Bogs are getting quite the spotlight in literature lately, especially in horror and fantasy fiction. But first and foremost, what is a bog? According to National Geographic, bogs are freshwater wetlands found in northern climates. Bogs are formed when depressions in the landscape collect water. Their defining characteristic is peat which does not allow drainage. Sometimes, bogs take thousands of years to develop. Bogs were also regarded as spiritual and burial places, making them the perfect setting for speculative fiction. Here are several books where the setting is a bog.
In the heart of Appalachia, the Haddesley family has a symbiotic relationship with their cranberry bog: they help the bog grow and the bog gives them a “wife” to carry on the family line. After her mother goes missing, Wenna, the middle child, is summoned back to the family manor in order to disrupt this relationship once and for all. But her siblings are not as willing to let go of this tradition. The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister is an American Gothic horror novel about generational trauma and the dangers of clinging to the past.
Teenager Silvie is dragged to the English-Scottish border by her father, an amateur historian obsessed with the peat bogs of the region. The family is attending a historical re-enactment of the Iron Age hunter-gathers led by a local university. Silvie’s working class family sticks out like a sore thumb in this collegiate atmosphere, as both groups interrogate the accuracy and important of the traditions of years past. While Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss is technically a novella, this book makes up for its short length with its weighty themes, like working-class life in a post-Brexit landscape.
If you prefer dark fantasy with your bogs, look no further than Blood On Her Tongue (Standard Edition) by Joanna Van Veen, a Netherlands-based author who loves incorporating bogs into her books (see also: My Darling Dreadful Thing). Set in the Netherlands at the end of the 19th century, Sarah Schatteleyn falls mysteriously ill after an encounter with a bog-body (the real-life phenomenon of a preserved corpse in a bog). Sarah's twin Lucy notices that her sister is experiencing signs of psychosis and has suddenly developed a taste of human flesh. Lucy must find a cure in order to save her sister from a dreadful asylum. Recommended for fans of The Death of Jane Lawrence, Blood on her Tongue is a broody Gothic take on vampirism and mental health.
Nora Gavin, an American forensic pathologist studying at Trinity College in Dublin Ireland, is called to a peat bog on an Irish farm. A farmer has just discovered a head in the bog, perfectly preserved. Nora teams up with archaeologist Cormac MacGuire in order to find the killer and prevent more people from ending up dead. In a town this small, everyone is a suspect. Haunted Ground is a suspenseful drama sure to keep you guessing until the very last page. The second mystery in author Erin Hart’s Nora Gavin mystery series (Lake of Sorrows) also features a bog!
If you’re looking for more of a nonfiction perspective on bogs, try Fen, Bog & Swamp. Travel across Russia, Canada, England and more with Pulitzer Prize winning author Annie Proulx as she interrogates human relationships and the importance of bogs in different societies, especially in the face of climate change.
What's your favorite bog book?
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