Winterwood is a fairy tale reminiscent of stories from long ago. I loved it! The atmosphere was everything that you want in a traditional fairytale all while getting the sense that this story could be happening in the woods near your house.

"The girl with moonlight in her veins."

4.5 stars

The woods in Fir Haven are rumored to be magical, Nora Walker knows exactly how magical they are. The Walker women are said to be witches that share a special connection to the woods. On a full moon, Nora finds Oliver, a boy who disappeared weeks ago. But Oliver shouldn’t have survived the woods or the storm. Nora must figure out how Oliver came to survive and must help him remember how he got out of there. Discovering devastating truths along the way.

There was something so magical about Winterwood, it grabbed me from the first page. I found myself so absorbed in the wonderful pages of this book, I had the most difficult time putting it down. This may sound a little silly, but the whimsical writing made me want to go buy a cabin near some woods and speak to the trees. I was so fascinated by the magical aspects of the story. The little bits of Walker women history and magic spells were fascinating and I hope perhaps one day we get a bit more!

The storyline can be summed up as magic + murder mystery, which are two things I love. So it was no question that I would enjoy this book. There were some little bits that I didn’t see coming, but I must admit I did see the big twist a mile away. It was still a great twist and I am happy with the overall story. It was too good to spoil so I won’t even try. Just know that it's brilliant.

Moving on to the characters, Nora Walker is clearly my favorite of this book. Weirdly, I related to her in more than one way. She seemed very relatable to me even if she is from a long line of magic and I am not. But she questioned things, she got scared, she was brave, and she was vulnerable. All very real emotions and I loved her chapters for it. Oliver was a mystery to me and it wasn’t until more of his story was revealed that I cared for him a bit more. I love how his story turned out, but again spoilers, so I will keep my mouth closed about his ending and a few other characters.

Spooky season is over, but I think this is a book you can read all fall.winter. It felt like the perfect Fall/Winter read and I recommend it to all of you. Especially those who love a little slow burn, some magical woods, and witches.

Huge shout out to the publishers for sending this my way. As usual, all opinions are my own.

Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw is an intriguing young adult fantasy that pulls you into a world unlike any other. A standalone novel that is full of magic and witches! Ernshaw's writing is remarkable and paints a vivid picture making it easy to get swept away. Winterwood has everything - magic, romance, mystery, and paranormal. A slow-burn story that is sure to grab your attention and leave you wanting more. It will absolutely tug at your heart, burrow deep into your soul, and stay there for many moons to come. You will not want to put this down!

I have to admit, I was really looking forward to getting my hands on this book. I absolutely loved Earnshaw's previous book "The Wicked Deep" and couldn't wait to see what she'd come up with for her second novel. Unfortunately I only found this book to be so-so.

In Winterwood, Earnshaw returns with her beautifully creepy, atmospheric writing that I love, but unfortunately her latest novel felt mostly like a regurgitation of "The Wicked Deep", just with a different setting. Same absent mother figure, same small town girl with an eerie edginess, same newly arrived boy from the World Outside. I was also disappointed that the eponymous wood didn't play a bigger part in the plot. Mostly it stands in the background as a creepy menace; not something I was expecting from a place that lends its name to the title.

Overall I found this book just okay. Would definitely recommend taking this book for a test drive via your local library before deciding whether to add it to your shelves at home.

The Walker witches have lived by the Wicker Woods for as long as they can remember, entering only when a full moon shines to find the lost items that magically return to the woods. During a particularly bad snowstorm, a devastating chain of events transpire that Nora Walker must deal with, but without the Walker magic, how can she?
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This was a super unique story. It was slow, but I never felt bored while reading it. Every time I picked it up, it completely entranced me because the writing is SO beautiful and lyrical. The author has a way with words that makes the story just flow easily without any snags. I think a true testament to how well Shea Ernshaw writes is how atmospheric this story was. It was creepy due to the storyline all while still making me feel cozy when reading about the snowstorm. I just felt like I was right there in the story. I can’t wait to read more from this author.

Nora Walker is one of the infamous Walker women, witches who have a special connection with the Wicker Woods. Each Walker woman has a unique special power. Nora's mother has denied her destiny, but Nora embraces it and loves walking in the woods during the full moon. There's only one problem: Nora's concerned that her heritage has skipped her.

