Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw

4/5 stars

I have to say I loved Wicked Deep so I had high expectations with Winterwood. At first I was sucked in. Shea is amazing at scene setting and atmospheric writing. The book is also like a hybrid magical realism thriller mystery novel. Which is cool. But then with about 120 pages left or so, my reading really stalled. I think it was because, besides Nora and Oliver, I didn't like the other characters (which you're obviously not supposed to). There was also some anxiety about exactly what these mean kids were capable of both in the past and present. So when I picked it up again, I was at about 3.5 stars. I decided to just sit down for a couple hours and finish it. I'm a skim aheader when I'm anxious, so despite kind of knowing what would happen, I still was enchanted when I actually read it. I put the pieces of the puzzle together before Nora, but still enjoyed her revelation of her Nightshade and what actually happened with Oliver. Also, I'm a sucker for love! The pacing could be a little slow at times, and honestly, the setting is very isolated and even with magic there's only so much that can happen. Yet by the end, it's pulled together. If you like dark, atmospheric, witchy, magic mysteries and don't mind a slightly slower pace, then I think you'd enjoy this book.