Review – Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Length: 333 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Release Date: November 5, 2019
ASIN: B07P6DFZGD
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed eBook from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Be careful of the dark, dark wood…

Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even.

Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it’s this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman—the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago—and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no memory of the time he’d been missing.

Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver’s presence. And it’s not too long after that Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind how the boy she has come to care so deeply about survived his time in the forest, and what led him there in the first place. What Nora doesn’t know, though, is that Oliver has secrets of his own—secrets he’ll do anything to keep buried, because as it turns out, he wasn’t the only one to have gone missing on that fateful night all those weeks ago.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on ebook from the library.

Thoughts: This was a quick read that I enjoyed. It has dark winter cozy vibes combined with mystery and romance. This is definitely a YA magical realism/paranormal read. There are two main aspects that drive the story: the first is the mystery behind what happened the night Oliver went missing, and the second is the budding romance between the two main characters.

Nora Walker is one of the few people who live in the woods throughout the winter. The Walker family is rumored to be witches and Nora’s mom tries to avoid the witchiness just as much as Nora embraces it. When a severe storm comes through the mountain pass, Nora is trapped without a way to get to town. Across the lake from Nora is the Camp for Wayward Boys and they are also trapped in the pass. When Nora ventures into the Wicker Wood on a full moon night, she stumbles upon a boy, Oliver, laying in the trees, freezing. She brings him back to her house only to find that a boy was killed and a boy went missing during the night of the snowstorm that closed the pass. Nora tries to unravel the mystery of how the boy was killed while hiding Oliver’s whereabouts. If Oliver remembers what happened that night, he isn’t telling.

The prose here is beautiful, if a bit over the top at points. It really makes the dark isolated winter setting come alive, and I enjoyed it. While the story is told mostly from Nora’s POV, we do get some of the story from Oliver’s POV as well.

I enjoyed Nora as a character; she is well thought out and unique. The rest of the characters felt a bit thin, though. Oliver had barely any personality at all. Then you have your typical YA stereotypes…some mean boys, a mean girl that tries to be sympathetic, an absent parent, etc. The romance between Nora and Oliver felt completely flat to me. It seemed like Nora liked Oliver because he was the only boy there.

The story has an ominous and secluded feel to it, and you are constantly propelled forward by the question of what happened the fateful night of the winter storm. As things played out I was a disappointed that I guessed the big twist very early on in the story, I was hoping I was wrong and there was something else at play.

The writing was easy to read and the story was engaging. I read this very quickly and enjoyed most of it.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I liked this. The writing is lush and descriptive, and really makes the dark, secluded, winter vibes of the mountain pass that Nora lives in come alive. This is a wonderful mysterious winter read with some magical realism and paranormal elements. Aside from Nora (who I really enjoyed as a character) the other characters feel very typical YA. Oliver was a bit disappointing because I felt like he didn’t have much personality at all. If you are looking for a decent creepy winter read with strangely dark and cozy vibes, I would recommend this to you as long as you don’t mind a lot of typical YA characters sprinkled throughout the story.