Greater Sins

Historical fiction with elements of folklore, horror and mystery, following two characters in the Scottish countryside who meets as they discover the preserved body of a young woman in a peat bog: Lizzie, unhappily married to a man who has enlisted to fight in the First World War and Johnny a charming but secretive wandering singer/farm hand.

So I read it quite quickly, intrigued on how the story would evolve, and though I wasn’t completely satisfied, I felt this was a good debut.

The writing was pretty good. I love how distinct Lizzie’s chapters was compared to Johnny’s, the latter having more Scottish vernacular that showed his personality and social status. There were some lovely descriptions of the Scottish countryside, the dreary atmosphere and harsh conditions of farm work.

The main characters they felt fully fleshed out, each having positive and negative traits.

Pacing wise, the story felt fast paced at time and the flashbacks were really well placed, but some parts felt too slow and superfluous, with a lack of tension and conflict in the scenes between characters, when they confronted each other and things were being resolved too quickly.

Lizzy and Johnny’s romantic relationship arc also felt a bit rushed for the amount of time they spent together.

Despite being tagged as horror, there wasn’t really some truly frightening or supernatural moments. Plus the mystery of the bog woman ended up not being central to the plot, basically a sort of Macguffin so that the two main characters would meet and for the authors to present her themes. Other mysteries were explored, some were interesting and others not, but all arrived a bit too late in the story.

Interesting thematics were developed throughout the story like social expectations and pressure, misogyny, toxic masculinity, women’s lack of agency and their voice being silenced, privileges of rich people, the power of tales and superstitions, the generational trauma of war and violence etc etc.

Despite those shortcomings, this was a solid debut and I’ll keep an eye for this author’s future releases.