In this “bone-chillingly cool crime debut” (Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train), a young biologist studying the remote Swedish wetlands stumbles upon a body–and finds that if the marsh’s secrets can’t stay buried, neither can hers…

In the remote Swedish wetlands lies Mossmarken: the village on the edge of the mire where, once upon a time, people came to leave offerings to the gods. Biologist Nathalie came in order to study the peat bogs. But she has a secret: Mossmarken was once her home, a place where terrible things happened. She has returned at last, determined to confront her childhood trauma and find out the truth.

Soon after her arrival, she finds an unconscious man out on the marsh, his pockets filled with gold–just like the ancient human sacrifices. A grave is dug in the mire, which vanishes a day after. And as the police investigate, the bodies start to surface…

Is the mire calling out for sacrifices, as the superstitious locals claim? Or is it an all-too-human evil?

Richly atmospheric and haunting to the last page, Susanne Jansson’s stunning debut is a gripping tale of the power of nature to shape our reality, the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world, and the terrible consequences they may have. This international sensation will captivate fans of the celebrated suspense fiction of Jane Harper or Tana French.

Out September 2018

MY THOUGHTS:

I received this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really loved the premise for this book and wanted to read it really bad.  I found the main character interesting being all wound up in her secrets from the past and loved the setting of the bog.  I’m fascinated with everything I read about bogs, especially how they were used as burial sites and the chemicals within the bogs preserved bodies pristinely.

Bodies that are 100 years old can look like they’d been placed in the ground one year ago. It’s a bizarre and fascinating fact and archaeologists have been making great discoveries from our pasts lately when digging in bogs. So when I stumbled upon this book, I thought this would be great!

It began interesting enough and using a slow burn built up to the climax steadily if not slowly.  Bits and pieces were revealed as the story progressed yet the author held back a lot of information about the MC to the point where it was growing frustrating waiting to see what she was all about.

The plot had very few twists that rocked my world but overall the book was an interesting and entertaining read. I think many things could have happened differently to make the story more exciting, but it is what it is.

I gave this novel by Susanne Jansson: