Age 13+

Set in the 1980s, on the border between Ireland’s north and south, during the Troubles, this skilled and moving novel begins with the discovery in a peat bog of the body of a girl, which could be as old as the iron age. Fergus, the teenager who finds her, begins to hear her voice, telling her painful story in a modern Irish idiom. Meanwhile, the teenager has his own troubles. His brother, who is involved with the Provisional IRA, is imprisoned in Long Kesh, where Bobby Sands is on hunger strike. Under political pressure from his peers, in love, and caught up in family conflict, Fergus, who wants to go away to study to be a doctor, has moral choices to make in a world of transgressions, large and small, where peat is stolen from the bog and goods are smuggled over the border, as well as Semtex for making bombs. And just as you think you can guess what the outcomes are going to be, the plot unfurls a series of surprises. Telling two tales of sacrifice for peace, and offering an insight into Irish history, this book is sometimes funny, despite the seriousness of its subject. It is also psychologically and historically convincing, showing the impact of politics on domestic life. The work of an outstanding writer, it is preoccupied with the preciousness of life and the finality of death. It is also published posthumously; Siobhan Dowd died last year.

Bog child by Siobhan Dowd

(David Fickling £10.99)

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