That is until she's placed on an unexpected path when she finds Oliver Huntsman in the woods. He went missing from the Camp for Wayward Boys two weeks ago, but here he is freezing in the woods as the biggest snow storm of the winter season cuts them off from the small town nearby. Trapped with only the boys at the camp, an eccentric neighbor, and a popular girl from school, Nora quickly discovers that something isn't right. One boy is dead and one is missing. What role did Oliver play in the death and who can Nora trust as she tries to unravel the mystery and embrace her role as a Walker woman?

Shea Ernshaw has written a compelling, deeply atmospheric mystery that causes the reader to question what is known until the very end. With cleverly dropped clues that foreshadow what's to come, I can't say that I didn't have a slight inkling as to some of the plot points that eventually fell into place, but Ernshaw's descriptions and quiet intensity led to a beautiful conclusion. Interspersed are also several entries from the Walker spellbook, which has been passed down from generation to generation. By including these pieces of the Walker history, the reader was able to get a sense of the family and Nora's legacy. Nora's motivation was also clear as she seeks to determine if she has any power that would allow her to feel less out of place within her own family.

Without an adult in sight, expect for three instances where Nora interacts with the eccentric neighbor living by the lake, this certainly fits into the YA category. Add in a potential romance, and Ernshaw hits many of the popular marks of the genre while also twisting them just enough for a novel reading experience. Overall, this was a very enjoyable read that I would recommend.

What I really liked about The Wicked Deep was that, even though it was slow-paced and light on action, the characters and atmosphere sucked me right in. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel the same about this one.

Our main character is Nora, a descendant from a long line of witches. These women have always had a special connection to the woods. When Nora searches in the woods, looking for a missing boy, she stumbles upon Oliver, who should be dead from the cold.

I really wish I could rate this higher. The writing was phenomenal, however I could never fully connect to Nora or Oliver. I found them a bit boring, and I felt like their characters never fully developed. I did like the way the author wrote about the woods though, she wrote them like they were an actual character, in fact it’s probably what got the most time and care from her.

Also, this is just me, but sometimes when I can see the twist coming, it takes a bit from my enjoyment. I think this is a big difference between this book and The Wicked Deep. I didn’t see the twist in the first book coming, like at all. However, I could see the author setting everything up in this one.

Of course, I’ll still be on the look out for more books from this author. Her writing is amazing and she always conveys the perfect amount of creepiness into her stories!

I really enjoyed The Wicked Deep when I read it around a year ago, and I've been looking forward to read Winterwood for quite a while.  I liked it but not as much as I thought I would.

I really liked the atmosphere.  There's something quiet, creepy and isolating about the woods and the houses that are nearby.  With the snowstorm, and not being able to leave, it felt suffocating.  Gothic comes to mind, and there were times when I forgot that this book wasn't set decades ago, but was set in our present.  Something about the woods and lake felt so old.

The setting is as much as a character as the actual people we see.  I'm amazed Ernshaw was able to do it, and do it well but this book was the perfect book to read this time of year.

I knew something was going on with Oliver but I wasn't sure what it was.  You think you know what happened, but you really don't.  Unless you're better at guessing and figuring things out than I am, which is possible.  In all honesty, I'm not sure how I feel about him.

I don't have strong feelings either way, and I honestly couldn't tell you much about him.  Even though he does narrate part of the book, not a lot stands out.  You do see him struggle with telling Nora about what happened the night that led him to being in the woods, and seeing the mystery unravel was interesting but I wasn't super-interested in that part of the book.

Don't get me wrong, I was interested in unraveling the mystery of Oliver but it wasn't what kept me reading.

What kept me reading was the magic and the forest.  Nora's family had quite the history, and I loved seeing the sections of the book that described someone in her family.  I was wondering if Nora had anything magical, and it turned out she did, but it's not something we see until the end of the book.  I was surprised by her abilities, and it makes me wonder why we didn't see it before.  But maybe there wasn't a need for her ability to make an appearance until the events of this book.

Some things were repetitive- like how weird people thought her family was, and how her mom didn't acknowledge they were witches.  It didn't detract from the book, but it did get tiring to hear it throughout the book.

My Rating: 3 stars.  Winterwood is definitely slow-paced, and not a lot happens in terms of plot, but the atmosphere and the setting were amazing.

Winterwood puts style over substance, but I don’t mind when the style is this good. A creeping, atmospheric romantic mystery from Shea Ernshaw, perfect for witchy moods and frosty weather.

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With their tiny town snowed in, the residents of Fir Haven and the nearby Camp for Wayward Boys aren’t going anywhere. With everyone else, Nora Walker (descended from witches) is confined to her family cabin or the frozen woods.

