He encourages ritualistic behaviour among the group they build a ghost wall of animal skulls, light ceremonial fires and raise a frenzy of drum-beating and chanting. Silvie's father expresses misogynist brutality with the licence of Iron Age historical accuracy. She is at once intimidated and fascinated by the students, in particular, Molly, who becomes suspicious of Silvie's emotional and physical scars, and who plays a critical role in the novel's climax. Ghost Wall is a coming-of-age story of sorts under unusual circumstances, Silvie explores boundaries, wrestles teenage awkwardness, and yearns for an escape from her father.

Silvie says 'some days I just knew he needed to hit me and however carefully I trod, sooner or later I'd give him cause'. They blame themselves for his violence towards them. Silvie and her mother tiptoe around him, afraid of detonating his anger. He resents the class superiority of the professor and his students and his presence looms over the narrative as the full extent of his controlling behaviour becomes increasingly apparent. Silvie's father believes he is a direct descendant of a pure British race, a prescient theme for a post-Brexit Britain. Moss creates palpable tension right from the outset, and with events playing out over only a few days, the group dynamics become a crucible that threatens to boil over. Professor Slade allows concessions to modern life, while the students sneak off to the nearest town to shower and buy junk food and alcohol. The rest of the group are less concerned with authenticity. He takes the experiment seriously and demands rigorous compliance from his family. Silvie's father is recruited to the project for his obsessive knowledge of Iron Age life and self-taught survival skills. Silvie says: 'We ourselves became the ghosts, learning to walk the land as they walked it 2000 years ago, to tend our fire as they tended theirs and hope that some of their thoughts, their way of understanding the world, would follow the dance of muscle and bone.' Moss' writing evokes the wild beauty of the Northumbrian landscape with its dry-stone walls, meandering streams, and moors bursting with wildflowers.

They quickly discover the harshness of this life: their isolated camp is hot and uncomfortable, they wear scratchy tunics, sleep in tents, and hunt and forage for meagre food supplies. Together, they will spend a week living as close as possible to Iron Age life. They join an academic, Professor Slade, and his three students, Molly, Pete and Dan. Silvie's father, Bill – a bus-driver by day and part-time history hobbyist – has coerced Silvie and her mother into accompanying him on an immersive archaeology experiment in rural Northumberland. Silvie, the novel's 17-year-old narrator, propels the story with an almost stream-of-consciousness urgency, her speech peppered with northern patois.

Ghost wall book review