After the Forest

April 1, 2023

Two decades After the Forest and their encounter with a sweets-obsessed witch, Hans is in debt and Gretel helps her family survive despite imminent famine by baking magical gingerbread with a recipe from the witch's grimoire; from Australian historical fantasy author Woods, who works as a librarian (100,000-copy first printing). Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 21, 2023
Woods builds her bewitching historical fantasy debut out of folklore and fairy tale but grounds it in childhood trauma and awakening love. Twenty years after Greta and her no-goodnik brother, Hans, first became lost in the Black Forest, stumbled on a witch’s house, and played out the familiar tale, they now live in the cottage themselves, eking out a living in the harrowing aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War. Greta supports them both by baking and selling irresistible gingerbread from a recipe she found in an old grimoire, a witch’s handbook. In part because of the deliciousness of this treat, rumors grow around town that Greta herself is a witch. If these suspicious whispers get too loud, she’ll face a fiery death. Each chapter opens with a clever retelling of part of “Snow-White and Rose-Red,” eventually linking that fairy tale with Greta’s own neo-Grimm journey toward both emotional and magical maturity as, despite her initial distaste for witchcraft, she comes into her own and learns to wield her nascent powers to help the people she loves. The romantic subplot is similarly well-wrought and fantastical: Greta’s lover Matthias, a stranger from the Tyrol, is a prince-charming-in-disguise. All of Woods’s characters are drawn with exceptional sensitivity, and Greta’s well-crafted struggle to thrive despite early suffering and ongoing societal prejudice resonates. Woods is a powerful new voice in speculative fiction.

Starred review from August 1, 2023
Woods sets her elegant debut, a reimagining of ""Hansel and Gretel,"" in a small German village just recovering from the devastation of the Thirty Years War. It is a time of prejudice, superstition, and witch trials. Setting the story in this historical time period gives her dark fantasy a realistic feel, which she offsets with connected fairy-tale epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter. These aspects meld together into a fable that begins 20 years after the happily ever after of Greta and her brother, Hans. Greta Rosenthal bakes the most enticing gingerbread, selling it to support herself, cover Hans' debts, and pay the taxes on the family homestead. But the townspeople have never forgotten that as a child, Greta killed an old woman to save herself and her brother. The crone was a cannibalistic witch intent on eating Hans, but no one seems to recall that detail. But if the villagers knew she had the old hag's magical cookbook, they would accuse Greta of witchcraft and burn her at the stake. Offer this lyrical, character-rich fantasy to fans of Mary McMyne's The Book of Gothel (2022) and Genevieve Gornichec's The Weaver and the Witch Queen (2023).

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September 1, 2023

DEBUT Once upon a time, in the German village of Lindenfeld, deep in the Black Forest, lived a pair of notorious, debt-ridden siblings, Greta and Hans Rosenthal. As children, Hans and Greta were abandoned in the forest and found a gingerbread house and a witch--a familiar tale. But what happens after the witch? This is where debut Australian author Woods picks up the tale, adding layers and feminist messages throughout. As Greta comes into her own as a witch and a woman, she must work together with new allies to save herself and her home, finding romance and secrets and battling her own nature along the way. While at times the novel's many characters and multiple fairy tales can make the narrative challenging to follow, this is a triumphant look at a woman in the 1650s taking charge of her own story, with magic woven throughout. Elements of "Hansel and Gretel," "Snow-White and Rose-Red," real historical German witch trials, and wolf-based fairy tales combine to form Greta's story. VERDICT Recommended for fans of fantasy romance or fairy tale retellings with historical fiction woven in.--Katie Lawrence

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.