#After the Forest

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All the unread Owlcrate editions on my tbr ~

[torpublishinggroup]

Release Roundup - 10.3.23

it's tuesday, and that means NEW BOOKS

we're running down everything releasing new from us today, right here 😎

👇title info below👇

Tor Books

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson

After the Forest by Kell Woods

Princess of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

TorDotCom Publishing

The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu

Nightfire

The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey

Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson

Forge

Valley of Refuge by John Teschner

The Murder of Andrew Johnson by Burt Solomon

[con-alas-de-angeles]

[berenices-commas]

After the Forest - 2023 - Kell Woods

So this is a retelling of a classic fairytale – words which strike fear into the hearts of the wise. This time it’s Hansel and Gretel! And also Snow White, kind of. But this was, if not actually good, at least not painful. Woods is clearly influenced by The Bear and the Nightingale, which is a great book, and this steers her in something approaching the right direction. This is very definitely historically grounded – we’re in the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, in a backwoods village in the Black Forest, in which there just so happens to be magic going on. And so we get a split between the historical fantasy and the fairytale.

The former doesn’t quite come up to Katherine Arden’s standards, but Woods is trying! The best part of this book is its portrayal of a young peasant woman, without parents or much of an inheritance, trying to make a living for herself and her brother who has never really recovered from their shared childhood trauma. I think to a large degree this succeeds in presenting a world where people’s life choices, and their understanding of those choices, are genuinely different from our own society. For me this is the key to good historical fiction – Woods’ occasional lapses in accuracy don’t really pose a problem. (She joins the hallowed ranks of fantasy authors, going back to Tolkien himself, who don’t quite know what a pike is. But this is fine! Shelley Parker-Chan writes amazing historical fantasy, and I’m still not convinced they’ve ever actually heard of crossbows.)

There are maybe two big stumbling points. First is in the treatment of Christianity – the people of this village all go to church, they swear by Christ, etc., but you don’t get the impression that any of them really believe in God, or have much investment in the religion that structures their whole world. This rather dismissive attitude to religion then exacerbates the second problem, which is how the book places witchcraft in a social context. Because Woods takes pains to emphasise that this society has a constant, bubbling fear of witches that can boil over into murderous panics. And yet she doesn’t really explore why people think like that – for her it’s just foolish superstition. Which is very weird because in the world of this novel witches are actually real. There literally are a bunch of evil witches who live in secret and go around cursing people, and the curses can only be lifted by killing the witches. The book never squares its very reasonable condemnation of witch-burning with the fact that Greta saves the day by burning a witch! It’s odd.

The fairytale side of the book shades into urban fantasy – we get werewolves, witches with different schools of magic, etc. None of it is terribly interesting here, though it should be – a Burgundian noblewoman who becomes immortal and lives dozens of false lives across Europe! A family of werewolves created by a pagan Norse priestess who have now forgotten their ancient purpose and hire themselves out as mercenaries in the wars of religion! (The last one is also a great RPG premise.) But throughout everyone is just a little too matter-of-fact about the magic shaping their lives – it comes across neither as wondrous nor horrifying, and we don’t go nearly deep enough into the characters’ experience of it.

Overall this is not a bad book, and a good debut effort. The characterisation is never really exciting but rarely actually thin. The plotting is fine, and only gets away from the author right at the end. It’s certainly better than most in this subgenre, and manages to tell a much better feminist story for not being conceived as a Feminist Retelling. But I don’t think it ends up making the most of its premise.

[meeghanreads]

Top 5 fairy tale retellings

Hello friends!! Welcome to Top 5 Tuesday!! This week’s topic is top 5 fairy tale retellings!! Now, I know this topic is not for everyone. In fact, it’s pretty much designed purely for me. But, as host, that’s my prerogative every so often. And, I’m not sorry. Sorry. But, for not being sorry. Not for the topic. I’ll stop now. Apparently, somewhere in the world 26 February is National Fairy Tale…

[flowercrown-hobbit]

I really enjoyed after the forest by Kell Woods. It's based on what happened with Hans and Gretel after the witch was defeated. I loved Greta and the way it has so many right details for the black forest in Germany. There are also different fairytale elements woven in this tale.

