It is 1915 and the war is raging in France. In remote Cabrach, Aberdeenshire, the normally insular community has been stripped back further by the call to fight, and the farmers are struggling to make ends meet. Our first main character, Johnny, is a travelling farmhand with a shady past that he tries to cover with quick wit and charm, and our other lead, Lizzie, is the unhappy wife of a wealthy local landowner. While helping the village women pick moss and dig for peat, Lizzie uncovers a body buried long ago, well-preserved by the peat. The people of Cabrach are superstitious and only Johnny volunteers to help her retrieve her find.

As the two characters attempt to learn more about the bog woman, a streak of misfortune runs through the valley - from spoiled crops to local lads coming back from the war with horrific injuries. The people of Cabrach start to believe that it all stems from the body, that she was sent by the devil. However, the bog woman is only a catalyst for long-buried secrets and repressed feelings to come to light, and soon, Johnny and Lizzie find themselves with more than just the bog body in common.

I wasn’t expecting the bog woman to play as small a role as she did, and the book went in a different direction than I was expecting, but this isn’t a bad thing! At its heart, Greater Sins is a character-driven story which plays with themes of guilt, repression, and at times, classism and sexism. The bleak landscape of early 20th century Scotland is the perfect backdrop for a romance between two characters who have both faced rejection and alienation, both having been scapegoated and punished for others’ sins. The tender and wistful undertone of the novel, especially in the interactions between Johnny and Lizzy, contrasted wonderfully with the rough terrain and brash attitudes of the farmers and bondsmen, and with the cold, loveless interior of Lizzie’s house.

Greater Sins is haunting dark historical fiction with folk horror superstition and classic gothic atmosphere woven in. It is a beautifully written novel, and the local dialect and Scots slang are really well done. I devoured this book and I’ll be on the lookout for other work by this author.

Its 1915 rural Scotland, a harsh environment and one that hasn't been significantly hit by the call-up for WWI yet. Married men still weren't being drafted and single men who worked in agriculture had an excuse. Our lead Johnny was, up until the war, an itinerant musician and farmhand, and here he has returned home to help with the harvest. He clearly has a shady past though the book presents him as having a heart of gold. Not dissimilar to Lizzie, who is the wife to the big landowner in the area: he has gone off to war and left his sister, Jane, in charge. Lizzie, despite her station, has decided to help the local women digging out peat for fuel, and in the process comes across a dead body in the bog. When Johnny is sent up to help her dig it out, there is an instant attraction between the two.

I must admit that the book only really clicked for me when they found the body, and so I was hoping for more of a mystery. Instead there is quite a reflexive arms-length romance between the married woman and a man who seems afraid to get involved. The book spends about a third of its running time ten years before in 1905, where we see the story of how Lizzie and Johnny ended up where they did, the tiles have a minor connection and Johnny's is less convincing than Lizzie's, but it does all end up relatively satisfying. More of a romance than a mystery, and it plays its historicism with a light touch (my sense of early twentieth-century rural Scotland is to be considerably more religious and judgemental than this turns out). Its a solid read for the more sensible end of romance at least.

Filled with Gothic atmosphere, slow-burning mystery, and haunting character drama as a peat-bog body stirs superstition and unearths long-buried secrets. With poetic prose and a brooding sense of place, it’s a beautifully crafted debut about guilt, survival, and the darkness that lingers beneath the surface.

First off thank you to Penguin books, author Gabrielle Griffiths and NetGalley for providing me a copy this in exchange for my review.

1915 Cabrach Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The Great War rages on and Lizzie's husband William Calder, has signed up to fight, to keep watch of his wife and his business interests William's sister Jane has come to stay with Lizzie on their barren estate. But Lizzie is uneasy with her ever watchful sister-in-law who always seem to be too observant of Lizzie's doings and whom she speaks to. With William away Lizzie begins finding out that Jane is left as beneficiary to their home and business holdings if he does not return a fact that further reaffirms the coldness that lies in her loveless marriage Lizzie has tried in vain to improve. When Lizzie discovers a well preserved body of woman in a peat bog she asks Johnny a local singer and farm hand working nearby to assist in retrieving the body. But who is this woman and what are the circumstances behind her death? Together Lizzie and Johnny seek answers of her identity, but in this bleak landscape the superstitions of the Cabrach run wild and soon there claims of strange occurrences happening, that the dead woman's body is associated with the devil causing fear with some of the surrounding neighbors. There are also whispers that Johnny is interested in helping Lizzie in more ways than one and soon the attraction becomes mutual. The storyline jumps to 1905 when Lizzie meets her brutish husband William, the events leading up to their subsequent marriage and Johnny's checkered past.
This was a dark, gothic, atmospheric read, loved the feel of it and the Scottish brogue of the characters.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House UK for this eCopy to review

