Paperback, 109 pages
Published Sept. 11, 2019 by Tom Doherty Associates.
There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads.
When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.
A lovely novella about The Green Man, who lives with his cat, mends clothes, hangs with dryads, and tends to the forest. Tesh does a lot of worldbuilding in a short number of pages, throwing in twists, a sweet queer romance, and a sense of danger for the characters we love. Part 1 of a duology, looking forward to the next.
I was expecting a human perspective on a relationship with some sort of forest entity. Instead, I got a forest entity's perspective on a human, which was a very pleasant surprise. Tobias' narration is slow, atmospheric, and deeply rooted - the forest is a part of him and he of the forest, and that bleeds out of the prose. Very much my vessel of beverage, despite the romance plot (not bad, just not usually my thing - though as far as that goes, the romance itself is treated with a fairly light touch).
There's a bit of tropeyness in here - though I haven't read much in the way of "there was only one bed" stuff myself, I've read of it often enough to half-wince at the reference when it came up - but some might consider that a selling point, and I'd personally be willing to forgive a lot …
I was expecting a human perspective on a relationship with some sort of forest entity. Instead, I got a forest entity's perspective on a human, which was a very pleasant surprise. Tobias' narration is slow, atmospheric, and deeply rooted - the forest is a part of him and he of the forest, and that bleeds out of the prose. Very much my vessel of beverage, despite the romance plot (not bad, just not usually my thing - though as far as that goes, the romance itself is treated with a fairly light touch).
There's a bit of tropeyness in here - though I haven't read much in the way of "there was only one bed" stuff myself, I've read of it often enough to half-wince at the reference when it came up - but some might consider that a selling point, and I'd personally be willing to forgive a lot more in the way of tropey rough edges given the fact that it also gave me a paragraph on the clean smell of rot and the healing power of decay. Hands-down the best book I've ever read in terms of foresty atmospheric prose alone.
Selling points: gay romance, cute cat (nothing bad happens to her!), folklore, foresty narration.
Warnings: generally slow pacing, and the romance is light enough that if that's your reason for reading this it may come up wanting. The slow atmospheric foresty-ness of this whole book is enough of its substance that whether you like or dislike that sort of thing should be the biggest factor in deciding whether to read it.
The writing style was very good. The story idea was also good. But there's a BUT. There was nothing that pulled me forward in the story. I could have dropped out at any point without feeling a need to go back for the conclusion.
A small tale, this one, but a good one. It's a story about an old wood, its guardian and the newcomer who stumbles into it, but like an old tree there are layers and layers under that surface, knotted together to be revealed throughout. Well worth reading, and I hope yo see more from Emily Tesh in the future. (Oh, and the acknowledgements mention an early version on AO3, so I'm curious about where this story grew from)
Found this as I was looking for cozy mlm books to read, and then absolutely fits the bill. Short and sweet.
Sometimes the headspace that you're in when you read a book matters, and I think this is one of those times. All throughout October I'd been binging horror and some generally violent books (it was spooky season after all), and I chose this one as a sort of a relaxing, cozy wind-down. Which is exactly what it was. Which is probably why I'm walking away from it wishing it were... well, more spooky and violent.
The potential was certainly there. This worldbuilding gave me the impression that the reader wasn't being shown everything that could and had happened in this setting. All kinds of things go bump in the night out in the woods, and the older the woods, the bigger the bumps. And this was an old wood where all sorts of characters had their histories passed down and bastardized until they were just local folk tales. When you …
Sometimes the headspace that you're in when you read a book matters, and I think this is one of those times. All throughout October I'd been binging horror and some generally violent books (it was spooky season after all), and I chose this one as a sort of a relaxing, cozy wind-down. Which is exactly what it was. Which is probably why I'm walking away from it wishing it were... well, more spooky and violent.
The potential was certainly there. This worldbuilding gave me the impression that the reader wasn't being shown everything that could and had happened in this setting. All kinds of things go bump in the night out in the woods, and the older the woods, the bigger the bumps. And this was an old wood where all sorts of characters had their histories passed down and bastardized until they were just local folk tales. When you get to meet these characters there is a vague sense of threatening power, but I got the impression they were pulling their punches.
In my opinion the climax happened a tad too early with the following exposition running on longer than I wished, which is saying something for a hundred-and-change page novella. The romance subplot left me feeling ambivalent and I feel like the overall story would've worked just as well had that relationship been more platonic. And I wish the loose depictions of fey magic (never use your real name with a well-dressed stranger who just walked out of the woods) and the ~true~ stories behind ancient local stories was leaned into harder.
I'd probably recommend this to whoever's looking for a quick, low-stakes fantasy romp that isn't set in a completely unrecognizable world.
SILVER IN THE WOOD is a fae-adjacent romance where a Wild Man finds himself falling in love with a curious newcomer to the wood, digging up secrets long buried.
The characters are nuanced and deep, impressively so for such a short book. I liked everything: the world building; the romance; the characters; the plot. The slow-burn pace makes it feel like it builds forever, while the low page count makes it take no time at all. I'll definitely read the sequel.
A lovely little novella
Silver in the Wood, first in The Greenhollow Duology, is a lovely quick read that I blazed through in an evening. A Greene Man spies a young gentleman, the new landlord, and rescues him from the rain. From these green shoots a friendship grows. And then is interrupted. But all will be… well enough.
Silver in the Wood is a delightful tale of two men and a wood. And a dryad. And a mother. And what happens at the solstice.
The sequel [b:Drowned Country|49928905|Drowned Country (The Greenhollow Duology, #2)|Emily Tesh|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578456994l/49928905.SY75.jpg|73552629] is also delightful.
CN: stalking, murder, kidnapping, disappearance of a loved one.
Evocative, haunting, woods alive with spirits, wonderfully paced twists in a novella.
I enjoyed it, but I admit to having a somewhat mixed ambivalent emotional reaction to the ending, mainly because I'm so used to those fake out deaths in culture by now.
3.5 stars
I loved this! The language, the plot, the characters. I found it utterly enchanting.
