Zusatztext "A dynamic thriller for fans of paranormal fiction." -- SLJ Informationen zum Autor Shea Ernshaw Klappentext "Rumored to be a witch, Nora Walker attempts to uncover the truth about a boy she discovers in the woods who went missing weeks ago during a brutal winter storm, only to learn that he wasn't the only one to go missing all those weeks ago"-- Leseprobe Chapter 1: Nora NORA N ever waste a full moon, Nora, even in winter , my grandmother used to say. We'd wander up the Black River under a midnight sky, following the constellations above us like a map I could trace with my fingertipsimprints of stardust on my skin. She would hum a melody from deep within her belly, gliding sure-footed across the frozen river to the other side. Can you hear it? she'd ask. The moon is whispering your secrets. It knows your darkest thoughts. My grandmother was like thatstrange and beautiful, with stories resting just behind her eyelids. Stories about moonlight and riddles and catastrophes. Dreadful tales. But bright, cheery ones too. Walking beside her, I mirrored each step she took into the wilderness, in awe of how swiftly she avoided stinging nettles and poison buckthorns. How her hands traced the bark of every tree we passed, knowing its age just by touch. She was a wonderher chin always tilted to the sky, craving the anemic glow of moonlight against her olive skin, a storm always brewing along her edges. But tonight, I walk without her, chasing that same moon up the same dark, frozen riverhunting for lost things inside the cold, mournful forest. Tree limbs sag and drip overhead. An owl hoots from a nearby spruce. And Fin and I slog deeper into the mountains, his wolf tail slashing above him, nose to the air, tracking some unknown scent to the far side of the riverbank. Two weeks have passed since the storm blew over Jackjaw Lake. Two weeks since the snow fell and blocked the only road out of the mountains. Two weeks since the electricity popped and died. And two weeks since a boy from the camp across the lake went missing. A boy whose name I don't even know. A boy who ran away or got lost or simply vanished like the low morning fog that rises up from the lake during autumn rainstorms. Who crept from his bunk inside one of the camp cabins and never returned. A victim of the winter cold. Of madness or desperation. Of these mountains that have a way of getting inside your headplaying tricks on those who dare to walk among the pines long after the sun has set. These woods are wild and rugged and unkind. They cannot be trusted. Yet, this is where I walk: deep into the mountains. Where no others dare to go. Because I am more darkness than girl. More winter shadows than August sunlight. We are the daughters of the wood , my grandmother would whisper. So I push farther up the shore of the Black River, following the map made by the stars, just like she taught me. Just like all Walkers before me. Until I reach the place . The place where the line of trees breaks open to my right, where two steep ridges come together to form a narrow passage into a strange, dark forest to the easta forest that is much older than the pines along the Black River. Trees that are bound in and closed off and separate from the rest. The Wicker Woods. A mound of rocks stands guard ahead of me: flat stones pulled up from the riverbed and stacked four feet high beside the entrance to the wood. It's a warning. A sign to turn back. Only the foolish enter here. Miners...

"A dynamic thriller for fans of paranormal fiction." -- SLJ

Autorentext

Shea Ernshaw

Klappentext

"Rumored to be a witch, Nora Walker attempts to uncover the truth about a boy she discovers in the woods who went missing weeks ago during a brutal winter storm, only to learn that he wasn't the only one to go missing all those weeks ago"--

Zusammenfassung
From New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep comes a haunting romance perfect for fans of Practical Magic, where dark fairy tales and enchanted folklore collide after a boy, believed to be missing, emerges from the magical woods—and falls in love with the witch determined to unravel his secrets.**

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.

For as long as there have been fairy tales, we have been warned to fear what lies within the dark, dark woods and in Winterwood, New York Times bestselling author Shea Ernshaw, shows us why.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1: Nora NORA

Never waste a full moon, Nora, even in winter, my grandmother used to say.

We’d wander up the Black River under a midnight sky, following the constellations above us like a map I could trace with my fingertips—imprints of stardust on my skin. She would hum a melody from deep within her belly, gliding sure-footed across the frozen river to the other side.

Can you hear it? she’d ask. The moon is whispering your secrets. It knows your darkest thoughts. My grandmother was like that—strange and beautiful, with stories resting just behind her eyelids. Stories about moonlight and riddles and catastrophes. Dreadful tales. But bright, cheery ones too. Walking beside her, I mirrored each step she took into the wilderness, in awe of how swiftly she avoided stinging nettles and poison buckthorns. How her hands traced the bark of every tree we passed, knowing its age just by touch. She was a wonder—her chin always tilted to the sky, craving the anemic glow of moonlight against her olive skin, a storm always brewing along her edges.

But tonight, I walk without her, chasing that same moon up the same dark, frozen river—hunting for lost things inside the cold, mournful forest.

Tree limbs sag and drip overhead. An owl hoots from a nearby spruce. And Fin and I slog deeper into the mountains, his wolf tail slashing above him, nose to the air, tracking some unknown scent to the far side of the riverbank.

Two weeks have passed since the storm blew over Jackjaw Lake. Two weeks since the snow fell and blocked the only road out of the mountains. Two weeks since the electricity popped and died.

And two weeks since a boy from the camp across the lake went missing.

A boy whose name I don’t even know.

A boy who ran away or got lost or simply vanished like the low morning fog that rises up from the lake during autumn rainstorms. Who crept from his bunk inside one of the camp cabins and never returned. A victim of the winter cold. Of madness or desperation. Of these mountains that have a way of getting inside your head—playing tricks on those who dare to walk among the pines long after the sun has set.

These woods are wild and rugged and unkind.

They cannot be trusted.

Yet…