Death in the AegeanA novel inspired by Little Women, set around MANCHESTER
Ten Great Books with ARCHAEOLOGY at their heart
18th June 2025
Ten great books about archaeology. Archaeology is an inherently exciting field, constantly unearthing tangible links to our distant past. Recent breakthroughs, driven by technological advancements like LiDAR and ground-penetrating radar, are revealing hidden cities and settlements once thought lost, challenging established historical narratives.
From the ongoing discoveries at Pompeii, offering vivid glimpses into Roman daily life, to the revelation of an entire ‘Lost Golden City’ in Egypt, each dig promises fresh insights. We’re seeing ancient diets, trade networks, and even warfare practices illuminated with unprecedented detail. The sheer thrill of holding an artifact touched by hands thousands of years ago, or walking through a space last occupied by forgotten civilizations, makes archaeology a truly captivating pursuit. It’s a continuous quest to piece together humanity’s remarkable journey.
Here are ten of our favourite books with archaeology at their heart.
The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths – LAZIO
Dr Ruth Galloway is flattered when she receives a letter from Italian archaeologist Dr Angelo Morelli, asking for her help. He’s discovered a group of bones in a tiny hilltop village near Rome but doesn’t know what to make of them. It’s years since Ruth has had a holiday, and even a working holiday to Italy is very welcome!
So Ruth travels to Castello degli Angeli, accompanied by her daughter Kate and friend Shona. In the town she finds a baffling Roman mystery and a dark secret involving the war years and the Resistance. To her amazement she also soon finds Harry Nelson, with Cathbad in tow. But there is no time to overcome their mutual shock – the ancient bones spark a modern murder, and Ruth must discover what secrets there are in Castello degli Angeli that someone would kill to protect.
Finding Camlann by Sean Pidgeon – ENGLISH WEST COUNTRY
Archaeologist Donald Gladstone is sure that there never was a “real” King Arthur—that is, until a surprising find at Stonehenge seems to offer hard evidence of Arthur’s existence. Teaming up with Julia Llewellyn, a gifted linguist working at the Oxford English Dictionary, Donald sets off on a literary and mythological quest that will change both of their lives. Gloriously many-layered, Finding Camlann is a deeply satisfying love story, a gripping detective story, and a narrative journey of myriad pleasures.
The Night Villa by Carol Goodman – POMPEII
The eruption of Italy’s Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 buried a city and its people, their treasures and secrets. Centuries later, echoes of this disaster resonate with profound consequences in the life of classics professor Sophie Chase.
Beneath layers of volcanic ash lies the Villa della Notte – the Night Villa – once home to the captivating slave girl at the heart of an ancient controversy. And concealed in a subterranean labyrinth rests a cache of antique documents believed lost to the ages: a prize too alluring for Sophie to resist. But whatever shocking events transpired in the face of Vesuvius’s fury has led to deeper intrigues – and Sophie is swiftly sucked into their dark and terrifying vortex . . .
Site Unseen by Dana Cameron – MAINE
Brilliant, dedicated, and driven, archaeologist Emma Fielding finds things that have been lost for hundreds of years — and she’s very, very good at it. A soon-to-be-tenured professor, she has recently unearthed evidence of a seventeenth-century coastal Maine settlement that predates Jamestown, one of the most significant archaeological finds in years. But the dead body that accompanies it has embroiled Emma and her students in a different kind of exploration. With her reputation suddenly in jeopardy — due to the ruthless machinations of a disgruntled rival — and a second suspicious death, heartbreakingly close to home, Emma must unearth a killer among the relics. But that means digging deep to get to dark secrets buried in the heart of the archaeological community — which, in turn, could bury Emma Fielding.
Cold Earth by Sarah Moss – GREENLAND
On the west coast of Greenland, a team of archaeologists searching for traces of lost Viking settlements receives news from back home: a deadly pandemic has swept across the world. As the Arctic winter approaches and their communications with the outside world fail, the six abandoned souls are left fighting for survival, writing letters to loved ones they may never receive.
Cold Earth is a chilling, haunting and scarily prescient tale of grief, isolation and the will to survive.
Excavations by Kate Myer – GREECE
Over a summer in sun-drenched Greece, four incompatible women digging into the past may just find the answers to their futures.
On a remote archeological site in Greece, the mythic home of the first Olympics, four women discover an unusual artifact. It’s a piece of history that definitely shouldn’t exist. And for the head archaeologist in charge, a relic himself, it means something’s gone horribly wrong.
Elise, Kara, Z and Patty all find themselves digging here together, but they couldn’t be farther apart. Kara’s a polished conservator calling off her wedding. Patty and her bowl cut are desperate for love. Millennial Z just got dumped and fired yet again. And Elise, their star excavator, is a lone wolf about to go rogue.
To figure out what they’re really digging for, and to topple the man who wants to hide their history, these dirt-crusted colleagues have to become what they’ve avoided for years—friends. If they put their own messes aside for one summer, they might just make the discovery of a lifetime.