Reading Greater Sins felt like stepping into a hauntingly vivid historical drama set against the backdrop of 1915 in the remote Cabrach, Aberdeenshire. The story begins with the discovery of a perfectly preserved body in a peat bog, unearthed by Lizzie, the wife of a wealthy landowner, and Johnny, a nomadic singer and farmhand. This eerie finding sets off a chain of events that reverberates through their isolated community, revealing hidden truths and unravelling personal histories.

Lizzie’s character drew me in right away. Her tenacity and quiet strength stood in stark contrast to the stifling constraints of her life, and the bog body forces her to confront unanswered questions about her past. On the other hand, Johnny’s mysterious history kept me intrigued as he grappled with secrets he’s desperate to leave behind. Their lives intertwine in unexpected ways, and as ruinous weather, a damaged soldier, and inexplicable occurrences unsettle the Cabrach, the question of blame looms heavily over the community.

I appreciated Griffiths’ atmospheric prose, which brought the bleak beauty of the Cabrach to life—the misty landscapes, the harsh weather, and the pervasive sense of isolation were almost tangible. The exploration of morality and human vulnerability was thought-provoking, and the slow-burning tension built beautifully throughout the narrative.

As the War rages in France, the people of Aberdeenshire are still trying to make a living from the land. One day a strange body is unearthed by peat cutters, buried for many years it stirs suspicion amongst the locals. The discovery throws together a local landowners wife and an itinerant worker several classes apart.
I really loved the cover of this book! The story itself I didn't really love. There's a lot to like, class divides, local superstition etc, but I found the narrative rather dragging. However I wouldn't write it off and it will appeal to many.

This story is set in 1915 in an isolated community in Aberdeenshire, where Johnny, a casual farmhand, singer and entertainer, develops an unexpected relationship with Lizzie, the wife of the local landowner after he has gone off to the war. This happens after a body is discovered in the local peat bogs and the community starts to wonder just where it came from and what its unearthing might mean.

Both Johnny and Lizzie have complicated back stories which eventually emerge against a background of local pub talk and gossip, the body and what to do with it, and the distant echoes of the war. Johnny’s story is told in flashbacks going back to 1905 and the events which have led to him leading an almost nomadic life.

Throughout the book, the author tries to replicate the thick Scottish accent which some readers might find difficult but the developing relationship between Johnny and Lizzie is well explored although, towards the end, the events surrounding Johnny, previously known as Jack, threaten to overwhelm the plot.

It’s a good read but it takes some time to get into it, to understand the dialect and to know which characters are which.

I loved every single page. An atmospheric, poignant, and beautifully written debut, set just a few miles down the road from me in The Cabrach.

I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought it would at the beginning. It's set in Scotland during The Great War. Scotland is caught between modernity and a pagan past, where people need someone or something to blame when things go wrong.
It's about people who want to be free, and escape the stifling morality of the time, especially relating to women.

A novel set in Aberdeenshire that flits between 1905 and 1915 which is full of superstition. The story starts in 1915, Lizzie, the wife of a wealthy landowner, is collecting moss for bandages when they find the well preserved corpse of a young woman buried in the bog. With the help of Johnny, a wanderer and singer, they pull the body out and this is the beginning of what could be coincidences or the result of the found body as the weather suddenly worsens which prevents crops being lifted and a young soldier returns from the war maimed physically and mentally. The body is also a catalyst for the uncovering of long buried secrets from the past. And as secrets are revealed, we see that everyone has flaws. No one is totally innocent. Returning to 1905, we meet Lizzie before her marriage to William Calder and we discover her long buried past. As for Johnny, he seems to be travelling from farm to farm looking for work as he has a past he is running from - until past and present collide. As a singer, he has a song for everyone except himself. The people of Cabrach are people who don’t forgive easily. The atmosphere is dark and smokey and the body is always in the background, a silent presence.

