February Book Reviews: A Forest, Darkly by AG Slatter
From the library's new release purchases. In A Forest, Darkly, Mehrab is content with her life on the edges of a village surreptitiously using magic to heal. When an old friend brings a young witch girl on the run to shelter with her, Mehrab must simultaneously deal with a dark force stalking the village and the complications brought by her young ward.
This book is a slow and meditative fairy tale that gently meanders through Mehrab reconsidering what she wants from life. Also, the child murders in the village, but at a leisurely pace. I appreciated that Mehrab is older, in her late forties or early fifties, and the narration reflects her experience. Mehrab spent decades living grandly but evilly, threw that life over for a quiet home in the forest, found a mentor, fell in love and lost him, fostered several children. And now she feels too old and grouchy to deal with a difficult seventeen year old and the usual village squabbles, let alone a mysterious eldritch horror that stalks her cottage and steals the village children, but she'll have to deal with it regardless. The bones of the story are soothingly reminiscent of the familiar old fairy tales, but given enough of a twist to feel fresh.
A solidly written book with a narrow but intense focus on Mehrab's life. The basic storyline might not be especially original, but making Mehrab older and bitterer and more experienced gave it a much more piquant flavor than casting the same old twenty-something ingenue and her tiresome baby romances.
