A Sunday Times bestselling lush fantasy retelling of Hansel and Gretel set in seventeenth-century Germany, perfect for fans of Brigid Kemmerer, Naomi Novik and Marissa Meyer.
Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.
Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.
Greta has a secret, though: the witch’s grimoire, secreted away and whispering in Greta’s ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you’ve ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.
But in a village full of superstition, Greta with her mysteriously addictive gingerbread, not to mention the rumours about her childhood misadventures, is a source of gossip and suspicion.
And now, dark magic is returning to the woods, and Greta’s magic – magic she is still trying to understand – may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn’t kill her first.
After the Forest by Kell Woods
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781803366074
Imprint: Titan Books
This wonderful, well-woven story is so rich and affecting you can't help but savour every single sentence. With characters that leap off the page, worldbuilding that immerses you completely, and a perfectly paced plot, Woods's clever retelling of the popular Hansel and Gretel fairy tale succeeds in giving us something novel and authentic.
- T.L. Huchu, bestselling author of The Library of the DeadKell Woods' debut takes familiar stories and tropes from the vast corpus of the Brothers Grimm and smartly weaves them into an excellent historical fantasy novel. After the Forest is poetic, evocative, and most of all, addictive. . . . After the Forest is high up on my list of best books of 2023. An author to watch and a powerhouse debut.
- Grimdark MagazineA dark and wondrous tale. Utterly enchanting.
- Kate Forsyth, bestselling author of The Crimson Thread
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