The Ghost Wall checked a lot of boxes for me plot/genre-wise. Ancient Briton? Amateur Archeology? Claustrophobic Setting? Escalating Tension/Family Drama? I'm living for all of it! And it does deliver to a certain extent, but the length of this book is a major handicap. At under 200 pages, your narrative has to be tight and every scene has to be deliberate and meaningful. The Ghost Wall falls far short of this bar and it left the ending feeling flat and kind of out of left field. There were lots of scenes of foraging for food, out main character's mom cooking, and of Sylvie being "cheeky" and then regretting it when her abusive father flies off the handle. Don't get me wrong--the family tension is very well done and Sylvie was a believable 15 year old. The setting was interesting, but it was in a weird middle ground between too much description and not enough. If this book had been 300 pages long, I would have been fine with the repetitive scenes of foraging and the flashbacks, and there would have been more time to build up to the finale and make it more believable. If it's going to stay under 200 pages, it needs to be edited much more aggressively and the ending needs to be built up way more. The disappointing middle ground it's in just makes for a fast and probably forgettable read unfortunately.

It's about 17 year-old Silvie, her mother and her abusive and controlling father, participating in an reenactment of the Iron Age in a camp in Northumberland, England.

This is a quiet, atmospheric and dark novel(la). Its narrative is long, descriptive, demands attention, but utterly compelling and powerful. I'd say, if you aren't used to the style, be patient, because it's worth it, at least for me. Once the writing sinks in, you'll find yourself sucked into Silvie's world, even though set not too long ago, it is one quite different from your own.

With Moss's skillful writing, I was taken right to the campsite and back to the days living in the marshlands. I was there with Silvie (short for Sulevia, an Ancient British goddess) as she "meandered in the evening light, feeling heather and stones under my feet, breathing the smell of leaves and dew", or when Molly and Silvie went foraging in the forest picking garlic greens and plums for dinner in the unforgiving summer heat, dressed in their coarse woolen tunic, and worn-out moccasins.

Part of their reenactment included the way food was gathered and hunted, the kinds of food they ate and how it was cooked, the place they lived in (roundhouses and tents), down to the way they were dressed, and the odd rituals that were practiced.

I loved Silvie, Molly and their friendship. Without Molly, I think Silvie's experience at the campsite would've been a dull, lonely one. She definitely wouldn't be venturing out into the city eating an ice-cream, or having conversations about dreams and ambitions. Molly, on the other hand, wouldn't be able to get a glimpse into a life different from hers. 

Silvia's dad, Bill, and Professor Slade were the worst. Bill was a bully. He was abusive, controlling and just utterly disgusting. He thought of nobody or nothing else but him and his obsession to live the Iron-Age way as authentically as possible. And Professor Slade, a pleasant professor as he was, just turned a blind eye and said/did nothing even though he knew Bill was ill-treating his family, to the extend of agreeing to do what he knew was wrong, just for the sake an experiment. 

This book left me terrified in a way that it made me shudder at the thought of how much we haven't changed from some of our primitive minds/ways of our ancestors - building 'walls' to keep out invaders, our reaction to power and violence, and the ever-existing herd mentality. Have we not progressed at all?

The ending, although some readers felt abrupt, I thought it was just right. I liked that the ending lingered. It felt more like an 'ellipses' rather than a 'period', which I liked. The absence of quotation marks though, that's what I found confusing at times when there were switching of conversations from one character to another.

I appreciated this book even more after ruminating on it for a few days. It's unforgettable.

TW: child abuse, domestic violence, animal cruelty

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for a free eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own. A full review will be posted on my blog, GoodReads and shared on Twitter and Litsy, closer to publication day.

Listened to this audiobook while gardening today, and was completely blown away! This is my first Sarah Moss novel and I knew very little about it going in, having been drawn to it originally as I grew up in the region in which it is set (Northumberland 🇬🇧).

The story follows Silvie and her parents who are living in a historic archeology camp of sorts, trying to recreate the experience of life in the Iron Age. They’re accompanying a Professor and some of his students, and many of the discussions of history demonstrate the politics and tensions of who can ‘appreciate’ history and the role that class and education plays in this process.

Silvie also suffers her abusive father’s violent outbursts, and the historical re-enactment experience appears to ignite his temper even more. This was confronting and graphic, but the sensitive subject matter well written and handled by Moss.

I found this an immediately fascinating narrative, quite odd and quirky in its historical references and the ways that this group tried to capture that experience in the present day. Coupled with the personal experiences Silvie has and the direction her own narrative took, this was a really powerful and thought provoking read..

Thanks to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am completely underwhelmed by this book or maybe, since it seems to be getting really great reviews, I just didn't get it. I know it started it out strong and had, what seemed to me, a great premise for an intriguing story, but ultimately I was bored throughout the story and wondered what all the hype was about. I kept reading thinking I would be surprised with a great ending but I just found the ending weird and a bit unbelievable.