Those forces of nature provide an essential element of mystery: a closed circuit. Winterwood gives us just a few locations and a handful of characters to work with, with the promise that they’re all that’s needed to unravel the mystery of missing boys and ominous bone moths.

I have a lower tolerance for mystery plots than most readers. I love mystery elements woven into active storylines, but when the mystery is the story, I can get irritated if I feel that I’m being yanked around. Winterwood sometimes pushed this button. It’s a story style where the entire book is essentially exposition; everything is in place by chapter one; it’s just a matter of the reader discovering it.

I don’t think that’s always a bad thing. “Exposition” gets a bad rap because we usually only bring it up when it’s clunky and noticeable, but it’s an essential building block of stories. I have a theatre background, and many excellent plays (Ibsen’s Doll’s House, for example) operate the same way. They’re just a steady rollout of exposition, so even when nothing is “happening,” the reader is taken through a story arc of discovery.

But it’s a dangerous game to base an entire novel on slow exposition. Unfortunately, the devices Ernshaw uses to prevent the characters or the reader from learning crucial information are artificial and obvious: lost memory, “don’t tell me because I don’t want to know,” and my least favorite, having a POV character think about their own memories in purposefully vague and mysterious ways. Ernshaw shows incredible skill in other areas of writing, so it’s striking that those maneuvers are so clumsy. You can tell she’s scrambling for roadblocks to communication to stretch a very short tale into novel length.

I would still recommend Winterwood to the right reader, though. The imagery and immersiveness are top-notch. If you’re looking for a snowy, unsettling romance that feels like a campfire ghost story, this is exactly what you want.

And I’d never dream of spoiling the ending of a book, so just let me say… the ending. Was. Spectacular. The last half-dozen chapters bumped Winterwood up a whole star for me. Absolutely perfect.

Thank you to Simon Pulse for providing an advance review copy of this title for an honest review. No money changed hands for this review and all opinions are my own.

I loved The Wicked Deep, so when I heard about Winterwood I was equal parts excited and apprehensive.  Winterwood feels a lot like The Wicked Deep, it was creepy and dark and honestly a great read for this time of year. It also centers around a misunderstood character.  

I really enjoyed Nora’s story, and what I loved most about Nora was that she embraced herself.  She knew who and what she was and she was true to herself the whole time. The story itself was interesting, I figured out one of the “twists” pretty early on, but I still enjoyed getting there.  I would have liked the story to maybe have gone on a couple more chapters just so there could have been a more solid conclusion.  

This is an enjoyable read, especially this time of year.  It reminded me of a story that you might tell over a fire at night with family, a little creepy but also somehow comforting.

I absolutely loved the dark atmospheric writing of Winterwood. I felt like I had a clear picture of the setting and could feel what it would be like to be there. I didn't connect to the characters or the relationships in the book though so unfortunately it fell a bit flat for me. I felt for Nora at the beginning and end of the story, but not so much inbetween. I still enjoyed it & will definitely still be checking out future books by Shea Ernshaw!

It's interesting that the blurb mentions Practical Magic -- I definitely got an Alice Hoffman vibe while reading this story. The language is very lyrical and has that tinge of magic that elevates it above ordinary storytelling.

The plot itself has a really unique setting -- an isolated lakeside community surrounded by forests that becomes completely cut off from the outside world once the snow starts to fall. Shades of The Shining, perhaps? In this remote location, Nora thrives in her own isolation, while keeping an eye on the camp for troubled boys across the lake. As her path collides with the boys from the camp, she becomes enmeshed in a mysterious event and its violent outcome. The ensuing events threaten everyone around the lake, even the woods themselves.

I'm being intentionally vague on the plot, because it's best to just immerse yourself in the writing and let it flow over you, no preconceptions allowed! The romantic elements of the plot didn't do much for me, but I did appreciate the interweaving of magic and nature, and a pretty cool twist that comes about 3/4 of the way through the story.

This book was received from the Author, in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own

Winterwood is an eerie experience, dark, and unsettling, imaginative, with gothic elements. This spellbinding tale following Nora Walker, and the women in her ancestral family. The Walkers have a chilling connection to the enchanted forest near their home

Shea Ernshaw writing slowly pulls you in this richly atmospheric setting that is mysterious and gothically darkish The writing strategically slowed to create an intense moving novel, with exquisite prose and intriguing storyline.

