Eleanor Bruce, Lucilla Gray. Harper North, (320p) ISBN: 9780008737603. History, read 27/01/26, Paperback ★★★★☆

Things We Found in the Ground

Another book I received from Harper Collins in exchange for a review, it was the only one that really shouted out at me the week I requested it.

A mix between memoir, local history, and archaeology ‘Things We Found in the Ground’ is a story of two cousins getting to grips with the world of metal detection.

This sees Ellie and Lucie meeting up for the first time in 20 years in Lincolnshire, all due to lockdown.

There is an early nod to the TV programme which is excellent, but the world that Ellie and Lucie enter is in ways so similar to this. The camouflage, the sandwiches, the cold and wet.

But what makes a huge difference is the permission they got, lots of hard work and sheer doggedness got them permission to search fields belonging to an estate that was in the village that one of them grew up in, this gave them the opportunity to belong to a certain place and get to know people as well as the countryside.

I love the honesty that they bring to the hobby, the cold, the mud, the long hard physical work, the need to keep pushing on. All brightened by that moment of discovery, when something ancient and hidden comes out of the earth to be revealed for the first time in millenia.

I felt as though I shared in these discoveries with them and this is what made this such a readable book.

If I still used Instagram I would follow them as they sound so enthusiastic and honest.