Wow what an adventure! I loved every aspect of this book.

The story starts with Travis Wren, someone to call to find people. He sets off to find a children’s author, Maggie St. James who has been missing for years. Travis is led to a community deep in the forest called Pastoral and suddenly he goes missing as well.

This book had me on the edge of my seat the ENTIRE time. There was always some new information to try to price together. I discovered the ending before the book revealed it, but I still found it very fun to read.

I’m so fascinated by cults so this book was so interesting to me! I couldn’t get enough.

This one was nuts. Three stories. First: man trying to find a missing children's book author who disappeared into the woods. Second: couple living in a wooded commune wondering if the world "out there" is as dangerous as they've been told. Third: girl find herself pregnant and unwanted by the father...what are her next steps? Told from alternating time lines and points of view, this was a crazy read. If you are into someting like Station Eleven, this might be for you.

When author Maggie St. James goes missing, her parents hire Travis Wren to search for her. Travis has a talent for finding missing persons, and in his quest to find Maggie, he finds more than he ever bargained for: the near-fabled town of Pastoral.

This book was incredible! The first few chapters with Travis painted such a vivid picture that I was hooked right away. The way that everything was described was so detailed and clear, I felt like I was right there with Travis, and later on Theo, Calla, and Bee. The town of Pastoral is such an interesting premise, a place where you live off the land and trust it to give you what you need. Shea Ernshaw painted such a vivid atmosphere that was dark and light at the same time. I felt such a sense of foreboding; this book kind of reminds me of the movie Midsommar in that the beautiful town of Pastoral had such dark secrets. The mystery of what happened kept me guessing all the way to the end.

I highly recommend this book!

As I was reading this book I didn't see how the title fit with the story until I finished it. Then I got it and it makes sense now. By the summary you think this is a sort of detective story about a missing woman and the hired man with special sight to find her. But it was so much more and different than what you would expect going into it. It is a story of lost people, but not in the traditional sense. people who are lost in the world of life and need something different, a change of pace. I'd say some of this story has truth to it and we have seen this type of change people have sought throughout history. Sometimes ending ok and others times they have been led to their deaths while looking for something wholesome to believe in or following a path created by a religious fanatic. This story reminds me a lot of those truths. Shea Ernshaw weaves a tale unlike anything she has written before, a Adult story but I would find it suitable in the YA section as well. It tells of love, truths, lies, betrayal, belonging. While it is a different type of story from her previous writing's, I believe this one puts Shea Ernshaw up there as a great writer of Adult Fiction just as well as her previous made her a great ya author, it shows us she can do multiple genre's. And the title fits once you finish it and think over the entire story. I'd like to thank NetGalley for allowing me this arc to read and this review is my own thoughts of this story.

A History of Wild Places is a book that will make you question everything. It delves into the lies and truths we tell ourselves at night. The ones we can't seem to utter out loud because we aren't sure if they will sound true. There's an immediate sense of suspense and tension from the beginning. My favorite element of Ernshaw's past YA books (The Wicked Deep & Winterwood) has been the atmosphere, so I knew I'd be in for a treat. Not only that, but A History of Wild Places has some truly lyrical writing in some moments.

It's a book about the stories we make up within the spaces between words. Beginning with the premise of objects telling a story. How these dust laden fragments of memories expose clues to our past, I was hooked. From the synopsis alone, we know that these lives will fade into shadows, but we read Maggie and Travis' POV without that knowledge. I already knew from the beginning I wouldn't be able to stop reading. And this current really never let me go.

For her third book, Shea Ernshaw has once again taken us deep into the woods to tell her story, creating an evocative, deeply atmospheric world with her poetic and lyrical way with words. As this is her first adult book, I was curious how this style of writing would transfer over from her YA novels. I was a huge fan of The Wicked Deep and similarly loved Winterwood, so while I was confident that she would deliver yet another story that was deeply effective, I was curious how the experience would change with the audience. And it certainly has - the stakes are higher, the plot thickens, and the events that transpire seem more real - as real as a hypnotic commune deep in the woods can be, that is. I found the imagery of Pastoral that she had written on paper expand wildly in my mind, with a deep sense of community but also uneasiness. There is nothing about this society that she has created that does not fill me with some sort of discomfort, even if I am not always able to place where that discomfort stems from. From the beginning of the story, the reader is aware that something is amiss, and that over the course of the story, we will eventually be able to piece together exactly what that is.

