sophia_sol: photo of a 19th century ivory carving of a fat bird (Default)
soph ([personal profile] sophia_sol) wrote2019-07-10 08:54 pm

Silver in the Wood, by Emily Tesh

An absolutely lovely novella. An earlier version was at one point posted on AO3 and I read and loved it then, and was delighted to hear that a publisher liked it enough for it to be released in print.

Let me start by quoting what I said in my bookmark of the online version when I first read it: "oh my gosh this is so gooooooooood, a story about a folklorist and a wild man of the woods, and I love how beautifully balanced it is between the main romance and everything else that's important to the pov character."

This is still true and wonderful! It's a story about trees, about queer people, about making connections, and about the truth of folk stories. Which, yep, MY JAM.

I appreciated that Henry's mom is great and capable and Tobias likes her a lot, despite Henry having a difficult relationship with her. And I appreciated that although Tobias' relationship with Henry is very important to the story, it's by no means the only important relationship in Tobias' life.

And I loved just the overall, like, mood and tone of the piece. Very effective at being the kind of thing it is.

(Sidenote: I am a little disconcerted by the use of the word "creepy" to describe this book that I find when I google for other people's opinions. It wasn't creepy at all to me!)
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)

[personal profile] aurumcalendula 2019-07-11 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
It's so lovely!

I mean I found a particular character (and some scenes they feature in) creepy, but I don't think I'd describe the story as creepy?