In the small town of Winston, Pennsylvania, they fear the Lord of the Wood almost as much as they fear God. According to legend, ghosts of the nearby forest steal unattended babies, leaving enigmatic tokens of wood and bone in their place. Leah Jones didn't believe the legend, thinking it just a way to scare the local kids―until her baby brother disappears.
Filled with shame and the weight of the town's judgment, Leah crosses the river into the Lord of the Wood's domain to bring her brother back. But the devilish figure who has haunted Winston for generations isn't what she expects. He tells her she can have her brother back... for a price.
It's a bargain that will uncover secrets her hometown has tried to keep buried for decades. And what she unearths will have her questioning everything she's been taught to fear.
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When I think of purity, I don't think of the water that runs in the river past our backyard, or the water in the baptism font at the front of the church, where my mother and father and their mothers and fathers were baptised all the way back; where I was baptised too.
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(@TitanBooks, 20 February 2024, e-galley, 224 pages, copy from the publisher via @NetGalley_UK)
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I've enjoyed other books by the author and My Throat An Open Grave sounded like something I'd really enjoy. I thought this was a gripping read, part horror, part fantasy. I loved this book. I enjoyed the world building. Winston is a strange town. It reminds me of the movie The Village where the villagers live like it's another era and the modern world ticks by not far away. I also loved the world of the Lord of the Wood that Leah ends up in, nothing like she's been raised to believe. What she learns makes her question everything and reveals some shocking truths about Winston and the people who live in it. I'd recommend this.
