About this item
"Delightful and darkly magical. Julia Fine has written a beautiful modern myth, a coming-of-age story for a girl with a worrisome power over life and death. I loved it." - Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Travelers Wife and Her Fearful SymmetryFinalist for the Bram Stoker Superior Achievement in a First Novel Award * Shortlisted for the Chicago Review of Books Best Novel Prize * A Bustle Unmissable Debut of the Year * A Popsugar Best Book of the Year * A Washington Post Best Fantasy Book of May * A Refinery 29 Best May Book * A Chicago Review of Books Best May Book * A Verge Gripping Fantasy Novel of MayIn this darkly funny, striking debut, a highly unusual young woman must venture into the woods at the edge of her home to remove a curse that has plagued the women in her family for millennia - an utterly original novel with all the mesmerizing power of The Tigers Wife, The Snow Child,and Swamplandia!Cursed.Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her familys manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisies father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories. What he does not tell Maisie is that for over a millennium her female ancestors have also vanished into the wood, never to emerge - for she is descended from a long line of cursed women.But one day Maisies father disappears, and Maisie must venture beyond the walls of her carefully constructed life to find him. Away from her home and the wood for the very first time, she encounters a strange world filled with wonder and deception. Yet the farther she strays, the more the wood calls her home. For only there can Maisie finally reckon with her power and come to understand the wildest parts of herself.
About the Author
Julia Fine is the author of What Should Be Wild, which was shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Superior First Novel Award and the Chicago Review of Books Award. Her second novel, The Upstairs House, is forthcoming from Harper in 2021. She teaches writing in Chicago, where she lives with her husband and children.