Aphrodite’s Tears by Hannah Fielding – SANTORINI
A young archaeologist who travels to the remote island of Helios (based on the island of Santorini) to investigate an ancient shipwreck, becomes caught in a web of dark obsession, mystery and seduction in Hannah Fielding s latest novel. In ancient Greece, one of the twelve labours of Hercules was to bring back a golden apple from the Garden of Hesperides. To archaeologist Oriel Anderson, joining a team of Greek divers on the island of Helios seems like the golden apple of her dreams.Yet the dream becomes a nightmare when she meets the devilish owner of the island, Damian Theodorakis. In shocked recognition, she is flooded with the memory of a romantic night in a stranger s arms, six summers ago. A very different man stands before her now, and Oriel senses that the sardonic Greek autocrat is hell-bent on playing a cat and mouse game with her. As they cross swords and passions mount, Oriel is aware that malevolent eyes watch her from the shadows. Dark rumours are whispered about the Theodorakis family. What dangers lie in Helios: a bewitching land where ancient rituals are still enacted to appease the gods, young men risk their lives in the treacherous depths of the Ionian Sea, and the volatile earth can erupt at any moment? Will Oriel find the hidden treasures she seeks? Or will Damian s tragic past catch up with them, threatening to engulf them both?
The Buried by Peter Hessler – EGYPT
Drawn by a fascination with Egypt’s rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo’s neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.
In the midst of the revolution, Hessler often traveled to digs at Amarna and Abydos, where locals live beside the tombs of kings and courtiers, a landscape that they call simply al-Madfuna: “the Buried.” He and his wife set out to master Arabic, striking up a friendship with their instructor, a cynical political sophisticate. They also befriended Peter’s translator, a gay man struggling to find happiness in Egypt’s homophobic culture. A different kind of friendship was formed with the neighborhood garbage collector, an illiterate but highly perceptive man named Sayyid, whose access to the trash of Cairo would be its own kind of archaeological excavation. Hessler also met a family of Chinese small-business owners in the lingerie trade; their view of the country proved a bracing counterpoint to the West’s conventional wisdom.
Through the lives of these and other ordinary people in a time of tragedy and heartache, and through connections between contemporary Egypt and its ancient past, Hessler creates an astonishing portrait of a country and its people. What emerges is a book of uncompromising intelligence and humanity–the story of a land in which a weak state has collapsed but its underlying society remains in many ways painfully the same. A worthy successor to works like Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon and Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines, The Buried bids fair to be recognized as one of the great books of our time.
Tunisian Dreams by Ivor Rawlinson – TUNISIA
Celia, an ex-BBC journalist turned film director, is in Tunisia a year before the Arab Spring with her archaeologist boyfriend, Sam, looking for locations for her next film. She comes across a story she cannot resist. She does not know that it will change her life, blunt her emotions, but make her name. Whilst Celia is out of contact for weeks following her story, Sam thinks she’s found someone else and falls for the attractive and rich Alison Grainger. Sam, who has always been money conscious, has his own lucrative project: to turn one of Tunisia’s most interesting Roman ruins into a living Roman-era town, with actors in togas, nudes in the public baths and gladiators – financed by the cynical, immensely rich Mr Ayeb. But Sam has a dilemma: he’s uncovered something sensational at the site. It needs excavating but to do so would hold up the project – and Mr Ayeb’s projects are never held up. In a beautiful country ripe for revolt, this is a story of a man and two women: secrets suppressed, feminine curiosity, an epic quest and migration from Africa – the problem no one wants to face. Readers are given fascinating insights into the rites of the citizens of Roman Africa in 200 AD, and engaged in the debate about commercialising our heritage and the plight of sub-Saharan Africans looking for a better life. The characters are true to life: interesting but flawed. Suspense is maintained to the very end when the threads are drawn together in an unexpected, spectacular and profoundly moving ending. Written by an ex-Ambassador to Tunisia, with an assured style and great sensitivity, this is an exceptionally readable and thoughtful page-turner.
The Salt Road by Jane Johnson – NORTH AFRICA
Isabelle’s estranged archeologist father dies, leaving her a puzzle. In a box she finds some papers and a mysterious African amulet — but their connection to her remains unclear until she embarks on a trip to Morocco to discover how the amulet came into her father’s possession. When the amulet is damaged and Isabelle almost killed in an accident, she fears her curiosity has got the better of her. But Taib, her rescuer, knows the dunes and their peoples, and offers to help uncover the amulet’s extraordinary history, involving Tin Hinan — She of the Tents — who made a legendary crossing of the desert, and her beautiful descendant Mariata.
Across years and over hot, shifting sands, tracking the Salt Road, the stories of Isabelle and Taib, Mariata and her lover, become entangled with that of the lost amulet. It is a tale of souls wounded by history and of love blossoming on barren ground.
BONUS BOOK
Death in the Aegean by M A Monnin – GREECE
When private banker Stefanie Adams travels to Greece on vacation, she is suspected of murdering a wealthy bride who accused her deceased father of artifact theft. Unfortunately, the bride’s accusation also ties Stefanie, a former archaeology student, to the robbery of a newly discovered gold statue, the Akrotiri Snake Goddess. With two high-profile crimes to solve, Greek police are under pressure, and both crimes lead straight to Stefanie.
Then her own life is threatened, and Stefanie must rely on her bank training for spotting potential criminals to identify which of her fellow travelers is the real killer. Is it the now-wealthy bridegroom? The popular travel blogger whose career the dead woman ruined, or the light-fingered British backpacker with an eye on the victim’s valuable jewelry? Or could it be the flirtatious German tourist who is clearly after more than romance?
Caught up in a web of international intrigue, theft, and murder, Stefanie doesn’t know who to trust. Not everyone is what they seem, and as charming Thomas Burkhardt warns, Where Greed Leads, Murder Follows…
Enjoy our selection of great books with Archaeology at their heart!
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