The descriptive imagery that creates the cold solitude and isolation, makes the reader feel haunted. Nora shares the point of view of telling the story with Oliver Huntsman, a young boy who has been attending the “troubled boy’s camp” on Jackjaw Lake. After Nora finds him in the woods, pieces of his memory returns to explain how he came to be in the woods, and how he’s survived them for so long. On the night of the snow storm, a boy had gone missing from the camp, and Nora believe she’s found him. But Oliver and Nora begin putting the pieces together of what truly transpired, and they both realize that there is something more sinister is happening.

A haunting tale set deep in a magical snow-covered forest, where the appearance of a mysterious boy awakens a dangerous centuries old curse. The enchanted, atmospheric setting, woven by Ernshaw’s eerie prose and chilling suspense builds to a thrilling an darkish atmospheric haunting tale.

3.5 Stars -- When I heard about Winterwood, I was so excited. I loved Shea Ernshaw's debut novel, Wicked Deep. Shea Ernshaw's writing is so atmospheric. She tells the story in a slow creeping way that makes you feel like you're living in the story. I was especially excited for Winterwood because it combines two things I love - a sentient dark forest and a cold brutal winter setting. Add Ernshaw's writing to the mix, and my expectations are going to be sky-high.

So maybe, that's why I was a little disappointed.

We follow Nora Walker as she tries to figure out a mysterious murder that has happened in the tiny town of Fir Haven where she and her family has lived for generations. This is definitely a witch story. The Walker women all had some special magic that was unique to the person, except Nora's gift hasn't manifested yet. The Walker women have a special connection to the Wood, but even they don't enter unless it's a full moon and the trees are asleep.

The characters in this story are:
- Nora, our main character
- Olive, the boy Nora finds in the woods
- Suzy, Nora's classmate from school who snuck into the camp to be with a boy
- Camp Boys, I'm grouping these characters as a unit

All the characters are cut off from the rest of the town due to a winter snowstorm. Nora feels like something is off. She's not sure what but she feels this sense of doom or of time stalling or moving backward. She finds a boy in one of her full-moon walks in the Wood. His name is Oliver and he is from the Camp. She takes him back to the camp. At the camp, she finds out from Suzy that one of the boys in the camp was murdered and one went missing. She has always been able to find missing things in the Wood, and that includes Oliver. Now she starts to worry that Oliver killed the boy from camp. She starts to get suspicious about the Camp Boys, Suzy, and Oliver. And from there the story focuses on Nora trying to find the truth.

There is a romance in the book, but I really didn't think it was necessary. It was rushed and felt very superficial. However, I felt the same way with the romance in Wicked Deep too.

The tone and narrative structure of the book is similar to Wicked Deep. There are subtle clues (and not-so-subtle ones) in this layered suspense story with a big reveal at the end. My issue was having a very slow-moving plot with not enough compelling characters to get me truly invested. As mentioned, there is a big reveal at the end. Without spoiling anything specific, I'd say there are two reveals. One was pretty obvious to guess, but the other really surprised me.

Another thing I wanted to mention, and it might just be me, but it felt like Ernshaw added more embellishments to her writing. Her writing in this book felt much more flowerly compared to Wicked Deep. At times, it felt a bit too much since the pacing was already slow. I wanted more action, and the purple prose and heavy descriptions bogged down the story at times. I like beautiful flowery writing. For example, I loved the writing in Renee Ahdieh's The Beautiful, but I don't like Anna-Marie McLemore or Tessa Gratton's writing style. This is closer to Ahdieh's style but combined with the really slow pace made it a little more difficult for me to stay hooked whenever I picked up the book.

Overall I liked this, but I guess I was expecting much more. The tone and atmosphere of the book were fantastic, but the plot was too slow and I wanted more details to the world. Despite the slow pace, the story really amped up towards the end. The action and big reveals were amazing. I loved how everything came together!

One of the things I loved the most were these chapters from the Walker Spellbook. These chapters were recipes for healing, spells, and biographies of past Walker women. I loved these so much but I wish there had been more actual witchiness in the actual story. I still recommend it and it would be perfect a perfect winter read!

** Thank you to NetGalley and Simon Pulse for providing me with an arc to review.

I decided to read this book because the concept seemed really interesting. I have not read the other book by the author. This is a book where you really need to be into detail and setting to fully enjoy it. If you prefer more focus on character and a quick read, this is not the book for you. The setting of the woods is just as much of a character as the people in the book, and it takes some serious sitting down and reading to get into it. The prose can be a little heavy at times, but it is beautifully written regardless.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for the earc to review!
Nora Walker is rumored to be a witch. But she and all the Walker women before her have always had a connection to the woods. They're able to find lost things in the woods, and have special gifts. In the woods, Nora finds Oliver, a boy who went missing from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago. He should be dead; lost in the woods in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. And yet Nora finds him alive. Soon, she learns of more mysteries and possibly sinister plots surrounding his disappearance. Nora has no choice but to figure out the truth and dig up the secrets about the boy she's starting to care about.