I don’t know if I enjoyed this or not as I’m a bit confused about the body in the peat bog and if it really was that which caused the strange occurrences. There were a lot of characters and a lot of dialect that I didn’t understand fully. It’s historical fiction which I do enjoy reading but it’s left me confused and well I get the connection between the 2 characters that I guess would be the main characters. It’s not a bad book at all but yeah I’m confused about it.

An isolated Scottish community, a place filled with secrets, a bad harvest and the call to war, all combine to make local feelings run high, add into the mix a preserved body found in an ancient peat bog and you have all the right ingredients for a story which is rich in folklore, strong on superstition and thick with jealousy.

It is 1915 when the bulk of the story takes place and though everything seems to run smoothly, it is a place of secrets. Johnny is a charmer, likes a dram or two of whisky, ekes out a living from the land and takes work wherever he finds it, whilst Lizzie Calder lives in the big house, she is married to William, a wealthy local man who signs up as soon as war is declared. On the surface, Johnny and Lizzie have little in common other than a desire to discover more about the peat woman, despite locals thinking that she was once a witch and is therefore the cause of all the misfortune which has recently befallen the village.

Beautifully written, with a sparseness which mimics the bleakness of its setting, this imaginative novel reveals its secrets ever so slowly. Harsh complexities sit alongside hidden nuances so that it becomes impossible to know where the truth lies. Johnny is an unlikely hero and Lizzie an unlikely heroine but their combined stories work so well that days after finishing the novel I’m still blown away by both the story and the characters.

Set in a remote Scottish community during World War I, Greater Sins is a dark and atmospheric tale of secrets, survival, and the past refusing to stay buried.

When Lizzie, the wife of a wealthy landowner, and Johnny, a travelling singer and farmhand, discover a box buried in a peat bog, they uncover the remains of a woman. From that moment, strange things start happening—unexplained footsteps, objects moving on their own, and a growing sense of unease, fuelling the local superstitions. Meanwhile, war looms, with men deciding whether to wait for conscription or enlist of their own free will, while women work the farm fields, collecting moss for bandages.

Lizzie, trapped by societal expectations, struggles under the control of her overbearing sister-in-law, Jane. Meanwhile, Johnny’s past resurfaces when Henry, a new farmhand, arrives—it's clear they share a tense history. As relentless storms threaten crops and hardship tightens its grip, guilt and buried truths come to light.

The story moves between Lizzie and Johnny’s past in 1905 and the present day of 1915, slowly revealing the mysteries that haunt them both. Each flashback drops clues, deepening the tension and hinting at the secrets they desperately want to keep hidden.

A slow-burning, eerie mystery, Greater Sins pulls you into its haunting setting and keeps you hooked until the end. Perfect for fans of historical fiction with a dark edge.

Greater Sins tells the story of Johnny/Jack Nicol and Lizzie Brodie/Calder.

Set in 1915 the discovery of a woman's body in a peat bog begins a series of events that stir up memories of the past. Johnny and Lizzie bring the woman's body back to a farmhouse and begin to make enquiries about how she came to be in the peat. But as time goes on there is a change in the people who work the farms. Fear of the bog woman's influence spreads and seems to be affecting everyone. And the fear spreads violence.

The second timeline in 1905 tells us the histories of Johnny and Lizzie and how they have both wound up on Calder land a decade later.

This is a claustrophobic novel which has several strange twists that I didn't see coming. My feelings about both Johnny and Lizzie changed several times throughout the narrative along with feelings about other peripheral characters.

The characters are all quite nebulous and the story occasionally meanders a little too much but apart from a little wandering it was a great story. Not like anything I've read before. Certainly an author to keep an eye out for.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Doubleday for the advance review copy.

Greater Sins is an atmospheric debut novel by Gabrielle Griffiths. It is set in the Cabrach region, a remote rural community in Northern Scotland, to the west of Aberdeen. The year is 1915, and many young (and some older) men are volunteering to go to war, from rich landowners such as William Calder to farmhands eager to seek glory, adventure or, possibly, an escape from their exhausting, hand-to-mouth existence. In this context of change and upheaval, an ancient woman’s body is discovered in a pet bog, remarkably preserved. This strange discovery brings together an unlikely couple – Elizabeth “Lizzie” Calder, William’s wife, and Johnny Nicol, a nomadic folk singer who has decided to stay awhile and help at a local farm. It is not long before the mysterious figure of the bog woman takes over the superstitious imagination of the villagers, who ascribe to her a series of unfortunate events which befall the community. This will also lead Lizzie and Johnny to a reckoning with their past.

