Synopsis
There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads.
When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.
Review
To try and make a bit of a dent in my TBR, I set myself a reading challenge called, Novella November! This was to help me squeeze in some shorter reads that I’d wanted to get to for a while, but hadn’t really had the time to do so. Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh is one such novella, and I’m glad to have read it.
I adored the mythical, folklore heart of this story – so very like the Talon Duology by Jen Williams – and how it can be whimsical and terrifying in equal measure. Incredibly atmospheric, this novella absolutely brought the wood to life, with all its wildness, mystery, and magic.
The concepts of old gods, summer, dryads, and people being people were marvellous and there was a grounded realism to the main character, Tobias, that I very much appreciated. I’ll always love quiet, slightly grumpy characters that simply want to be left alone to do their thing as the world grows and moves on around them.
There are so many beautiful descriptions of woodland, dryads, trees, growth, and life (and even death) within that made me viscerally feel like I was in my local woodland. I could feel the flutter of bird feathers and hear the call of the fox, and very few books have transported me so fully and with such immersion, that I wanted to savour the details on every page.
Themes of life, death, rebirth, and repeating cycles are prevalent throughout. Though there are consequences, there is very much the message of not everything lasts forever, even trees. Change will happen, and it’s whether or not we can adapt to it. I really liked the messaging and world in this tale.
But I didn’t like the story as much as I’d hoped to.
The ending threw me a little – it felt like there was a cautious romance blooming between Tobias and Henry, but the ending then seemed to push Tobias and Henry’s mother together (which Henry even comments on), and it just got a little mixed. Additionally, a death was supposed to happen with a felled tree, but it didn’t, so I spent the final few pages confused because the stakes that had been clearly set suddenly seemed to not matter. It also felt rushed in comparison to the delicate pacing of the earlier story, with half a year of time squished into a handful of pages (with elements of Isa from Morgan Stang’s Lamplight Murder Mystery series of monster hunting), so I found the ending a tad jarring.
Overall, this was a beautiful tale that was enjoyable, particularly with all the nature magic, life, and deliberately gentle pacing, though the ending may or may not work for you. This is part one of a duology, however, so I imagine book two will wrap up things in a new way.
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