Wow. That's really all I can say right now. Shea Ernshaw has built a beautiful world here in the Wicker Wood. I was instantly grabbed and transported into the story. It was written so well, I felt like I was there. I love Nora and the whole lore around the Walkers. And Oliver is a great character too. The plot was full of mystery and suspense, and I could not put the book down! I'm gonna have such a hangover from this book! I can't wait to have a finished copy in my hands. The only thing I wish we could have seen is more of Nora's life and story after the final events of the story. But I don't mind that much, and still recommend this book wholeheartedly! It may take a minute to draw you in, as the plot is a touch slow at the beginning, but I promise you'll be hooked soon enough, and you won't be able to put it down!

I still haven’t read this author’s debut novel, but after reading this I certainly want to. This is best read on a snowy winter night beside a roaring fire. At times creepy, but always achingly beautiful.

What I liked:

This is such a beautifully written book. The prose is perfect and just makes you feel isolated and as scared as the characters.
Nora is amazing. I loved her from the start. She is so sure of who she is even though she doesn’t seem to manifest any powers like all of the Walker women before her.
The woods are indeed creepy and will remind you of anytime you have ever walked into a snowy woods at night.
Oliver is also a great character, as lost in himself as he is in this world. I was pulling for him through out the book to uncover the truth about himself and what really happened to him.
The little vignettes between some of the chapters that talked about the Walker women and their powers (called nightshades). Some were quite interesting as were the women who had them.
The overall plot was compelling and hard to put down. I found myself wishing for longer periods of reading time, so that I could finish it.
What I found problematic:

I really liked the plot and the story overall. That said it was a way too predictable. I had pretty much figured out what was going on about half way in. There was only one twist I didn’t see coming, but it wasn’t a big one.
There was a lot of repetition of some things, like how the Walker women had always lived by the lake and were feared because they were witches. Mentioned way too often.
Much of it read more like a contemporary mystery thriller than a supernatural dark fairy tale.
The relationship between Nora and Oliver was a bit too insta love for my taste.
Overall this was still a wonderful story. I have seen some comments that the author has reworked the story since the ARC’s were published. If this is true, then I look forward to reading it again and seeing how some of the issues were fixed. I will also definitely be checking out her first book.

Nora is descended from a long line of Walker women who bear magic and are consider daughters of The Wicker Woods. Two weeks ago, a storm blew four feet of snow over Jackjaw Lake and Fir Haven. Two weeks ago a boy went missing and one boy was found dead. The woods are rugged, unkind and should be untrusted but Nora still walks through them because she is drawn to the woods. She always finds lost things in the woods during a full moon. After finding the missing boy from Jackjaw Camp for Wayward Boys in the woods, Nora feels connected to him. Oliver is changed by the woods.

Nora is the girl that lives across the lake. The boys at the camp tell Oliver to beware of the Walkers because the Walkers are witches and they cannot be trusted. Winterwood invokes magic within you. It's the magic of believing yourself and honoring your own power and history. While Nora's mother tries to stamp out the Walker lineage, Nora embraces it.

Shea Ernshaw's writing is gorgeous and atmospheric. She breathes life even into inanimate objects like The Wicker Woods. Winterwood is written in alternating POVs. Readers experience what Nora and Oliver experience. Ernshaw's novel is spellbinding and the descriptions are vivid, suspenseful and mysterious.

There are some instances in the book where there is a lot of repetition such as how Oliver shouldn't trust Nora or how Nora shouldn't go into the woods. At first it was bothersome to read but then again, it could be part of the characters'' own internal monologue and how their thinking patterns look and sound like.

I enjoyed reading the excerpts from the Spellbook of Moonlight & Forest Medicine. The excerpts included information about the Walker women like Florence and Willa. The Walker women remind of the Owens from Practical Magic. Both the Walkers and Owens are witches and the women who fall in love with men who come and go.

Winterwood is a well-written intriguing novel to read during a crisp autumn night with a mug of tea while curled with a blanket on the couch. Readers who enjoy Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic and Halloween Town will fall in love with Winterwood. It's the perfect October/November read.

