A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw is a story of missing author Maggie St. James and the man hired to find her, Travis Wren. Travis ends up following Maggie's trail to a community known as Pastoral by using his special talent for finding missing people. But then, he goes missing too. Many years later, one of the members of Pastoral learns of these two missing people and tries to solve the mystery, but many of the members of the commune have secrets that they will do anything to keep hidden. This book was extremely well-written, as are Shea Ernshaw's other books. I can't wait to read her next story. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital copy. All opinions are my own.

Like a dark and wild forest, Shea Ernshaw’s newest release is bursting with mystery and myth. 𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙡𝙠𝙡𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝, you might say. It begins with the disappearance of Maggie St. James, a famous author of a dark children’s book series. She walked into the woods one day and never returned. Known for his special ability to find missing people, Travis follows Maggie’s trail and soon disappears himself. Shea masterfully unravels this mystery through a nested story, as Maggie’s dark series becomes 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙡𝙠𝙡𝙤𝙧𝙚. Her storytelling, as usual, called to the wildness in my heart in ways that I did not expect, and I am so grateful that I received an e-book in advance to experience all of its eerie beauty. This is a story you won’t want to miss.

Okay, this book took me maybe 30 to 40% to really get into but once I got there I really wanted to see how it all unfolded. This was out of my preferred genre, so that may be why. It really does give The Village vibes if you want to know what you're getting into. Ernshaw does a great job painting a clear world full of complex and complete characters. I don't want to say too much because I don't want to reveal anything because the fun of this book is how it unfolds. So, it takes a little bit to get into, in my opinion, but it's worth it. The end went a little long for me too. I felt I knew where it was going and therefore it felt a little long. Overall, I would recommend this to book to anybody who is into a suspenseful, mysterious, thriller.

A Book to Get 𝕃𝕠𝕤𝕥 In

Maggie St. James, famed dark fairy-tale writer disappears and Travis Wren has been hired to find her. When he stumbles upon a reclusive community named Pastoral deep in the woods…he also disappears. Years pass and Theo, a community member, discovers Travis’ truck, outside the boundary of Pastoral. A place no one is to tread for fear of contracting the rot. Theo, his wife Calla, and her sister Bee contend with the rising discontent within themselves and all of the mysteries that surround this isolated community.

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw is perfect for readers who love:

•atmospheric nature based settings
•multi-perspective with plot progression overlap
•dark fairy-talesque plots rooted in mystery

This is my first book by Shea Ernshaw and it certainly won’t be my last. Overall the writing was exceptional and I’m excited to read her YA backlist (this is her first adult novel). I requested this book solely on the cover and the title without even reading the synopsis. It looked as if I was jumping into an environmental mystery thriller and after all of the exceptional books I’ve read this year in that category I was stoked. This was not that. This is more of a psychological mystery thriller that takes place in the woods.
The intricacies of each character played out so well, that I always felt like something sinister was going on, but I could not figure out what! The pacing felt a little off as the focus shifted between the missing characters and between the community. That ending though! I had no idea. Totally worth the ride. If you enjoyed Small Favors by Erin A. Craig or Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon, then I’m pretty certain you’ll enjoy this too!

Thank you to @atriabooks and @netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Clever and brilliant! Is Pastoral a commune, a cult or something supernatural? I would of never guessed it, and am still at a loss for words after finishing. It’s creepy, dark, atmospheric and bizarre in all the best ways. I haven’t read another book quite like it, or as surprised to find out what lay behind the mystery. It kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time.

Thanks to Atria Books via NetGalley for kindly approving this arc for an honest review.

<b> " My eyes are sore from crying, my lungs are sore from coughing, my knees are sore from kneeling, and my heart is sore from believing. If you are sore and tired, then come into these woods and sleep." </B>

The Wicked Deep ended up being one of my top favorite books of 2020 and one I still heavily recommend to this day, so when I received a copy of AHoWP I was ECSTATIC.

This story is full of dystopian beliefs, monsters that go bump in the night, and secrets slowly peeled away with every turn of the page. I had such a great time reading and deciphering this well webbed tale from start to finish.

I am normally not a fan of "thrillers" but Shea did a great job converting me in this one.
Welcome to Pastoral. Come in quickly away from the rot, rain, and anything that may follow......

Read if you like:
-The Happening
-The Grace Year
-Handmaid's Tale
-"who dun its"
-thrillers and mind benders
-whimsical writing with a twist of dark poetry
-MCs to love
-dystopian tales
-cults and dark magic

I actually knocked a 1/2 star eek but why??
SPOILER
the ending I wish had a little more on the side of fantasy with the twists, turns, and gifts that we had seen I expected a bit more from that. Somehow the build up made the "Why" a bit flat. Overall I still really loved it though, just my personal opinion.

Rating:
story-⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5
characters- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
steam-theres no electricity, no money, so there is definitely no "bow chica wow wow" to get your panties in a bunch about. However, there are love stories intertwined with the dark secrets of Pastoral.

Song: Yellow Flicker Beat by Lorde

I have been a big fan of Shea Ernshaw the past two years or so. A History of Wild Places did not disappoint!

Maggie is a children’s book author, albeit spooky children’s books, and she’s recently disappeared. Travis Wren has a special talent that helps him find people utilizing one of their possessions. All roads lead to Pastoral, where Travis vanishes as well.

Step inside the world of Pastoral and you will see a community different than the world that flows outside the perimeter. I loved the atmosphere created, the tension, the constant guessing and trying to understand. The characters were believable, and had their own secrets and struggles that complicated everything.

If you like atmospheric books and enjoyed M Night Shyamalan’s The Village, this one needs to be on your list!

Thank you to @atriabooks for the opportunity to read this book! An ARC was provided by the publisher via @netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

It’s hard to review A History of Wild Places without giving spoilers. It is a mystery following the disappearances of Maggie St. James and Travis Wren. We also follow three characters - Calla, Theo, and Bee- living in a reclusive community, Pastoral.

A History of Wild Places is atmospheric and moody. Every sentence felt intentional, and I fell in love with the writing.

There is always a sense of dread, tension, frustration throughout the book. You never know what is going on with the mystery or in Pastoral. There are hints throughout the book, and the reveal is very satisfying.

The characters were very well developed, and I ended up loving characters I disliked in the beginning. The antagonist could have been better, I didn't get their motivations for doing what they did. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with how this ended, it was a surprise for sure, but not the ending I wanted.

Travis Wren is a broken man with an unusual talent for finding missing people. Maggie St. James is a writer of dark fantasy novels for children who disappeared without a trace. When Travis is hired by Maggie's parents as a last resort five years after she vanished, his search leads him to a reclusive, insular community deep in the California wilderness called Pastoral -- a place where residents lead a simpler life, and also fear an unknown disease in the outside world that prohibits them from leaving.

A History of Wild Places is a genre-bending tale combining elements of magical realism, folk horror, and dark fantasy to make for a unique and fascinating reading experience. Shea Ernshaw's adult debut is gorgeously written and richly atmospheric. The setting is truly transportative, and it's this novel's greatest strength.

In my experience, YA authors aren't always successful at making the jump to adult fiction, at least not on their first go, and unfortunately that's the case with Ernshaw's first adult novel. The writing, while beautiful, also has that melodramatic, hyperbolic quality that I associate with some YA (where every emotion is the most intense emotion). The characters come across as a bit immature -- and most of them also aren't terribly interesting. After an intriguing opening that had me paying attention, the plot slows way down, and I'm not sure the conclusion was worth the work it took to get there. This is a book full of beautiful words, but unfortunately I didn't find a lot of substance behind them. Ernshaw is clearly talented and creative, and I will be interested to see how her ability to write for adults evolves in her future work.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for my digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Shea Ernshaw is an auto-buy author for me. I’ve read her first two, The Wicked Deep and Winterwood and adored them both. Her writing is unlike any I’ve read, and her stories are truly compelling. They’re dark, mysterious, and addictive.

This book was much different than her first two. First, it’s not YA, and secondly, it’s very heavy.

Everyone who has read this book has described it as being atmospheric; it’s also heavily focused on characterization. Because you need to get to know each character, the plot unravels slowly. The twists were not predictable to me, and I oftentimes forgot I was reading because I was so entranced with what was happening on the pages. There’s a certain scene with the community leader that had me so spooked that I jumped when our doorbell rang and broke me from my trance. Pun intended..iykyk.

I very much loved this book and am very thankful to have had the opportunity to read it before it publishes on December 7.

This book was incredible, just as the first two by this author.

This book is atmospheric, addictive, and so heavy. I absolutely loved it.

I love myself a cult book, and this was...cult book lite? I found the beginning mildly confusing but ended up liking it overall. Bee was a wonderful character, I would have liked to see even more of her.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Happy Publishing Day! "A History of Wild Places" is available to purchase- thank you Netgalley and Atria books for an advanced e-copy of this book.

"A History of Wild Places" starts with Travis, a man with the unique/weird skill of being able to find most anyone. He decides that he is going to find a woman that went missing 5 years earlier.

I don't want to write an actual summary of this book- it's not something that NEEDS more summaries to make it look good, it does that on it's own. Going into this book without knowing much about it (like how I read it), really made the plot twists and turns enjoyable.

I love the writing style of this book. Sara Ernshaw did an amazing job of always wanting to read the next chapter.

One of the better books I've read this year. Parts may not be very believable, but don't think about that too much- sit back, turn pages, and enjoy the ride :)

*I received this book (Via eArc by Netgalley) for free from the Publisher (Atria Books ) in exchange for an honest review*
Shea Ernshaw never seems to disappoint. I enjoyed all of her books whether it is YA or Adult. I think this was the great debut adult thriller from her and I was very eager to read it. It is complex and fast pace and interesting. it kept me guessing to the very end what was happening. it was interesting to see the news snippets in it. But I wished it was longer in the end. The characters where well developed and I did not get confused that much what the perspectives changed which was quite often between the three characters. I also enjoyed the literary references and the twist was great as all of Ernshaw's works are. I am looking forward to reading more from Shea Ernshaw's other works.
*Thanks again to the publisher and the author for the NetGalley eARC)*

Haunting is the best way to describe this book. It reminded me so much of the movie “The Village.” If you like atmospheric/moody thrillers you MUST check this out. I loved the multiple POVs and the twists were just…WOW. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

I loved The Wicked Deep and screamed with delight when I was approved for this one. This book has all the magic and haunting imagery that Ernshaw is known for.

"Perhaps just like Eloise and the fox, we have feared the wrong thing--we should have feared what's right here, within our own borders, within our own walls. The beast is already inside the castle, tearing people apart, yet we stare into the woods waiting for it to appear."

The story begins with Travis, a man who has a gift for finding lost people. In this case he is looking for Maggie St. James, a famous children's author whose beguiling stories of Eloise and The Fox have sent children running away into the woods in search of magic. Travis tracks Maggie to the woods, at which point they both disappear. The narrative then switches to that of Bee, Theo, and Calla, residents of a commune (or is it a cult?) called Pastoral. The residents of Pastoral are essentially trapped there, as the world outside its borders are diseased and anyone who ventures past the treeline becomes infected. It took me a little bit to realize how the two stories intersected, but part of the magic is in the figuring out. Though I didn't love this one as much as I loved The Wicked Deep, I thoroughly enjoyed it. This is a must-read for Ernshaw fans and fans of dark magical tales in general.

Although I, at first, wavered between 3 and 4 stars, the final lines of the final chapter plummeted the experience to a 2, at best.

This entire novel really, desperately, hinges on a 100% need of the reader to suspend their disbelief, particularly once the mysteries begin to be revealed. Unfortunately, that necessary suspension lacks a support system. Had Ernshaw introduced, say, [even the slightest suggestion of supernatual forces aiding the antagonist, or some element of magical realism that would've enabled me to shrug off the deep certainty that there's no way the mechanisms of manipulation could ever, ever happen in real life, I might have kicked my scientific, logical brain out the door and gone with it all (hide spoiler)], but that wasn't the case.

As I started this book, I quite loved it. Ernshaw's writing can be beautiful and the set up was intriguing. There were some hiccups that gave me pause, but they were the sort of things that I imagined might have been caught in the final stages of editing (I was given an ARC by the publisher, Atria Books via Netgalley), so I let them go. But as the story developed, the fragility of the scaffolding around the concept overwhelmed my initial engagement. And the decisions a couple of the characters made in that final chapter - [ not knowing what Bee had done (hide spoiler)] made me so irritated that it was, honestly, a struggle to finish the last 4% of the book. Had it seemed intentional to elicit this response from the reader, I could've respected that, but it didn't seem to be the case. This is a difficult judgement for a novel I started out, frankly, adoring, but it all felt like a bit of betrayal by the end.

