In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age.

For two weeks, the length of her father's vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie's father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.

The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?

A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss's Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the "primitive minds" of our ancestors.

This one has been on award lists for both the Womens Prize and The Man Booker but I found it a bit disappointing compared to my experience with her last novel The Tidal Zone which I LOVED!! It is the tale of Silvie and her family who take their fathers holiday from driving buses to live like Iron Age Britons in Northern England. When in the countryside they hunt, gather roots and fruits and wear the clothing of the period. Joining them in the experiment is a professor and three of his students. Molly befriends Sylvie but she takes the experience as a bit of a lark which causes friction with her father. The prologue details a horrific scene and sets the tone for what comes later where violence is felt in both the past and present. This is a short novel and perhaps its brevity was my problem as I would have liked more to develop the themes and characters.

reserving for the OZVBB over on LibraryThing.

Releasing at the Little Free Library in Pambula.