While told in the third person, this novel alternates between the respective perspectives of Elizabeth and Johnny, and also between two timelines – 1905 and 1915. The characters Griffiths creates are complex, nuanced and empathetically portrayed: villains have their redeeming features, the protagonists their foibles and flaws.

The novel’s judicious use of Scots dialect and evocative descriptions give it the mark of authenticity. In fact, Greater Sins is historical fiction firmly rooted in gritty realism. At the same time, it borrows certain tropes from Gothic fiction and folk horror (superstition in a small rural community; a mysterious corpse which might be the source of ill-luck; references to witchcraft and Faustian pacts). The result is a novel which artfully combines a strong feeling of historical time and place, with a fable-like sense of mystery.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2025/03/greater-sins-by-gabrielle-griffiths.html

Thank you for this arc!! Absolutely loved how this story unfolded, with the sins of the characters' pasts bleeding into the present. Part of me wishes there was a bit more about the bog body but I also absolutely love the symbolism and how it was used to move the story along.
Really atmospheric gothic read set in a isolated Scottish community

I enjoyed some elements of this book a lot! The mystery intrigued me, and I was curious to see what would happen with the unearthing of the woman in the bog. The lead-up to this unearthing led me to believe this is going to be a super creepy story.
In the end, the creepiness wasn't there for me. I understand that that may not have been the author's goal. There is a dark atmosphere in this book, especially regarding why the woman in the bog was so well preserved and all the things that go wrong in town since her discovery, but something in me just wanted a little bit more.
I was also confused by all the people in the story. There were too many characters mentioned, and the story was a little hard to read due to the Scottish dialect. I'm not Scottish, so the dialogue issue is mine alone. I did have to seek the help of the audio.
The three main men characters all with the name starting with "J" also threw me off. I constantly had to go back to the chapter to figure out who exactly we were talking about.

The writing, however, was beautiful and engaging.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me an ARC for my honest review.

Disclaimer: My Instagram post will be posted soon, while the reading vlog for the book will be posted in a few weeks.

Chilly and creepy, disturbing and twisty: a dark story that kept me enthralled and turning pages. Great storytelling and atmosphere, well plotted characters
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A chance meeting cracks open a dark past when Lizzie, unloved wife of a local gentleman meets Johnny Nicol, charismatic farm worker with a wandering past.

It is a very dark and disturbing story, set in the backdrop of uninviting scottish hills at the start of the first world war. The discovery of a woman's body, perfectly preserved by the peat bog, brings Lizzie and Johnny together and also stirs up superstition and mistrust from the local farming population.

The novel cuts the present of 1915 with the past of 1905, and events in the past do not stay buried but return to haunt both Lizzie and Johnny as a gruesome and connected story starts to emerge.

Beautifully written, chilling and disturbing, the book is an engrossing read from start to finish.

Greater Sins is a story of repression, misjudged alliances and relationships set in the early 1900s. Finding a woman’s body in the peat bog creates much soul searching for the young wife of a local landowner, away at war. Reflecting on past relationships, she is stuck in a cold marriage and overruled by his sister, who comes to keep an eye on things and run their home. Lizzie is cowed by those around her, repressed and set apart from the superstitious small community. After the gruesome discovery Lizzie, with the help of farmhand Johnny, begins to embrace life and take part in community events, much to the disapproval of her stern sister in law and the community who believe that the body in the bog is an ill omen.

It takes a while to warm to Lizzie, she is so beaten and accepting of her situation that it is hard to connect to her, but once you get enough of her back story she makes more sense. The story then becomes a relationship triangle between Lizzie, her husband William, and Johnny, with secrets from their pasts interconnecting. I thought that the end was rushed, there has been so much interplay to get to the revelation, that it was settled far too quickly. I didn’t understand the hints about the bog woman’s identity, it seemed like an afterthought.
But the story has lots of tension between locals in the small community, travelling labourers, and the landowners at the big house. There is a great sense of suffocation. As the novel ends in 1915, we know what is around the corner; conscription, broken families, women working in new ways and industries. A mixture of despair and hope at what the world will be once the guns have stopped. Perhaps Lizzie will rise to the new world and meet its changes and challenges head on.