Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw
2019 [336p]
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-5344-3941-2 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-5344-3943-6 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7-10
Few people who enter the Wicker Woods ever return, but as a Walker woman, Nora is able to traverse the dangerous forest where others would be consumed. She's shocked, then, when she finds Oliver Huntsman, a boy who went missing weeks ago, alive and whole. His memory, however, is not as intact, and he's unable to recall how he survived the last two weeks or why he left the Jackjaw Camp for Wayward Boys in the first place. Nora knows there's something off here: why did the woods let Oliver leave safely; why doesn't he want to return to the camp; and why does Nora feel so drawn to him? As in her debut The Wicked Deep (BCCB 3/18), Ernshaw mines considerable tension from her setting: layers of snow and [End Page 118] ice give a claustrophobic restlessness to the pace that literally erupts in a blaze of heat and destruction as the wood catches fire. Nora and Oliver share narration, and it's clear neither one knows what exactly is going on, giving the distinct feeling that a powerful and menacing force is at play. Readers might guess at a twist or two, but the last few bends through the plot are both gasp- and sigh-worthy. Fans of Ernshaw or of Wallace's The Memory Trees (BCCB 9/17) will want to get lost in these woods.