As the plot progressed, I found my mind desperately trying to figure out what the intentions were with the characters, and also trying to solve some sort of mystery - but I didn't even know what mystery I was trying to solve. Were the people of Pastoral simply paranoid about the potential of bringing rot into their community, fed by years of avoiding the outside world and assisted by the gentle reassurance of their leader that they were in the safest place they could possibly be? Or was there a strange magical element, that the trees were actually splitting apart due to some unknown virus, potentially being able to spread it to unsuspecting community members? For the longest time I suspected that they were all being poisoned, using naturally occurring strange coincidences as catalysts to feed into their fear of the woods. It turns out I wasn't that far off and was right to assume that the person who encourages everyone to leave things alone is conspiring to control their whole society, but I certainly didn't expect the full details of the story to come out as they did. This I probably should have expected, realising now that Shea plays the same mind games both in The Wicked Deep and Winterwood. In both of those instances I could always tell when something was wrong, but the solutions I came up with in my mind, while certainly plausible and in the same vein as actual occurring events, were also far removed from where the plot of the story would eventually go. Even at the very end, when most plot points and Easter eggs had been revealed and wrapped up, the final fates of the main characters surprised me, and I realised that I may have missed the whole point of their journey over the course of the story after all.

To be perfectly honest, this is probably my least favourite of the author's books, but I wouldn't say that should deter you from reading A History of Wild Places at all. It's simply a different type of Shea Ernshaw book, meant for a different audience of readers, and the subject matter will reflect that. I do think that the author has done an excellent job at shifting her audience to a more mature subject, but keeping her signature atmospheric prose and her ability to plunge her readers into the story as if they were also there experiencing it. I have seen many people so far state that this is their favourite book of hers, which just goes to show that while personal preference is clearly the cause of our difference of opinions, we can all agree that Shea is a wonderful writer, and she continues to envelop and keep her audience interested in her writing. I continue to be a massive fan, and will continue to read the rest of her books as long as she keeps writing them.

✨ARC Review✨

“I wonder if the things we don’t say are worse than the lies we do. Like the illness, they will rot us from the inside out.”

Travis Wren, aka “the last resort”, has a gift. He can touch objects and see the lives of people. This becomes incredibly useful in searching for missing people. He is on the hunt to figure out what happened to Maggie St. James, the children’s author who disappeared. Was Maggie a missing person who didn’t want to be found? Was Travis barking up the wrong tree? As quickly as Travis starts to figure out the truth, one missing person turns into two…

What I Loved:
-the overall dark and atmospheric feel of this book, and the understanding that nothing is as it seems
-an entanglement of manipulation, misplaced trust, secrets, lies, love, lust, and resentment
-stories within stories (Travis searching for Maggie, then a shift to Theo, Calla, Bee, and Levi) (also the chapters that contain excerpts from Maggie’s book)
-The concept of Pastoral. Is it a commune or a cult? The belief of the “rot” (elm pox, sickness plaguing the people if they leave past the boundary)

I have to admit that I was a tad worried when I first started this because I was unsure what direction things were going in. The beginning zeroes in on Travis looking into Maggie’s disappearance and then things shift to start talking about Theo, Calla, and Bee at Pastoral and it seems confusing as it’s a sudden shift. I was also confused on how the chapters with excerpts of Maggie’s book fit in. However, the connections start to fit together like puzzle pieces, and then things move at a fast pace, constantly keeping the reader hooked. Trust me when I say to stick with this and finish it! The cover is aesthetically pleasing and will draw you in, but the story is mind bending, and ultimately sucks you in an all encompassing way and doesn’t let go.

✨Rating✨
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

A special thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this eARC! A History Of Wild Places is out December 7th!

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
"A History of Wild Places" by Shea Ernshaw was an intense psychological thriller about lies & how far one person in power would go to preserve them.
This story pulled me immediately & held my interest throughout.
It was atmospheric & mysterious.
The characters were interesting & I liked that the story was told by multiple characters.
The author did a good job of tying the story together.
Shea Ernshaw was a new author for me but, I'll definitely be checking out more of her work.

This is an intense psychological thriller about lies and how far one person in power will go to preserve them.

It all begins with a missing woman, Maggie St. James. An author of some dark children's books, she sets off in the woods, for what, we don't know. After 5 years, Travis Wren is brought in for his special abilities to track people (he has visions of one's activities after touching personal items). From there, the story switches POVs to a family living in a remote part of the woods, a community named Pastoral.

If you have seen M. Night Shyamalan's movie, the Village, that is the vibe of this community. The citizens of this community have been taught to fear things like the trees that surround them, and more importantly, what lies beyond them. After several citizens go beyond the boundary and get sick, they are convinced that the outside world only brings death. Given that they witnessed, I could understand their hesitancy to challenge the rules. But three citizens do just that - Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister Bee.

How do these three characters tie to the missing woman? It wasn't clear at first. But slowly, the behavior of the three had me questioning everything. When small clues about Maggie and Travis begin to appear, that is when the three decide to take action. While I had my suspicions about their connection to Maggie, I would never have put together what these three went through in Pastoral, very disturbing.

The author did a good job of tying the story together and providing reasons behind the lies, twisted as they were. And I thought the ending, while a bit unexpected, made sense.

This was a new-to-me author, but I'll definitely be checking out more of her work.

This story pulled me immediately and held my interest throughout. It was atmospheric and mysterious, and kept me wondering what was really going on. The characters were interesting and I liked that the story was told by multiple characters. The twist was timed perfectly and the ending was surprising for me. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good mystery.

Ernshaw's A History of Wild Places is the perfect fall or winter read. It is mysterious and haunting and slightly fantastical. This story is really unlike anything else I have ever read. Deep in the woods of norther California, Ernshaw is waiting to sweep you away into a world of secrets and lies.

Travis Wren was hired for his unique ability to find people. His mission? To track down Maggie St. James, a young author who disappeared 5 years ago.
The people of Pastoral have lived in peace and seclusion for many years, until one community member stumbles across a stranger truck and begins to ask questions.

Ernshaw's atmospheric writing style shines in A History of Wild Places. She has an incredible talent for bringing a place to life with her lyrical prose and that is certainly true of this book. Pastoral seems to seep off the page and pull the reader into a community where the earth is both friend and foe and neighbors are too close to keep secrets from - or so it seems.

As the mysteries begin to unravel throughout this story, the tension builds. Information is given to the reader at really nice intervals to keep interest without giving anything away too soon. I felt constantly engaged and eager to uncover the next bit of information. There were some elements I was able to figure out on my own from the clues presented and some turns that completely shocked me. The ominous atmosphere was near-palpable, making this book difficult to put down.

This book is a bit outside of my typical genre (YA fantasy), but as a fan of Ernshaw's writing, I really wanted to see what this one was going to be like and I am really glad that I did. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys mystery novels with paranormal elements and dark themes.

Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and author Shea Ernshaw for an opportunity to read a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Travis Wren has been tasked with finding missing author Maggie St. James using his unique talent. His journey to find Maggie leads him to Pastoral, a quiet community founded in the 70's whose inhabitants enjoy a simple life in the secluded forest. Not long after discovering Pastoral, Travis also disappears.

Fast forward a couple years, and we meet Theo, who has lived in Pastoral his entire life. No one is allowed outside the border of Pastoral, but Theo can't help himself and wanders down the path, only to find an abandoned truck. Not wanting to scare his wife, Calla, or her sister, Bee, Theo begins keeping secrets. Little does he know Calla and Bee have a few secrets of their own.

I have to say I don't know exactly what I expected of this one but it was beyond anything I could have imagined, in the best way possible! I really loved the writing and was dying to know what secrets Pastoral was hiding. I've seen this book compared to M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village," and I have to say that feels pretty spot on.

A History of Wild Places will be on bookshelves near you December 7, 2021!

SE really excels at atmospheric storytelling. I can guarantee you will feel as if you are living inside a mysterious compound, hidden deep in the dark woods, while reading this.

And I'm so grateful for that because even though the biggest mystery of the plot is super predictable, I found that I honestly didn't mind. And it's because of how much I was enjoying experiencing the setting. It's definitely the highlight of the story.

For SE's first adult book, I think this is a pretty great start. Some elements of her writing and characterisation still feel very YA, but I'm excited to see if she continues to embrace more mature themes and write more adult books in the future.

Solid 4.5 here! This book instantly sucked me in with the mystery plot of Travis searching for Maggie St.James. You are quickly swept away to Pastoral-a place where strange things happen. Without giving away too many spoilers, about halfway through, I was starting to get frustrated-I felt like this "side-lined" plot was taking over the book and I wanted to get back to the Travis and Maggie plot line...but everything ended up working out and my mind was spinning by the end. The writing is very well done and this is a book that I can truthfully say is a new plot line...although if I had to compare it to something, I would say it gave me Hazel Wood vibes.






