“What you make from a tree should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down.”
There’s something magical about stories set in the woods. With the tranquillity and stillness of the environment, the feeling of nature running free and the sense of adventure, and sometimes terror, that comes from exploring the unknown, it’s no wonder that so many authors across every genre have found themselves inspired by this setting. Which is why we here at What We Reading thought we would look across the world of fiction and pick out our favourite stories set in the woods. From fantastical tales featuring faeries, and terrifying horror stories in their deep dark heart to gripping page-turning crime thrillers featuring missing persons and desperate searches, these books in forests and woodlands all capture the awesomeness of the natural world.
The Overstory – Richard Powers
Kicking off our list of the best books set in the woods is Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning, The Overstory. From antebellum New York to the late twentieth century Timber Wars across the Pacific Northwest and beyond, Powers’ twelfth novel features nine different characters. All of these characters have had their life experiences shaped by trees. All of them are brought together and driven apart by the destruction of the woods around them.
These stories are all diverse in terms of their themes, ranging from affairs, activism, and arson to prison experiments. Through these tales in the forests, Powers paints a portrait of the natural world and how its vast, slow and interconnectedness is ever-present, though often invisible to us.
The Shadows – Alex North
You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A sinister smile, a dark imagination, an outsider always on the fringes of the group. Something within you always knew he could be capable of something horrifying. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that. He committed a murder so shocking that it was able to attract infamy across the internet and inspire other would-be copycats.
For Paul Adams, he remembers the case of Charlie Crabtree all too well. Crabtree – and his victim – were his friends. He has been attempting to move on and rebuild his life; but, with his mother’s dementia worsening, he knows it is time to come home. That’s when Detective Amanda Beck tells him another copycat has struck in the nearby town. His mother is distressed, claiming there is something in the house, something is following him, and that is when Paul remembers the most shocking thing about that fateful day all those years ago. Charlie Crabtree has never been seen since.
Where The Dark Stands Still – A.B. Poranek
Where the Dark Stands Still is a 2024 fantasy book set in the woods by author A.B. Poranek. Raised in a small village near the spirit-wood, Liska Radost knows that magic is monstrous and those who practice it are monsters. Yet, after she unlocks her own powers with devastating consequences, she is caught by the demon warden of the wood – the Leszy – who offers her a deal: one year of service in exchange for a wish.
Taken to his crumbling manor, Liska soon discovers the malevolent roots of their bargain. To survive the year and find her way back home, she must peel away her host’s many secrets and stand up to the ghosts of his past. But, in this dark gothic fantastical world, not everyone who enters the woods finds a way of returning again.
Winterwood – Shea Ernshaw
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep, Winterwood is a haunting romance story set in the woods featuring dark fairytales and enchanted folklore. Nora Walker has long been suspected of being a witch. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it is that connection that leads her to Oliver Huntsman, the boy who vanished from Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago. Having been left in the woods with no memory of the time he had been missing, he should be dead. But he’s alive.
Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver’s presence. Soon, she realises that she has no other choice but to learn the truth about how this boy was able to survive so long. What she doesn’t realise is that Oliver has his own secrets, secrets that he’s prepared to do anything to keep hidden. Because he wasn’t the only one to go missing on that fateful night those weeks ago.
In The House In The Dark Of The Woods – Laird Hunt
In this horror set in colonial New England, a woman goes missing. Or perhaps she has fled, abandoning her family. Or perhaps she has been kidnapped. Alone and possibly lost, she wanders aimlessly in the dense woodlands of the north before encountering another woman in the forest.
Told in suspenseful lyrical prose, Laird Hunt’s In the House in the Dark of the Woods is an eerie and disturbing story of the woman’s journey. It is a journey that will take her through a wolf-haunted wood, down a deep well and onto a living ship made of human bones. During the course of her trek through the woods, she will be forced to confront her past and reconcile with the fact that the evil she is fleeing may have been inside her all along.
The Bear – Andrew Krivak
In an Eden-like future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a single mountain. They possess just a few remains of civilisation: a pane of glass, flint and steel, a comb and some books. The father teaches his daughter how to hunt and fish, the secrets of the seasons and the mysteries of the stars.