Review posted on Goodreads on 10/6/2018 (link below)

"I felt Dad's gaze on me and knew with a shiver what he was thinking. My daughter. Break her and stake her to the bog, stop her before she gets away. They weren't dead, the bog people, not to those who'd killed them. They had to be pinned to their graves with sharp sticks driven through elbow and knee, trapped behind woven wooden palings, to stop them coming back, creeping home dead and not dead in the dark."

You guys, this book was SO CREEPY! Bogs, bog mummies, bog sounds, bogs at night, B O G S !

Silvie is a British teen on "vacation" with her mother, father, a professor, and a group of Experimental Archaeology students. The students and their professor are camping out as part of a field trip, roughing it Iron-Age-style, but Silvie and her parents are along for the ride because Silvie's father is really into ancient history. Like, really into it. He named Silvie after Sulevia, a local goddess of the groves, and is constantly chiding his wife and child for not using the proper tools, not behaving in the appropriate Neolithic manner, and not wearing acceptable Neolithic clothing. He's also abusive toward both Silvie and her mom.

Throughout the book, Silvie hangs out with the college kids and actively avoids her father. Her mother isn't as big of a presence in the book, often staying "home" at the camp to avoid the activities, but Silvie's father is a domineering figure. She's constantly on alert, monitoring his presence around the camp to avoid an altercation. We don't know how old Silvie is (unless it's in the text and I completely missed it!) but she seemed to be around fourteen or so. Growing up, but still dependent on her parents. The setting, a hot summer in this little camp in the middle of the woods, is extremely claustrophobic.

An underlying feeling of dread is perpetuated by the recurrent theme of bog mummies, the remains of ancient sacrifices. Because the group is focused on recreating an Iron Age lifestyle, of course they decide to stage their own "sacrifice," and the commencement of the dramatized "sacrifice" brings the book to its conclusion.

"They wanted to kill me at sunset. to march me up onto the moor to the beat of the drums and the bass chanting, to tie my hands and my feet, to put a rope around my neck that could be tightened and loosened for as long as blades and rocks could hold me wavering between life and death.

Of course we won't actually hurt you, the Prof said, I hope you know that, Silvie. It's just the ritual we want to try, the way it must have looked and sounded, the drums on the moor and the winding of the ropes.

I could feel my breathing tighten, heat spreading from my chest into my arms. But we don't know, do we, I said, what it was like, you said there's no evidence for the process, only the bodies afterwards. We know what was done to kill them but not why it was done.

That's why we should do this, he said, that's what we're interested in figuring out, the process of the killing, the momentum of the ritual. I promise you'll come to no harm."

"They're not going to hurt me, I said, I know that. I just wish - I couldn't even say it. I wish I didn't have to be tied up in front of everyone. I wish my father didn't want to put a rope around my neck, and since he does want to it doesn't make much difference whether he does it or not. Maybe it was like that for the bog people, I thought, maybe the worst part was being chosen and everything after that was inevitable."

Ghost Wall is atmospheric, spellbinding, horrific, and beautifully written. This book, at only 160 pages, can easily be read in one sitting (and should be read in one sitting!), and is a perfect creepy little read for an autumn afternoon. The suspense is subtle and builds slowly so that by the final few pages you're sweatily clutching your Kindle, filled with dread. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to those who enjoy prehistory, nature books, and Brit lit in general!

Release date January 8, 2019, available for pre-order now.

Oh, and there is currently a Goodreads giveaway going, so please go enter for your chance to win a copy of this book!

4 stars--I really liked it. Trigger warnings for domestic violence.

A quick read, Ghost Wall contains a lot of things I love: British history and folklore, a clear narrative voice, and an exploration of female strength and relationships. Also, bog bodies! A group of students and their professor, along with Sylvie and her family, spend a couple weeks in the wilderness of northern England, living (with various degrees of historical accuracy) as their prehistoric ancestors might have.

Sylvie spends much of her time dodging her father's wrath, contemplating her suffocating future, and marveling at the freedom the college students have. I'm going to be vague to avoid spoilers, but at first I thought the book's title was referring to Hadrian's Wall, which is missing and incomplete in places, but no--it refers to something older and darker. Definitely a creepy central image for the book.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

Ghost Wall is my first experience reading author Sarah Moss and certainly not the last. The first few pages began a bit slow, describing Northumberland, Britain, where a professor and his three students, Molly, Pete and Dan set up an academic research study camp on the Iron Age. Near the students camping ground, a family on a two week vacation join in. The father, a brutal man, his wife, a woman long ago given into her husbands moods and Silvie seventeen year old overshadowed by her father.

The author's narration is thight, every character is developed in depth, a real pleasure to read and become entwined within the tale.

It was hard to put the book down to the very end...and what an end...

A must read, you will not be disappointed.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Thank you to NetGalley

The story begins with a hint of the story behind one of the Iron Age women found in the bogs of ancient Northumberland.. It transitions to the present as Sylvie, the teenaged daughter of an obsessed, amateur Iron Age historian, is forced to participate in a campground reenactment along with students of a local professor. It soon becomes clear that her father seriously abuses both Sylvie and her mother, and that his attitudes and demands are based in fury at an educational establishment that only tolerates him because he has made himself useful.

