Review: The Lord of the Wood by E.M. Anderson

 

The Lord of the Wood by E.M. Anderson
Hanover Square Press
Publication Date: July 21st, 2026
Paperback. 448 pages.

About The Lord of the Wood:

"The cozy fantasy of TJ Klune meets the creeping horror of T. Kingfisher in this magical novel about a man who enters a deadly enchanted forest expecting it to endanger his life, but not his heart…

Clockmaker Arthur Throckmorton lives a quiet life with his sister and her children, only dreaming of adventure. So when a wealthy client offers him a job that involves traversing Shiftleaf—an enchanted forest that claimed his father decades ago—he reluctantly accepts. The forest is treacherous, but the money will change his family’s lives. The journey quickly turns perilous. Fleeing from monstrous birds, Arthur stumbles upon a hidden vale where he meets the Lord of the Wood—a figure from his father’s many stories. Instead of the fairy prince Arthur always imagined, Ira is a morose man, slowly transforming into a beast, his power over a dying forest waning.

Arthur enjoys the safety of the vale, and Ira’s company. But he yearns for his family. To safely return home and rescue Ira from a cursed and lonely existence, Arthur and Ira must reach the heart of the wood to heal the forest. Except the further they venture from the vale, the more beastly Ira becomes. If they can’t complete their mission before he turns completely, Arthur could lose the man he’s falling for—and never see his family again."

The Lord of the Wood first caught my attention with its absolutely gorgeous cover, but once I learned it centered around a strange and magical forest, I immediately knew I had to check it out. The Lord of the Wood is pitched as a "cozy horror" of sorts, and that's exactly what I'd say, though I'd note that those looking for true horror will not necessarily find that here. What you will find, however, is a magical forest that is shrouded in mystery and a dark atmosphere, some lingering melancholy throughout the pages, delightful characters, a bit of romance, and much more inside. 

We follow Arthur, a clockmaker, who lives with his sister, Charlotte, who is widowed with two children. One day, he is offered a job to traverse through Shiftleaf, the notorious and mysterious forest that surrounds their village. This forest is dangerous enough on its own, but it's also quite personal to Arthur and his sister. Their father, who regularly traversed through the forest when he was alive, claimed to have met the infamous Lord of the Wood on his journeys, but unfortunately one day went into the forest and never returned. Arthur, with mixed feelings, accepts the job and sets off into the forest--which pretty much immediately turns into a bit of a disaster. However, he soon runs into the Lord of the Wood himself,  and so the rest of the our story begins. 

Arthur is an incredibly easy protagonist to root for. He’s struggling to figure out where he belongs in life, and I thought Anderson captures those feelings of loneliness, uncertainty, and a lacking companionship really well. I also appreciated the insightful exploration of what it means to be queer in a world that doesn’t accept you, and I found that Anderson tackled that topic in a couple different ways that was very thoughtful. While my own experiences don't entirely overlap with Arthur's, the emotions behind Arthur’s search for belonging felt genuine and very deftly and thoughtfully handled. 

As a fan of magical and mysterious forests, I was of course very excited to explore Shiftleaf. It’s somewhat eerie without being overly oppressive in its intensity, and it feels like it’s brimming with magic without feeling too whimsical. And, most importantly, it’s very much unpredictable in what to expect most of the time (except a few things that seem to be staples). I really enjoyed exploring the forest alongside Arthur, although perhaps “enjoyed” is not the right word since many of Arthur’s experiences in the forest are downright negative and often quite terrifying. Still, I liked not knowing what creature or phenomenon might be waiting around the corner. The sickness that has been spreading through the forest also added another layer of unease that made the setting feel even more tragic and haunting. 

Readers looking for true horror may not find this to be quite up to their expectations, but that doesn’t mean there was nothing unsettling in this one. There's not too much that will haunt anybody's dreams, but there may be a few elements from the forest that could provide some disturbing visuals. I think there is a part of me that wishes a few ideas from this story had been expanded upon just a bit to flesh things out even more (and I also would've loved a bit more clockmaking than there actually was--which wasn't enough!), but I also understand what this book was trying to set out to do and the story it was trying to tell, and it did exactly that, so I really can't fault it for that. 

Lastly, I'll note that I was a little uncertain about one of the romances. I understood what it was trying to accomplish and overall it was perfectly lovely and sweet, but there was a bit of weird dynamic to it that felt decidedly odd to me. I can't really get into too many details so as to keep things spoiler-free, but I am definitely curious to hear others' thoughts on this and whether it's just me or not that felt this way. That being said, I really loved that we had two beautiful queer relationships featured in this story in a way that felt natural and meaningful to the story.

Overall, I think many readers will really love The Lord of the Wood. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Shiftleaf with Arthur, and I found myself invested in both his journey and the fate of the forest. If you enjoy magical forests with a dark edge and stories that balance an eerie atmosphere with some heartfelt and well-developed characters, then The Lord of the Wood is probably the next book you should pick up!

*I received a copy of The Lord of the Wood courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This has no effect on my rating or enjoyment.*

Buy the book: Amazon | Bookshop.org

Can't-Wait Wednesday: The Lord of the Wood by E.M. Anderson, Seven by Joanna Kavenna, & Band on the Run by Robert O'Connell

 

Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights exciting upcoming releases that we can't wait to be released!

The Lord of the Wood by E.M. Anderson

Publication: July 21st, 2026

Hanover Square Press

Hardcover. 448 pages.

Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon

From Goodreads:

"The cozy fantasy of TJ Klune meets the creeping horror of T. Kingfisher in this magical novel about a man who enters a deadly enchanted forest expecting it to endanger his life, but not his heart...

Clockmaker Arthur Throckmorton lives a quiet life with his sister and her children, only dreaming of adventure. So when a wealthy client offers him a job that involves traversing Shiftleaf—an enchanted forest that claimed his father decades ago—he reluctantly accepts. The forest is treacherous, but the money will change his family’s lives.

The journey quickly turns perilous. Fleeing monstrous birds, Arthur stumbles upon a hidden vale where he meets the Lord of the Wood—a figure from his father’s many stories. Instead of the fairy prince Arthur always imagined, Ira is a morose man, slowly transforming into a beast, his power over a dying forest waning.

Arthur enjoys the safety of the vale, and Ira’s company. But he yearns for his family. To safely return home and rescue Ira from a cursed and lonely existence, Arthur and Ira must reach the heart of the wood to heal the forest. Except the farther they venture from the vale, the more beastly Ira becomes. If they can’t complete their mission before he turns completely, Arthur could lose the man he’s falling for—and never see his family again."

I recently got an ARC on NetGalley of this one and I'm so curious about it, it sounds like it'll be right up my alley.

Seven by Joanna Kavenna

Publication: July 14th, 2026

Faber & Faber

Hardcover. 320 pages.

Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon

From Goodreads:

"Timely and timeless, a literary quest novel about trying to stay hopeful in hopeless times.

"To surrender yourself to the revelations of life and then to come back with the assertions of prose: that is the new heroism of the woman writer, and Kavenna is in the vanguard of it."—Rachel Cusk

Who decides the rules of the games we play?

In August 2007, or thereabouts, a young philosopher leaves Oslo, heading for Greece, on a mission to find the head of the Society of Lost Things, Theodoros Apostolakis. Fortunately Apostolakis isn’t lost but everything else is: ancient libraries, entire civilisations, priceless books and a beautiful ancient box, once used to play the world-famous game of Seven. The hunt for this small thing, among the countless lost things, becomes an absurdist quest through time and space: from the earliest human societies to the advent of AI.

Told, shared and mythologised by our narrator, along with a wild cast of dreamers, philosophers, poets, rebels and optimists, Seven is an extraordinary, uplifting journey through an ever darkening world."

I have no idea what to expect from this, but it sounds really interesting and I'm so curious!

Band on the Run: Xenophon and the First Great Mercenary Army's Epic Escape from Persia by Robert O'Connell

Publication: July 28th, 2026

Simon & Schuster

Hardcover. 256 pages.

Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon

From Goodreads:

"A riveting retelling of one of the great adventure stories of antiquity—when Greek philosopher-warrior Xenophon led a stranded band of the “Ten Thousand” mercenary soldiers on a treacherous escape from the Persians.

400 BC. The Persian prince Cyrus the Younger hires an army of Greek soldiers to oust his brother from the Persian throne. But when Cyrus dies in battle during the army’s trek through the middle east, the army is stranded deep in enemy territory.

Led by Xenophon, a young Athenian philosopher turned solider, the Ten Thousand fought their way home through deserts and mountains, snowstorms, starvation, and relentless attacks, evolving into one of the most fearsome forces of the ancient world. Their journey, chronicled in Xenophon’s Anabasis, is one of history’s greatest military stories.

In Band on the Run, Robert O’Connell not only gives us an exciting and witty retelling of this story, but he has done so with a wise contemporary spin. For in his estimation, this was the battle that established the use of powerful mercenary forces. The attempted conquest of the Ten Thousand begins a historical line through Western history of the use of mercenary armies that has lasted up to our present day. And, as O’Connell shows, much misery and tragedy in human history has been due to this trajectory. This is a brilliant revisionist history with important lessons for our time."

The Classicist in me is so excited about this one!

Blog Tour + Excerpt: The Keeper of Lonely Spirits by E.M Anderson

 

Welcome to the first of several blog tours stops that I'll be sharing on the blog over the next couple weeks! Today I'm sharing The Keeper of Lonely Spirits by E.M. Anderson, a new cozy fantasy about story centered around a lonely immortal ghost hunter who spends his days helping ghosts cross over. Things change, however, when he discovers that there are people who could actually care about him in this world, and he must grapple with everything that comes with these new circumstances. You can find some more information about the book and author below, as well as an excerpt!
Happy reading!

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Title: THE KEEPER OF LONELY SPIRITS
Author:  E.M. Anderson
Pub. Date: March 25th, 2025
Publisher: MIRA
Pages: 400
Find it: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

SYNOPSIS:

"For fans of UNDER THE WHISPERING DOOR by T.J. Klune, the sweet comfort of THE VERY SECRET SOCIETY OF IRREGULAR WITCHES is combined with the endearing grump of A MAN CALLED OVE, in this cozy fantasy about an immortal ghost hunter who must forgive himself for his tragic past in order to embrace his found family.

In this mesmerizing, wonderfully moving queer cozy fantasy, an immortal ghost hunter must confront his tragic past in order to embrace his found family.

Find an angry spirit. Send it on its way before it causes trouble. Leave before anyone learns his name.

After over two hundred years, Peter Shaughnessy is ready to die and end this cycle. But thanks to a youthful encounter with one o’ them folk in his native Ireland, he can’t. Instead, he’s cursed to wander eternally far from home, with the ability to see ghosts and talk to plants.

Immortality means Peter has lost everyone he’s ever loved. And so he centers his life on the dead—until his wandering brings him to Harrington, Ohio. As he searches for a vengeful spirit, Peter’s drawn into the townsfolk’s lives, homes and troubles. For the first time in over a century, he wants something other than death.

But the people of Harrington will die someday. And he won’t.

As Harrington buckles under the weight of the supernatural, the ghost hunt pits Peter’s well-being against that of his new friends and the man he’s falling for. If he stays, he risks heartbreak. If he leaves, he risks their lives."

Excerpt:

A spirit was lurking in the stairwell of the historic steps on Savannah’s waterfront.

    For months, the steps had been even more treacherous than usual. Not only tourists but folks who had lived in Savannah all their lives had slipped going up or down—skinned knees, scraped hands, laughed nervously and said they must have missed a stair or misjudged the height. A few accused friends of pushing them, but said friends vehemently denied it, accusing the accusers of clumsiness in turn.
    At last, a tourist had broken a leg and threatened to sue the city. Never mind the signs at either end, warning users the steps were historical and therefore not up to code. The signs probably would have prevented the success of such a lawsuit, but the city, tired of complaints, hung caution tape across the stairwell, and closure signs for good measure, and turned their attention to other things.
    Unbeknownst to them, the unassuming old white man standing before the steps in the wee hours of a mild April morning hoped to solve their problem before the sun rose.
    He didn’t look like a ghost-hunter. He was tall and thin, with blue eyes, a hawkish nose, and thin lips that rarely smiled. Just now, a messenger bag was slung over his shoulder. Dressed in flannel, jeans, and work boots, he looked like a farmer—which he wasn’t but had been in his boyhood some two centuries ago.
    Now he was a groundskeeper. At Colonial Park Cemetery for the present, but not for much longer if all went well this morning.
    He thumbed up the brim of his flat cap, contemplating the stairwell and the spirit therein. No corporeal form, but a haze of color and smell and emotion, a rotted greenish brown that smelled like Georgia’s coastal salt marshes but more. The whole stairwell was mucky with fear. Windows rattled in the buildings on either side.
    The groundskeeper glanced down the street, saw no one, lifted the caution tape and stepped under it.
    A cloud of fear enveloped him. Rot oozed on his tongue, a phantom feeling of sludge. When he’d been young and freshly cursed, the spirits’ swell of emotion had overwhelmed him. He’d drowned in it, unable to separate the feelings of the dead from his own. They’d scared him, the feelings. The voices, not that they were precisely voices. For decades, he’d avoided them when he could, ignored them when he couldn’t. Even Jack had never known about them.
    These days, the dead comforted him: company he didn’t fear losing and never got to know too well. The closest to death he ever came. A reason for him to live, if there were a reason when life had been too long already.
    Of course, there was the curse. But the curse wasn’t a reason to live so much as the thing keeping him alive.
    The windows rattled harder. The rusting metal handrail in the center of the steps groaned.
    The groundskeeper sucked in his cheeks, hoping he at last had good information. He’d spotted the spirit right off, soon as he’d visited the east end of River Street, but he’d had a devilish time finding anything out about it. When his usual hunt through libraries and newspapers failed him, he’d resorted to riding around with the tourists on three of Savannah’s many ghost tours. The last had set him on the right track, after two hours on a cramped trolley beside an Ohio teen who never once let up complaining.
    This ghost tour was nothing, the teen had said. He’d spent loads of time in the cemetery back home, and it was way scarier. He’d seen ghosts at home. He’d thought they were going to see one on the tour, too, and didn’t their guide have any better ghost stories?
    The groundskeeper, of course, had actually seen several spirits on the tour. But in the absence of anyone under age twelve, he was the only one. As the trolley bumped over the cobbles, tilting alarmingly on the steep ramp down to River Street, the tourists saw the still water, the three-story riverboat Georgia Queen docked alongside the quay, the dark windows of the nineteenth-century storefronts lining the near side of the street. The groundskeeper saw the dead.
    Most ghost tours—most ghost stories—were largely hogwash, but they often contained nuggets of truth. In this case, the guide had told the tragic tale of two tween girls who had disappeared less than a year ago. The police had barely bothered looking for them; the disappearance had never been solved. Their ghosts had allegedly been spotted over a dozen times in the last six months, always on the waterfront: they’d ask strangers for help, only to vanish when people tried to take a closer look. Hogwash—partly. The spirit in the stairwell was a newer one, young and scared, so the groundskeeper had investigated any disappearances reported in Savannah in the past year. In a newspaper article dated nine months back, he’d found a small paragraph mentioning the disappearance of two tween girls and instructing anyone with information to go to the police. Less than a week later, one girl had been found, traumatized but alive, at which point all information about the incident had dried up. The other girl, the groundskeeper reckoned, had never been found and was likely dead.
    What there were of the spirit’s memories fit such a story. It remembered neither life nor death, only the confused terror of its last moments. The clearest glimpse the groundskeeper had gotten was the frightened face of a girl: the one who’d been found. This, then, might well be the girl who hadn’t.
    He’d returned to the waterfront this morning to find out. To send her on, if he could, into whatever awaited in the hereafter, before she did something worse than break a tourist’s leg.
    “Layla Brown,” he said.
    The spirit twisted toward him. He let out a soft breath. Finally. The right name. A name alone often wasn’t enough to calm a spirit, but names had power, his mam had always said. This spirit’s name had been buried nearly as deep as his own: Peter Shaughnessy, a name no one now living knew and the last connection he had—aside from an old pocket watch—to his family and the place he’d been born and raised and cursed.
    “Layla Brown,” he repeated more forcefully.
    The spirit shuddered. The nearest window splintered.
    “Sure, there’s no need for that. Ain’t here to bother you none. Here to help, is all.”
    She hung over him like a storm cloud. His heart stuttered, but he reassured himself that she couldn’t touch him. His messenger bag was filled with iron, salt, yellow flowers, various herbs.
    She could bust a window over his head, though. If she was stronger than he thought, she could whip up a wind that’d send him tumbling down the steps, same as if she’d pushed him herself.
    “Died bad, it seems,” he said softly. “Never found. That right?” The rot soured, her fear tinged with regret. She wasn’t strong enough to take form, but a faint whisper echoed in his ears. Even that much took more power than most ghosts had, but speech took less than corporeality.
    Keisha.
    And he knew what she wanted.
    “They found Keisha,” he said. “Whatever happened to you, she didn’t share in it.”
    The spirit wheeled and shifted. Wind moaned, ruffling his shirt and the caution tape behind him. Images flashed before his eyes like a slideshow. That same frightened face he’d seen before: Keisha. A rough hand gripping a thin wrist. The steps, slick with rain. A sudden burst of pain in her temple, a scream, sneakers squeaking. Then, nothing.
    She was remembering her death.
    The wind howled in the stairwell. The groundskeeper slipped, gripped the shaking handrail. Shivered, blinked the images away before they could overwhelm him.
    “Layla!” he shouted. “Layla Brown!”
    A window shattered. The groundskeeper ducked, hoping the building was empty at this hour. Glass rained on his cap. She’d gripped onto his words about what had happened to her, same as she’d held tight to her fear the past nine months. If he didn’t remind her of something else soon, there’d be no calming her.
    He dug into his messenger bag, searching for the beaded bracelet he’d stashed there yesterday afternoon. He hadn’t wanted to use it, if he didn’t have to, aware of its importance and concerned so small a thing might be destroyed or lost in the confrontation.
    “Layla Brown,” he repeated, more forcefully than ever as the wind threatened to swallow his voice. The caution tape fluttered, ripped itself from its fastenings, and blew away. “Look here.”
    He thrust the bracelet out.
    The wind died. The windows stopped rattling. The handrail stilled. A thin, butter-yellow strand of affection threaded through the greenish brown of the spirit’s fear.
    A new memory emerged. Two girls, younger, maybe ten or so, singing loudly and off-key to a pop song as they braided embroidery floss into friendship bracelets. They shouted out the chorus and fell giggling to the ground, pelting each other with lettered beads.
    The bracelet in the groundskeeper’s hand was grubbier now. The embroidery floss was fraying; the lettering on one of the beads had worn away. But it was still legible.
    Best friends 4ever.
    Keisha Adeyemi had tied it to a fence post during the candlelight vigil for Layla Brown held outside their middle school not two days ago.
    “Keisha’s all right,” the groundskeeper said. “Newspaper didn’t say much but that she’d been found, but she left that for you.”
