The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister

Format: 336 pages, Paperback

Published: October 1, 2024 by Titan Books

Fiction/borrowed

I did not really know what to expect from this one. 5 siblings living in a big house that is falling apart. In a bog. And they are told that they are in a compact with the bog, and because of that the bog delivers a wife for the oldest son.

Which had me all, is this real or not? Their mum is dead but they all remember her as otherworldly. Their dad has died so the eldest should get his wife, but there was an accident and he is broken. Is the bog turning on them?

Because things are bad. A tree fell on the house. The house is sinking. The bog is dying. And these weird siblings that are adults now but only one venture into town. And one who got away. They are just stuck there, in the bog.

So what is real or not? There is this eerie feeling to it, this slow madness to it. A race against a clock they do not know. I was quite fascinated by it

Since time immemorial, the Haddesley family has tended the cranberry bog. In exchange, the bog sustains them. The staunch seasons of their lives are governed by a strict covenant that is renewed each generation with the ritual sacrifice of their patriarch, and in return, the bog produces a “bog-wife.” Brought to life from vegetation, this woman is meant to carry on the family line. But when the bog fails—or refuses—to honor the bargain, the Haddesleys, a group of discordant siblings still grieving the mother who mysteriously disappeared years earlier, face an unknown future.

Middle child Wenna, summoned back to the dilapidated family manor just as her marriage is collapsing, believes the Haddesleys must abandon their patrimony. Her siblings are not so easily persuaded. Eldest daughter Eda, de facto head of the household, seeks to salvage the compact by desecrating it. Younger son Percy retreats into the wilderness in a dangerous bid to summon his own bog-wife. And as youngest daughter Nora takes desperate measures to keep her warring siblings together, fledgling patriarch Charlie uncovers a disturbing secret that casts doubt over everything the family has ever believed about itself.