By the time the story climaxes at a reenactment of the construction of Hadrian's Wall, the reader will realize that the stakes for Sylvie and her mother are far more dire than those of the professor and the students. Sylvie's growing friendship and attraction to one of the students infuriates her father, frightens her mother, and leads her to understand that she has choices than the teenaged girls who were sacrificed thousands of years ago.

Highly recommended.

Thank you very much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC. It was completely engrossing.

What a strange and absorbing concept for a book. Sarah Moss is a fantastic writer and really does pull you into the atmosphere of the story, and the place. I really loved the characterisation in this book; you have to pay attention. There are hints, small throw-away comments here and there that really show you the nature of the character, particularly the parents. Moss doesn’t treat the reader like a child and doesn’t explain everything, which makes this story even more eerie in a way, and more lifelike.

Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down. Wonderful story arc and I liked the ending. Excellent book that I will be recommending in our library.

First I'll cover the good stuff: this was a great story, full of well-drawn characters, and it was well-told. In places it was a very tough to read, and it's a testament to the author's ability that I found it hard to put down. But the thing that drops my rating down one star is a trick I HATE and I feel like I've been seeing a lot more recently: no quotation marks around dialogue. I've never found it helped the story, and it only hurts my enjoyment when an author decides to use this affectation. It's punctuation that exists to frame the story, and keeping it should be as inviolable a rule as "never take out all the commas or periods in a story." As much as I enjoyed the book, I can't give it full marks for that one unnecessary choice.

A skillfully written and skin-crawlingly tense tale of misogyny and violence. The story affected me so much that I had trouble continuing to read and yet, I could not put it down. Sarah Moss is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I felt a sense of creeping horror as I read Sarah Moss's novella Ghost Wall. At the beginning of the book a girl is sacrificed in ancient times. Cut to today, teenager Sylvie, her terrified Mum and her nasty bully of a Dad have joined a historical re-enactment group as a non-holiday holiday. Dad is committed to living as authentically as possible, which means no home comforts and endless menial tasks for Sylvia and her mother.
Throughout the book, Sylvie's fear of her father clashes with her desire for freedom. Students that are also on the trip tempt her to have fun swimming and eat normal food. Dad forces her to gut rabbits and beats her with his belt. Mum is too scared to step in. The story builds inexorably to a horrifying climax, as many of the group seem to revert to their Stone Age selves. Addictive .

I received an advance reader copy of this novel. It turned out to be one of my favorite reads for 2018.

Ghost wall is fabulous and devastating. From the very first pages I was hooked, and I continued to yearn for the main characters freedom all the way through. The characters are captivating and the story complex, with a plot that continues steadily to an end that isn’t exactly expected but feels completely natural in its culmination. Rarely are there characters who are so thoroughly loveable or deplorable that are still so real that they could step right off the page. Sarah Moss pulls that off seemlessly.

Ghost wall is a fabulous read for anyone interested in family dynamics, gender roles within families, Neolithic life, or is just up for a gut wrenching story that leaves you a little unsteady and yet hopeful in the end.

I am excited to find more from this author.

This was an unexpectedly powerful short book. It tells the story of a English teenager,Silvie, and her parents who are camping with a college professor and a few of his students in order to reenact and experience life as it would have been lived in the Iron Age. This book is really about Silvie’s coming of age, with a bizarre and frightening climax.

It was well-written, suspenseful and packed a punch at the end. I definitely recommend it.

This is a story of a reenactment gone too far. This is a story of a dysfunctional family with an abusive father, a passive mother and a bright though browbeaten figuratively and literally teenage daughter. It is her, Sil, who is the narrator and through her the reader gets to experience an experimental archeology set up her father signs them up for, arranged by a university professor and some of his pupils. Actually to me it seems more like an anthropology experiment, they are not looking for artifacts so much as trying to recreate a bygone lifestyle, specifically Iron Age Northumbrian. Sil’s father goes for a proper immersion being the absolutely repulsive abusive chauvinist bastard that he is, the ancient ways seem to appease his overblown male ego. In fact, this makes me ponder what percentage of reenactors do it for historical fun and enjoyment and what percentage do it because they genuinely believe they would have been happier way back when and it’s the only chance they get to experience the life they are denied by modernity. Anyway, in real life Sil’s father is no ancient great, just a mere bus driver with some survivalist tips, who recreationally beats his wife and daughter. It’s no surprise when he takes the experiment too far. The book took some getting used to, the style is a straight up streaming narration with minimal dialogue or paragraphs for that matter, much like my reviews tend to be. But once you engage with Sil’s perspective, the book goes by quickly (helped in no small way by a very economic page count) and it’s vividly descriptive, which enhances the immediacy of the first person narrative. Interesting read, light volume with heavy themes. Thanks Netgalley.

I wasn't sure how I would feel about this book, but I ended up really enjoying it. It was very day to fall into and become part of the story. Such an interesting and unique novel! I was surprised by the ending - but felt it was a perfect way to finish it off. Well written, with richly detailed characterization and a great setting.

*I would like to thank the author/publisher/NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review*