He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature. Because these two are the last human inhabitants on Earth. Yet, when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through the vast wilderness that promises the greatest lesson of all, if she can learn to listen. One of the most poignant and spell-binding pieces of magical realism set in the natural world, Andre Krivak’s The Bear is a stunning homage to the beauty of nature.
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Uprooted – Naomi Novik
Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But, the corrupted Wood stand on the border, its malevolent power and long shadow casting itself over her life. Her people rely on the cold wizard only known as the Dragon to keep the dark presence of the woods at bay. But, he demands a terrible price for this service: one woman being handed to him, forced to serve for ten years. It is a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.
The next choosing is fast-approaching, and everyone knows that the Dragon will take Kasia. Beautiful, graceful and brave, she is all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and the friend she holds dearest in the world. Yet, when the Dragon does arrive for the choosing, it isn’t Kasia he ends up calling upon.
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In A Dark, Dark Wood – Ruth Ware
Leonora is a reclusive crime writer who surprisingly receives an invite to a bachelorette party for Clare Cavendish, an old friend who she hasn’t seen in years. Taking place in a remote glass house in the middle of a dark forest, it is intended to be a cosy, fun-filled weekend in the English countryside.
But, as the weekend gets underway, tension and unease begin to build as a series of bizarre and disturbing events follow the guests around their stay. Then Leonora wakes up in a hospital with memory gaps and the revelation that one of her fellow party-goers was murdered. One of the best psychological thriller books set in the woods, Ruth Ware’s In a Dark, Dark Wood follows Leonora as she attempts to work out the truth of what happened that night, who the killer is, and why she was invited in the first place.
Where The Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
Nominated for Best Historical Fiction in the Goodreads Choice Awards, Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing is the story of Kya Clark, a naturalist young woman who has been dubbed the ‘Marsh Girl’. When in 1969 the body of the popular Chase Andrews is discovered, the quiet fishing village of Barkley Cove is quick to suspect the barefoot and wild Marsh Girl. Yet, Kya is not like what they say.
With just one day of school behind her, she takes life’s lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But, whilst she can live independently forever, she still yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn by two young men from town, both of whom are enticed by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself up to a new world. Until the unthinkable happens.
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The Woods – Vanessa Savage
Another one of the best books set in the woods that centres around missing memories, The Woods is a 2020 mystery thriller by Vanessa Savage. There’s a lot from Tess’ childhood that she would rather not remember. The family that moved next door and rained chaos down on them. The two girls who were murdered. The killer who was never caught. But the one thing she can’t remember is the one thing she wishes she could.
Ten years ago, Tess’ older sister died. Ruled a tragic accident, the only witness was Tess herself, but she has never been able to recall what happened that night. Now living in London, she is determined to put the trauma behind her. Then she receives an emergency call from her father, and she is immediately rushed back to her family home, back to where her sister’s body was found and the memories she thought she had left in the past.
Emily Wilde’s Encylopedia Of Faeries (Emily Wilde #1) – Heather Fawcett
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things. She is a meticulous researcher, a genius scholar and the world’s eminent authority when it comes to the study of faeries after penning the first encyclopedia on their lore. But, one thing Emily isn’t good at is people. She could never make small talk at a party, let alone actually be invited to one. She much prefers the company of her books, her dog and the Fair Folk.
So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff locals. To make matters worse, her dashing academic rival, Wendell Bambleby has found a way of charming them all and getting in the middle of her research. But, as she comes closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones – the most elusive of all faeries, she is forced to reckon with who Wendell is and what he wants by unlocking the secrets tightly buried within her heart.
Greenwood – Michael Christie
1934; Everett Greenwood is alone in his maple syrup camp when he hears the cries of an abandoned child. What follows is him becoming entangled in a web of crime that will cling to his family for decades. 1974; Willow Greenwood has just been released from prison after her latest environmental protests. 2008; Liam Greenwood is a carpenter who has just fallen from a ladder, sprawled on his back and calling out from a concrete floor in an empty mansion. 2034; Jake Greenwood is an overqualified tour guide babysitting vacationers in one of the last remaining forests.
Michael Christie’s Greenwood is a generational saga that chronicles a family’s rise and fall, their secrets and inherited crimes, all accompanied by the one steady presence in their lives: trees.
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
