Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

Ghost Wall

Author: Sarah Moss

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Format: Physical

Publish Date: January 2019

Read: December 2023

Story Synopsis: Silvie, a seventeen-year-old, is stuck with her parents at an Iron Age site to reenact how people of the time lived. Silvie’s father is passionate about this hobby and is there with a professor and some students during his annual two-week vacation.

When Molly, a university student, takes Silvie under her wing, Silvie sees what her life could be like away from her temperamental father. Meanwhile, Silvie’s father and the professor are fully immersed in Iron Age living and decide to recreate a Ghost Wall - a crude barrier with the skulls of the dead to ward off spirits and enemies. Silvie’s father volunteers Silvie for a role and Silvie realizes what life must have been like for women like her in the Iron Age.

Why does this book beguile? Ghost Wall packs a punch in 132 pages. I didn’t know what to expect, and I thought it would be a more fantasy/spooky/witchy type of book. It falls firmly in the contemporary fiction space for me. Silvie is a young woman stuck in a situation she knows to be normal but hasn’t had enough exposure to the world to know it’s not. When Silvie realizes she can have agency in her life, she has to decide if she will take it or stay on the same path.

Rating: 3/5

Link*: Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

If you’re interested in this, read*: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner