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The forest is dangerous and consuming. For centuries, tree sirens have lurked in the shaded depths, luring helpless men and women to their deaths with their songs. Meanwhile, their mother, the witch, harvests the souls to feed to the heartless tree and uses its power to grow her domain.
Everyone knows the stories. Living in a cottage at the edge of the woods, Owen Merrick knows them better than anyone. One day, his own mother disappeared into the woods. She never came back.
No one ever comes back.
No one, that is … until Owen. Once, he was trapped by the song of the forest. Once, he met one of the witch’s tree-siren daughters, Seren, but instead of ending his life, Seren saved him.
Whether it is the lure of the witch’s wood or his curiosity, Owen soon finds himself climbing over the garden wall to see Seren every night. And every night Seren’s longing to become human — to become something other than a monster — deepens.
But the stars are shifting and foretell of a dangerous curse. Seren’s quest to become human will lead her and Owen into an ancient war, trapped between the witch and the king who is desperate to stop her and her forest.
Into the Heartless Wood unravels like an original fairy tale with rich, bewitching writing and a slowly unfolding romance that is both violent and gentle, tentative and lovely.
It took me by surprise how quickly I was transported to the little rundown cottage at the edge of a dangerous wood. I could have stayed forever in that setting, and I was sad when the characters ultimately left home in the second half of the book.
The time period of the story left me feeling a little confused. Is it a fantasy with influences of the times of the industrial revolution? Is it part steampunk? I’m still unsure.
The story quickly made up for my confusion, however, with rich, complex characters. Not only did I fall in love with Owen and the softness he showed for his father and sister, but I also felt keenly for Seren, who held deep, emotional struggles for a character who was said to not possess a soul. Even the villains of this tale were complex, exploring the lines between hero, villain, and victim.
Overall, this is a spellbinding, whimsical, and brutal tale with a fair share of heartache, violence, and bloodshed, but also of love, sacrifice, and hope.
Rated: Moderate. Violence borders on gory for the sheer amount of it. Characters endure magical torture. A character rips out her own heart. People die bloody and brutal deaths at the hands of the tree sirens. Soldiers joke about bedding with a tree siren. There are around seven uses of mild language.
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