I loved Shea Ernshaw's previous book, The Wicked Deep. It was full of magic, witchcraft, and ghosts. Winterwood, her second novel, continues with an even more moody, creepy atmosphere, plus characters who will tear at your heart. This was a thoroughly entertaining, spooky book!

What I Liked:
Atmosphere:

The setting is a remote lake in the Pacific Northwest in the dead of winter. One side of the lake has a boys camp for troubled teens. On the other side are vacation homes, empty of summer revelers, save one lone house. Nora, a teen rumored to be a witch, lives a solitary existence. She wanders the Winterwoods on evenings of the full moon, looking for lost items.

I loved the sense of isolation for both the boys camp and Nora. With no real adults around (the camp personnel seem to only minimally supervise the boys), bad thing can happen. The situation becomes even more dangerous as a storm leaves the area cut off with no phones and blocked roads.

Characters:
Nora:

No one talks to Nora at school, and the locals spread rumors about her and her family of women being witches. It doesn't bother her too much because it's actually true. All the women in her family have some extraordinary talent. All except Nora. Even though the circumstances are fanciful, I think every person can identify with Nora. What makes us special? What if there is nothing?

Oliver:

We get another perspective from Oliver, the boy Nora finds in the forest. This is a case of an unreliable narrator. Is he responsible for the death of another boy? He can't quite remember what happened to him out in the woods. Or can he?

Story:

I would say that the story was a slow burn. The author spends a good amount of time establishing the mood of the book, and the story takes a while to unfold. But it is thrilling! How did the boy from the camp get killed? What was Oliver's role? As Nora tries to solve the mystery, the sense of impending doom increases.


We are also left to speculate if the Walker women actually are witches, and if the young men at the camp are a danger. If Nora finds out what really happened, will someone try to silence her?

Thanks to partner NetGalley for the digital ARC of Shea Ernshaw’s Winterwood in exchange for an honest review. The book releases Tuesday, November 5.

“I am a Walker. I am the thing whispered about, the thing that conjures goosebumps and nightmares” (loc. 131).

Evocative. Atmospheric. Beautifully written. Shea Ernshaw’s Winterwood is a gorgeous YA fantasy novel set in a world just next door to our own. Teenager Nora Walker, the Walker (or, perhaps, witch) at the center of the book, is an outcast from the world and from her family. Her nightshade, her gift, has never revealed itself, so Nora leads a life separate from her small community, a life wedded to the powerful trees in the Wicker Woods and the bottomless Jackjaw Lake, but one in which she can never fully join the powerful matrilineal tradition that Nora’s mother has rejected. So Nora, who learned from her grandmother until her death, has to fight to continue living within the magic of the Walkers even while she is “as helpless as a girl by any other name” (loc. 235).

Nora’s heritage means that she is a finder of lost things in the Wicker Woods, and the home she shares with her mother is filled with treasures she has brought back when the moon is full and the trees asleep. At the opening of the novel, Nora is walking in the woods with her wolf/dog Fin when she discovers her “latest found item” (loc. 248), Oliver Huntsman, a boy missing from the Jackjaw Camp for Wayward Boys.

Nora rescues the boy and then must deal with the aftermath of her discovery. As Ernshaw’s novel unfolds, she delves into the Walker family’s Spellbook, which details the stories of Walker women, and into Oliver’s own perspective as he struggles with his loss of memory and comes to know the real Nora, the one outside the superstitions and rumors that surround her family. Both Nora and Oliver try to uncover the truth of Oliver’s disappearance and of the death of one of his companions from the camp.

Winterwood is just phenomenal. Shea Ernshaw beautifully builds a novel that feels like a dark fairytale, and I loved the line she draws between “the legends [Nora] know[s] to be true” and the stories the boys and townspeople tell, which “are lies. Born from fear and spite, not from history” (loc. 475). The legitimacy of Nora’s family story, which is centered on women, and the defiance of the norms the town tries to force upon them are supremely empowering. At one point, Nora declares, “My family is older than witches. . . . Older than the word itself” (loc. 1330). Oliver and Nora each have a loneliness, an emptiness, that draws them together, though they have a hard time overcoming their mutual mistrust. Their earnest attempts to take a risk and be vulnerable to each other are moving, even while both make it clear why it might seem safer not to let down the walls they’ve used for protection.

Though I was able to predict a part of the story arc, I enjoyed every moment of this novel, which is a dark, mysterious, and perfect YA read. The complexity of the characters beautifully centers this amazing and atmospheric book. Shea Ernshaw’s Winterwood would be an excellent fall or winter read, but it’s worth picking up regardless of the season.