I feel like Ernshaw certainly has the talent to have written the sort of book I thought this could be, particularly as she strengthens her storytelling. I am still pleased to have requested and read the book, and I will consider the author again in future, but I unfortunately had too many issues with this one to eagerly await the next or consider diving into her backlist.

A twisty delight and will also make your toes curl in suspense. This is my first Shea Ernshaw novel and it wont be my last. Her writing is immersive and engaging making this book a very hard one to put down, even when I wasn’t reading it I was thinking about it! Sticky stories are always the sign of a well done narrative. Thank you so much for an advanced copy!

Thank you so much to Atria Books for providing me with an Advance Readers Copy, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. The quotes included in this review are subject to change upon publication.

“We all leave markers behind—dead or alive—vibrations that trail behind us through all the places we’ve been. And if you know how to see them, the imprints of a person can be found—and followed.”

Everything has a story behind it. A lost charm, a necklace, ripped pages from a journal, a pressed flower, a lost society. In A History of Wild Places, we begin the story of Travis Wren searching for the missing children's author Maggie St. James. In his search for Maggie, he also goes missing. After they go missing, we flash forward to this hidden community in the middle of a forest, Pastoral. Our narrators are Theo, Calla and Bee. Theo and Calla are married and live in an old farmhouse with Calla’s sister Bee. Where the three of them discover secrets long hidden in a forest burdened with rot, leaving all its citizens too terrified to step out of the borders and leave the community.

“Silence can hold a thousand untold stories.”

Ernshaw’s talent of mastering the eerie, atmospheric vibe is at work so beautifully in her debut adult novel. She truly has a talent of transporting you into her stories. I felt like I was watching these events unfold while walking the paths in Pastoral. Out of Ernshaw’s three novels so far, this one is most definitely very different from the others. The Wicked Deep and Winterwood had small magical elements to them, whereas this one has more of a take on the environment and questionable human behavior. My only complaint was it was slightly slow during the middle. But she does it in such a way that it creates an amazing build up until the final explosion, which creates mini explosions after the initial big one.

“But this is how monsters are made: from innocent things.”

After I finished this story, it truly left me with such an eerie feeling. I want to try to keep this review free of spoilers as much as possible so let me just say I was left wondering if some of the events of this community may happen in our present day. Never have I ever disliked a Shea Ernshaw novel, so I am so completely honored to have been able to receive an early copy to review this story. It releases on December 7th, and the first edition hardcovers will have beautiful embossing underneath the dust jackets. So grab yourself a copy and get ready to be transported into the forest.

“Death has a way of leaving breadcrumbs, little particles of the past that catch and settle and stain.”

A History of Wild Places starts off with a missing woman, Maggie St. James, a famous children’s book author who has been missing for the past five years. Her parents hire a man named Travis who has a special way of tracking people to go look for their missing daughter. After readers learn the story of Maggie and meet Travis we jump into the lives of those who live in a secluded community deep in the woods called Pastoral. Here in Pastoral we follow Calla, her husband Theo, and her sister Bee as they manager their daily life and relationships with those around them. Pastoral seems like a beautiful community but there is one issue, the people may not leave due to a fatal sickness that exists within the woods. When an unexpected issue arises the community is faced with the hard decision of leaving the community to get help or not. During this pressured time secrets are exposed and many questions are raised.

I loved this book so much. Shea Ernshaw has been one of my favorite authors since her first book, The Wicked Deep, came out a few years ago. I love her writing and the settings she creates. They are so magical and eerie at the same time and this was definitely the case with Pastoral. With that being said I would love to live in a place like Pastoral, minus the sketchy parts/people. The characters were also amazing and so well written that I felt like I knew them personally and was living with them in Pastoral.
I will say that I really thought that the story/twist was going to go a completely different way so I was shocked to say the least when it plot twist happened.

If you are a fan of eerie settings, cults, communes, or just straight up good stories I highly recommend this book!