In the North Swedish wetlands lies Mossmarken: the village on the edge of the mire where, once upon a time, people came to leave offerings to the gods.
Biologist Nathalie came in order to study the peat bogs. But she has a secret: Mossmarken was once her home, a place where terrible things happened. She has returned at last, determined to confront her childhood trauma and find out the truth.
Soon after her arrival, she finds an unconscious man out on the marsh, his pockets filled with gold - just like the ancient human sacrifices. A grave is dug in the mire, which vanishes a day after. And as the police investigate, the bodies start to surface...
Is the mire calling outfor sacrifices, as the superstitious locals claim? Or is it an all-too-humanevil?
***
[It's said that every living person is carryingaround ten dead souls](MulhollandBooks, 20 September 2018, first published 2017, ebook, 320 pages, copy frompublisher via NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
TheForbidden Place had me hooked from page one. I loved this book. Ifeel completely under its spell. The book has a great sense of place with themire and the village, both of these are really brought to life. They were sovivid and real. The mire is a great place for sinister events to take place.The characters are great. Nathalie is a great character. I really felt for heras she struggles to uncover the truth about a dark event in her past. Is thetruth always the best option? She some secrets stay buried. Maya is great aswell. She has a passing interest in the dark history of the mire and soon findsherself embroiled in sinister events involving missing person cases from thearea going back several years. The Forbidden Place gets really intensetowards the end as Nathalie and Maya and the police start to close in on thehorrifying truth. I had no idea what was really going on so hat off to theauthor for making my mouth fall open and my jaw smash into the top of my desk. TheForbidden Place is also an incredibly sad book, brilliant, just brilliant.