[libraryleopard]

mmmmmm oh my god i just finished reading after the forest by kell woods (adult historical fantasy novel inspired by hansel and gretel) and i think it's been a while since a fantasy novel has personally annoyed me that much

first of all it's a hansel and gretel retelling with roughly zero development of the sibling relationship??? hans and greta barely share any pagetime and i feel like their relationship didn't have much depth and that felt like a big missed opportunity

the antagonists are an evil, sexually predatory wizard with dwarfism and a sexy seductress witch whose backstory involves being raped when she was young which both left a very bad taste in my mouth

in the words of my asoiaf-fiend sister as i described the character of fizcko (the wizard) "sometimes i read a fantasy novel and i think to myself this would not pass the basic test of peter dinklage not hating it"

lots of emphasis on people thinking the main character is a witch who consorts with the devil because she has red hair and absolutely no mention of the fact that red hair being viewed negatively in europe was historically tied to antisemitism

tries to explore female agency and sexism but plays the evil stepmother trope very straight, another missed opportunity

elisabeth bathory is also randomly the antagonist??????

i am disappointed!!

[chief-cook-and-librarian]

Finished reading After the Forest by Kell Woods, and I really enjoyed it! I was expecting a lot more emphasis on the Hansel and Gretel part of it, but it quickly turned into Snow White and Rose Red, plus the evil queen and aesthetics of Snow White.

[ilikereadingactually]

After the Forest

After the Forest by Kell Woods

this was a really compelling fairy tale retelling, an exciting read in a very wide and sometimes samey field! it does several things that i really love in this genre: puts the fantastical elements in a real-feeling historical setting (think Naomi Novik's Uprooted and Spinning Silver), and combines a number of distinct fairy tales in interesting ways. we've got Hansel and Gretel here, represented in the traumatic past of protagonist Greta and her brother Hans; we've got some elements of Snow White, and Snow-White & Rose-Red, and maybe Tatterhood, and maybe a bit of The Wolf and the Fox? but they fit together in unexpected and convincing ways, which is fantastic to me. there's a history here, a wider scope than just Greta's post-gingerbread-house life.

and baking! there was baking! and some romance, which is not my thing generally but was charming enough in this case for me to appreciate. overall the story was a little more heteronormative and a little more predictable toward the latter half than i prefer, but i was very charmed by Greta even when she was making bad decisions, and i loved the resolution! also i spent most of the book craving fresh gingerbread more than i have ever craved it in my LIFE.

the deets

how i read it: an e-galley through NetGalley! i am still steadily building up some cred there, which is gratifying.

try this if you: dig underestimated women saving the day, like a villain with a backstory, got way too into the vicious and dangerous versions of fairy tales as a kid, or delight in household witchery, forest witchery, and animal witchery.

a line i really liked: this one's for the furries

Closer and closer it came, until Greta felt its warm breath, and smelled its earthy, animal scent. Her heart crashed against her ribs. Her body screamed at her to run, to get down the mountain and behind the safety of her own door. But she remembered tales from the hunt. Wolves, boars...any predator will attack when its prey flees. It is instinct; a command surging in the blood, nameless and ancient. To run is to die. The bear nosed Greta's sticky-sweet hand, licking the honey away. It was gentle as a lamb. And yet, one strike was all it would take. A single blow with one huge paw to kill her where she stood.

pub date: October 3, 2023!

[between-the-pages657]

I knew it! I knew the ribbon would come back into play.

And I had my suspicions about the whole Mathias and the bear thing. If you know, you know. I feel like the foreshadowing was there.

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 2/5

Book Blurb: After the Forest is a dark and enchanting fantasy debut from Kell Woods that explores the repercussions of a childhood filled with magic and a young woman contending with the truth of “happily ever after.”

Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.

Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.

Greta has a secret, though: the witch's grimoire, hidden away and whispering in Greta's ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you've ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.

But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her mysteriously addictive gingerbread, not to mention the rumors about her childhood misadventures, is a source of gossip and suspicion.

And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta's magic—magic she is still trying to understand—may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn't kill her first.

Review:

A Hansel and Gretel mixed in with other classical fairytales such as Snow White, animal shifters, snow white/rose read, cinderella story about a girl who is thought to be a witch who must deal with a mysterious bear shifter who has come into her life and an evil magic that might be after her. Twenty years after the witch and the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by, Hans constantly just gambling and going into debt and Greta struggling to avoid being accused as a witch and being burned at the stake while trying to make a money by baking magical gingerbread cookies to get her brother out of debt. Greta has kept the witch's grimoire and uses it to bake the best gingerbread anyone has ever tasted, yet when her brother's latest gambling debt grows too large, there is not enough cookies in the world that would be able to save her before the time is out. It doesn't help that dark magic resides in the woods and the towns people suspect Greta of being a witch, and when a new dark magic appears, along with a handsome stranger, Greta will have to figure out a way to save herself and her brother before its too late. This felt like a very young adult novel, and honestly I found myself so irritated by both Hans and Gretal, Han's has no real character except being selfish, a gambler, and really a useless person while Gretal acts naive and doesn't seem to realize there are easy solutions to her problems, like come on now. Honestly the story felt kind of messy and at the same time boring. I never found myself all that invested, it start out rough and does pick up by the end a bit but still, it really was a bit hard to get through. This is a mixture of a bunch of fairytales and yet I just felt like it was so cluttered. I wish I did like it more, I adore fairytale retellings and this being a "what happens after" mixed in with a bit of darker elements and witch trials and such, it had all the makings to be something really unique and fun, but in the end just didn't meet up to the expectations. While this wasn't for me, if you enjoy fairytale retellings/what happens afters, then give this a go!

*Thanks Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group, Tor Books for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[bookishlyvintage]

After the Forest by Kell Woods [x]

[elliepassmore]

After the Forest review

4/5 stars Recommended if you like: fantasy, retellings, magic, fairytale vibes, grown up fairytale characters

TW animal cruelty (ch 25)

I devoured this book fairly quickly and was pretty entertained by it. It's definitely a book you just read for fun, not one where I'd say there's too much of a plot, but if you go into it expecting that then I think it's enjoyable.

I really liked seeing a reimagining of Hansel and Gretel. I think I've only seen that a couple of times and most don't really focus on the aftermath of what happened (I believe one of the stories in the Grim anthology from 2012 does, but that's also modern YA). Both Greta and Hans are deeply impacted by what happened in the woods when they were children. Hans now has a drinking and gambling problem and seems to distrust most everybody, while Greta feels abandoned and faces the mistrust of the rest of the village for killing an 'old woman.'

That being said, something that I don't get is why Greta and Hans never just said the old woman was a witch? Like, Greta gets so much shit for throwing her into the fire and all of it could've easily been avoided by just saying the woman was a witch, which she was, and Greta saved their lives by burning her alive, which is how they kill witches in this world. Seems like Greta's life would've been far easier if they'd gone that route.

Despite their traumatic experience, Greta throws her heart into making the best gingerbread possible...with the help of the witch's magical book of course. Hans won't touch the stuff after their experience, but Greta doesn't seem bothered by it or the magical book. Honestly, she doesn't seem very bothered by magic at all, though she does largely avoid doing magic even when the book tempts her. Greta is pretty mild-mannered and friendly, and while she's taken aback by some of the things that occur over the course of the book, she tends to recover quickly and take it in stride.

Hans, on the other hand, is actually kind of awful. He reacts to perceived slights against him even when he is the one who is causing trouble, and is the kind of desperate that makes a man dangerous for most of the book. He does finally clean up his act in the second half of the book, but the first half makes me really dislike him and wish Greta would turn him out on his ear.

Mathias is a newcomer in the village, so obviously he and Greta hit it off immediately and are the main couple. Like Greta, Mathias takes most things in stride and isn't bothered by things like witches or strange goings-on. He's a fairly mysterious character and is in and out of the village a lot, so it's clear he has secrets. But he's also not the kind of character whose secrets seem particularly dangerous. I figured out his secret as soon as he was introduced, but then the secret when further than I thought it would and it just got....kind of weird.

Rob, Greta and Hans' 'uncle,' was also a major side character in the book. He was friends with their father and helped to take care of them after their father died. He's a protector at heart and definitely feels the need to do the right thing, though at times that is tempered by doing what will keep the most people he cares about safe.

Like a lot of other reviewers, I had a hard time connecting to the characters in the book. Greta just felt kind of distant to me for some reason that I can't put my finger on. I think part of it is because Greta often just watches things happen and doesn't exhibit agency in a lot of the more tense scenes. Even if she isn't someone big on magic or confrontation or anything like that, a deeper sense into her emotional agency I think would've helped make her easier to connect to.

Obviously there had to be some kind of plot in the book since it wasn't set up as a slice-of-life/cozy fantasy thing, but I didn't really like what was going on with the castle at the end. All the stuff with the castle and Fizcko and Liliane just felt very out of place to me and I wasn't a huge fan of the whole thing. I did like the threads of it that had been dropped throughout the book and think there were interesting alternatives that could've been done with them instead.

Overall I found this book to be pretty entertaining. It definitely has its weak spots though and I had a hard time connecting to some of the characters. I did like the various magics we were introduced to though.

[millidew]

his change in career has captivated me

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