I complained about this in my recent review of Come Tumbling Down. Many times, I find that novellas feel too short. Let’s talk about why these books worked for me. There are still elements of faerie lore, however. This one felt a little less like a folk tale and more like a pulpy Gothic novel, given that the locations include a shadowy city and an old ruined abbey, and there’s a vampire. The short spoiler-free version is that two years after the events of the first book, Tobias and Henry have had a falling out and must overcome their differences in order to rescue a young woman from a vampire.Īs with Silver in the Wood, there are secrets and surprises. I’m going to avoid talking in too much detail about Drowned Country, as discussing the plot would involve major spoilers for book 1. Book 2: Drowned Countryĭrowned Country took me a little longer to read than Silver in the Wood, partially because it’s a little longer, partially because I found it slightly less engaging, but mostly because I was too tired for an all-night reading binge. Tesh captured the mood of these myths, while still using more modern storytelling techniques so that it reads like a novella, not a folk tale. More than any human character, the Greenhallow itself is full of mysteries strange and wonderful.Īs someone who really enjoys faerie lore and folk tales, I found this book hit the perfect note, combining the ordinary and the sublime, the wonderful and the horrible.
Tobias, Henry, and even Henry’s frequently mentioned nagging mother, all prove to have their secrets and surprises. This is a book where no one is quite what they seem. Tobias lets Silver stay the night after he gets caught in a terrible storm, and Silver soon has the opportunity to return the kindness when Tobias is seriously wounded. We also meet his new landlord, Henry Silver, who has purchased the nearby manor house.
In this book, we meet the woodsman Tobias, who lives in a modest cottage with his cat and protects the woods from monsters. I read it in a single sitting one evening, and had to resist the urge to immediately download book 2 (I had to sleep instead).
Silver in the Wood is the first book in the duology, and it is a quick and compulsive read. I couldn’t tell if they were set in a fantasy version of our world, or a world that just felt very much like a gaslamp era England. The Greenhallow Duology by Emily Tesh is a pair of novellas inspired by mythology and folklore, especially faerie lore.
0 kommentar(er)
