10 must-read SFF books to cuddle up with this November

Winterwood – Shea Ernshaw

Author Shea Ernshaw’s first novel, The Wicked Deep, was a lush atmospheric story of witches who were unjustly sentenced to death centuries ago, but who return to haunt the town in which they died. (Sort of. Read it for yourselves.) Ernshaw’s second effort is equally atmospheric, and occasionally creepy.

Winterwood follows the story of Nora Walker, the next in a long line of women (witches, to some) with a near-magical connection to a local patch of woods in the town of Fir Haven. The Wicker Woods, as they’re known, are rather infamous – some say they’re haunted. Some say they’re awake. But as far as Nora’s concerned, she just knows she can find things that go missing there.

But when a local teen who’s gone missing from the nearby Jackjaw Camp for Wayward Boys turns up in the Wicker Woods, Nora must figure out why – and what else might be going on.

The novel’s synopsis has more details.

"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. But 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."

Winterwood is available on November 5. (Here’s our review.)