Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is The Girl In the Bog by Keith Donohue!

The Girl in the Bog by Keith Donohue
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Horror
Published on: 13th August 2024
Goodreads

Ancient heroes from Irish mythology and folklore come to life in the modern world in this dark, atmospheric story. At once a thrilling chase novel and a wry reimagining of Ireland’s oldest epic, it is sure to enthrall readers of Neil Gaiman and Cassandra Khaw.

Everybody is after the girl in the bog.

One morning in a field in Connemara, a farmer unearths the body of a young woman, two thousand years old, preserved under layers of peat. Later that evening she awakens in unfamiliar modern Ireland, ripping a hole through space and time and setting awhirl old animosities and long-held grudges.

Shadowy figures follow her from the pagan past, and each emerges with a claim on the girl from the bog. With help from a trio of wannabe teenage witches, she goes on the run. Joining in the chase is an American archaeologist, who wants to keep the discovery for herself, and two befuddled farmers trapped in the plot. Hosts of fairies out for the night work their magic and mischief, and in the blue hour before sunrise, the saga unfolds in a battle for the ages.

Part fantasy, part mystery, part thriller, part send-up, this comic and poignant love song to Irish literature and the gift of gab does not merely bend genres, it braids them into Celtic knots.

I read Donohue’s Stolen Child when I was a teenager and enjoyed it a lot – it’s still one of the only books I’ve encountered that centres the changeling in the narrative. So I was intrigued when I saw he’d written a new book.

Then I read that blurb, and folx, I am SO SOLD!

I’m half-Irish and spent a lot of my formative years in Ireland, and it’s disappointing that Irish mythology is such a clear influence in modern fantasy, but that’s so rarely acknowledged – never mind Irish myths actually being featured! So The Girl in the Bog promising me ancient Irish legends getting all tangled up in the present??? MY GODS, GIMME IMMEDIATELY!!!

Teen (wannabe) witches helping a(n ancient) woman flee the people who’ve ALREADY KILLED HER TWICE?! I’m sorry, WHAT?! Who are these witches and who on EARTH are these people who keep killing the poor woman from the bog? Why do they want her dead? Who is she, that her existence (or lack of it?) would allow someone to rewrite myth???

And speaking of – according to the Goodreads version of the blurb, it’s rivals from the past who are out to rewrite myths. So – beings who are potentially in those myths? Is this going to be a situation where the stories told about a god/figure affect that god/figure? Because that’s the first reason that jumps out at me as to why you’d want your own myth rewritten, yes? American Gods isn’t my favourite example of this trope but off the top of my head I can’t remember what my favourite is (I’ll edit it in later if I remember) and the fact is that I do love that, when human stories shape (or even straight-up create) gods etc. So I’m going to cross my fingers that that’s what’s going on here!

Also: of course there’s an obsessed foreign archaeologist. Of course there is. I wonder if Donohue’s going to have any commentary on the often-dodgy nature of non-native archaeologists studying cultures that aren’t theirs??? (Also often NOT-dodgy, to be clear. But let’s be real, historically speaking a lot of ‘outsider’ archaeologists, usually white ones, have messed up archaeology for everyone else. *gestures at the Victorians*)

But – befuddled farmers! FAIRIES! A battle for the ages! Yes, yes, Sia NEEEEEEEEEEEDS!

Interestingly – and making me a little bit wary – The Girl in the Bog is marked as Horror as well as Fantasy. The comparison to Cassandra Khaw in the blurb is making me raise my eyebrows a little bit. I love Khaw’s prose, but I doubt Donohue’s suddenly writing in Khaw’s style (le sigh) so this is most likely referring to Khaw’s flavour of Horror. Which…has forced me to give up on books before, because I am a horror-wimp, we’ve been over this many times. So how scary is The Girl in the Bog going to be???

Maybe not too much, since it’s also ‘part send-up’ and ‘comic’ and is evidently big on ‘the gift of gab’. And I’m all for all of that!

Can’t wait to get my grubby paws on this!!!

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