    The spirit softened. The rotten fearful smell lessened, the feeling of sludge on his tongue with it. He breathed deep. Used to it, he was, after dealing with the dead for so long, but it was a relief nonetheless when they calmed down.
    “She’s all right,” he repeated. “But you been scaring people— hurt some of ’em, too. Aye, you have.”
    She rattled a window, not as vigorously as before, annoyed with the accusation. She’d never hurt anyone in her life, she insisted.
    “In life, maybe not. Now you have. Best for you and everyone else if you let go of all that fear and move on, now you know Keisha’s all right.”
    The handrail groaned, swaying back and forth. The nearest support rattled, then ripped out of the ground, bending the rail and leaving a crack behind. For a moment, he thought he was losing her again.
    Then the shaking stopped.
    Eyeing the ghost, the groundskeeper bent to examine the crack. Wedged into the stone was a friendship bracelet matching the one in his hand. More of the lettering was worn away; the braiding was frayed and broken. The groundskeeper plucked it carefully from the stone with a handkerchief, like it was made of diamonds and pearls instead of embroidery floss and plastic beads. The spirit sighed around him.
    “This one’s yours, is it?” She confirmed it. He hesitated. “You understand,” he said, “likely they won’t find who done this to you even if I send it along.”
    She agreed, going gray like the Spanish moss draping Savannah’s many live oaks. Not scared, now. Just sad and regretful, wishing she weren’t dead.
    The groundskeeper ignored that particular wish. His own wants, to the extent he allowed himself any, tended the opposite way. He empathized with the dead, understood them. But he envied them, too.
    “No helping that, now. I’ll make sure whoever you want to have it gets it. Promise. But you got to let go. All right?”
    She twisted over the twin bracelets in his hands, faintly yellow again. Glad to know her friend was okay, if nothing else.
    He wished he could do more for her. Spirits of children were his least favorites. Not because of the spirits themselves—they were no worse, nor better, than any others. He just didn’t like knowing how young they’d died, and so often terribly.
    “Tell me about Keisha,” he said.
    She didn’t speak, of course. Instead, she shared memories. Two girls on the swing set, daring each other to jump off the higher they flew. Painting each other’s nails in a bright purple bedroom. Holding hands, skipping home from school in the rain. In every memory, both of them, together.
    The groundskeeper’s insides twisted. It’d been a long time since he’d been that close with anyone. He said nothing, did nothing, merely stood as silent witness to the ghost’s memories of the friend she was leaving behind.
    The spirit glowed softly gold, shimmering like morning mist.
    As the memories faded, she faded alongside them, until at last she winked out.
    The stairwell was dark and empty, the air clear. Layla Brown’s fear had gone along with her.
    The groundskeeper breathed deep, feeling like a weight had lifted off him. For a moment, he was satisfied. Another spirit sent on, at peace now, he hoped. Living folks saved further trouble, even if none of them realized it.
    Then he looked at the bent handrail, the busted support, the shattered glass, and he sighed. Easier to deal with a haunting’s aftermath when the spirit was confined to a cemetery, where there was less to destroy and destruction could more easily be explained by natural phenomenon.
    He stuck the support back in the stone and reattached the rail, swept the glass to the side. He found the caution tape a ways down the street. Best he could, he hung it back across the stairwell’s entrance before trudging uphill and uptown to tie the two friendship bracelets back on the fence by the school.

Excerpted from THE KEEPER OF LONELY SPIRITS by E.M. Anderson. Copyright © 2025 by E.M. Anderson. Published by MIRA, an imprint of HTP/HarperCollins.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

E.M. Anderson (she/they) is a queer, neurodivergent writer and the author of The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher. Her work has appeared in SJ Whitby’s Awakenings: A Cute Mutants Anthology, Wyldblood Press's From the Depths: A Fantasy Anthology, and Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction. They have two master’s degrees and a feral passion for trees, birds, pole fitness, and Uncle Iroh. You can find them on Instagram, BlueSky, and Tumblr at @elizmanderson.

Find E.M. Anderson online: Author Website | Facebook | Instagram | Tumblr | Bluesky