Alexandra Pierce Reviews After the Forest by Kell Woods

After the Forest, Kell Woods (Tor 978-1-25085-248-9, $28.99, 384pp, hc) October 2023. Cover by Andrew Davis.

Kell Woods’s debut novel is in the ‘‘but then what?’’ genre: but then what happened, after the fairy tale ended? What happened to the children when they got home from their ‘‘ad­venture?’’ A.C. Wise’s Wendy, Darling and Kirstyn McDermott’s Never Afters series are recent examples of taking recognizable stories and extending them; Seanan McGuire’s Way­ward Children takes the concept and explores it in depth. In my experience Hansel and Gretel don’t pop up as often as, say, Rapunzel; they, and in particular Gretel, are the focus for Woods.

Greta and Hans, in their early twenties, live in the village of Lindenfeld in the Black Forest. It’s 1650, and what is now known as the Thirty Years’ War has just come to an end. Their vil­lage has been fortunate, spared ravaging by armed conflict and only occasionally harassed by marauding ex-soldiers; but they have experi­enced other problems associated with so many years of warfare, like heavy taxation. Greta and Hans have also suffered personal hardships: the death of their mother when they were young, abandonment in the woods by their father not long afterwards, being found and detained by a witch before eventually escaping. Hans tends towards drinking, gambling, and occasionally work, while Greta endures mistrust from her neighbours: she has red hair, which is alleged to be a sign of the Devil, and various coincidences have led to suspicion of witchcraft. What money the pair have is largely thanks to Greta’s baking of gingerbread: no one can resist it when she follows the recipe in the book she took when fleeing the witch.

The first few chapters have Greta encountering a bear, in a region where bears haven’t been seen in decades; baking a great deal of gingerbread to try and cover her brother’s debts; and dealing with the villagers’ suspicion. Additionally, there is a new group of men visiting the village, who seem to be mercenaries and have antagonised the legendarily phlegmatic miller. This sets the scene for the rest of the novel, as all of these ap­parently unrelated and seemingly minor issues come together, with potentially catastrophic results for Greta. The other significant thread running through the story is magic: although Greta doesn’t acknowledge it for a long time, she does indeed have the ability to access magic, as witnessed early on by the fact that she can hear the witch’s book speak to her (generally with a great deal of sarcasm and complaint).

As well as Greta’s story, every chapter starts with an excerpt from the story of Liliane and her sister Rosabell, twin princesses equally beauti­ful but with very different personalities. It’s a variation on Snow-White and Rose-Red, a tale of sisters who encounter a friendly bear and an evil dwarf. Woods ties their story into the more well-known one of Snow White – apples, mir­rors, stepmothers – but in this instance, it’s Snow White with the malicious tendencies. The story of Liliane eventually meets Greta’s, including the bear and the dwarf, with clever departures from the original that develop the characters sympathetically and realistically.

Woods’s use of this particular historical and geographical setting allows her to tap into the superstition around witches, and the reality of the witch burnings, of the early modern period in Europe; the Bamberg witch trials are specifically mentioned. The aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War, too, brings with it specific issues, like the experience of soldiers, the place of mercenar­ies, feudal lords raising taxes to pay for soldiers and protection of their land. Woods deftly uses these problems in her story. Jacob, a returning soldier, regrets what he was involved in; there is Catholic / Protestant intolerance to be dealt with; and there are consequences for farmers who are already at subsistence level when taxes are sud­denly doubled. Her mingling of this historical setting with the magical – shape-shifters, forest magic, unnaturally long lives – works beautifully.

This is a worthy addition to the world of fairy tale continuations.

This review and more like it in the August 2023 issue of Locus.

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