi-tasking: Good to go. North’s writing is smooth, so it’s easy to find the rhythm of the story but definitely pay closer attention to the Druid Queen sections so you don’t miss the rich detail that brings her world to life.
