Review: "Our Numbered Bones" by Katya Balen

Our Numbered Bones by Katya Balen
Published February 2026 via HarperVia
★★★★

When Anna leaves London for a writing retreat in rural England, she is at loose ends—bogged down in grief, unable to do so much as start her overdue book, not sure how to move forward or if she even wants to. Then the body surfaces in the marsh—not a recent body, not something for the local police unit, but someone from a much different time. And Anna is drawn to that body, that woman, in ways she cannot explain.

I wanted to shrug off the city and slip into someone else, someone far away. (loc. 75*)

There's something about centuries-old bodies in bogs that really captures the imagination. I read this partly because of how much Ghost Wall intrigued me, I think; it was an itch that Excavations (which is not at all about bogs) deepened rather than scratched. When I visited a bog outside Tallinn a couple of years ago, with its eerily clear water and spongy soft ground on either side of the wooden walkways, my mind drifted again and again to ancient bodies in bogs.

I'm trying to think how best to describe Our Numbered Bones: eerie, perhaps, though not overly so; sharp but swathed in soft edges; theoretically fragmented but grounded in dirt, in bog, in grief.

The only story tapping its way in my brain is the one I ever want to tell. The words of it are chattering in their chains. (loc. 421)

This is an odd one (mostly for some stylistic choices) and a good one. I'll note that this one comes with a trigger warning or two around the grief part of things; it's late in the game before Anna's full backstory is told, so I'm reluctant to give details, but there are both complicated family dynamics and recent loss to consider. Approach with caution if there's been recent loss in your life, but it's a good one if you're interested in character-driven stories with interesting settings.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.