*Thank you Netgalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review*

We all have parts of ourselves that we keep hidden from others: our shame, fears, and secrets; our hopes and love; our opinions, needs, and desires. We tell lies, and hold back our emotions. We do it to protect ourselves; to avoid vulnerability or unmasking. However, the person we may be lying to the most is ourself. Are we the person others see, are we the person we think we are? Do our stories—told and untold—contain the truth? In a History of Wild Places, we gladly go down the rabbit hole with the characters of this book to find the answers.
Travis Wren is hired to find the children’s author Maggie St. James who has been missing for a few years. Travis has a gift: by touching something belonging to the person he is searching for, he can get “after images” of their movements. This leads Travis to the guard house at Pastoral, founded in 1972 on the principles of “seeking purpose and reinventing life”.

In the hidden commune Pastoral, the residents are self-sufficient; they do not rely on anything—or anyone. Levi, their young and charismatic leader, makes sure that the three rules of Pastoral are adhered to: 1) Privacy (within and outside its borders, everyone has the right to live their own lives); 2) Community (the community is stronger and safer together); and 3) Trust (without it the community falls apart). His main tactic in enforcing the rules is fear of the disease beyond the tree line, and the possibility that there is no longer a world outside of their boundaries.

Our story centers on three people from Pastoral: Theo, Calla, and Bee. Theo is the night watchman at the guard post where his job is to keep outsiders out, and residents in. He finds Travis’ abandoned truck which has a picture of Maggie St. James in it. He becomes curious of what became of these two people, and is tempted to find out what is beyond the trees. Calla is married to Theo. Unlike him, she is content to stay within the rules, and becomes fearful of what Theo’s curiosity may do to their marriage and community. Living with them is Calla’s younger sister, Bee who became blind as a teenager. Bee is very attuned to nature, and is having a secret relationship with Levi. When Calla becomes aware of Theo and Bee’s secrets, she is faced with the dilemma of choosing whom she will betray: lying and thereby betraying the rules of the community, or informing Levi and betraying her loved ones.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The shifting points of view allowed us to see how different characters experienced the same events, and how they chose (usually by lying) to deal with them. We fall through the rabbit hole with Calla, Bee, and Theo as they are confronted with the lies, the secrets, and the fears they tell and keep to themselves and to others. I highly recommend this book.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was one of those perfect books at the perfect time. I wanted something eerie, atmospheric, and unsettling and this one absolutely delivered.

I won't go too much into the plot because it's kind of best not to know a ton about it, but if you like cult stories where things aren't quite what they seem add this to your TBR ASAP.

I loved how the author unraveled the story and gave you small pieces of the puzzle at a time. I stayed up past my bedtime reading this one because I just couldn't put it down.

4.5/5

WOW. I was sucked in right now to this story and the mesmerizing character who trailed the missing author. Then, it switched to 2 new character POVs - which gave an inside perspective of the commune and reveals lots of dark twists. I'm still letting this story sink in, but it's so different in a good way.

Three residents of what appears to be an idealistic, peaceful commune disappear investigate the disappearance of two outsiders.

Travis Wren is an investigator with a unique talent for finding people with only a single object. He takes the case of Maggie St. James, a well known author who is famous fir her creepy children’s stories. The case leads him to an isolated community call Pastoral; a place thought to be the stuff of myths.

This secluded commune was founded in 1970 by a group of people with a desire for a simple sort of life. Travis disappears shortly after he wanders upon it, similarly to Maggie St. James.

Years pass by Theo a member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s truck at the edge of the community. No one is allowed in or out of the community for fear of “the rot”; a disease that eats you from the inside out and is highly contagious. Theo, his wife Calla, and her blind sister Bee get tangled up in the mystery of the disappearances and the dark secrets that shatter the image of their perfect isolated world.

Told in alternating chapters, I enjoyed the mystery of the disappearances as well as the sinister truth behind the commune and its members.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc.

When I first picked this book up I thought it might be a spooky read, instead I was surprised by a thriller/mystery novel. Our story opens as Travis sets out to find a maligned children's book author, Maggie St. James. Travis has the unique gift of seeing memories in objects, a gift that has helped him find missing people over the years.....dead or alive. When Travis sets out to find Maggie he thinks this will be his last job, but as he stumbles into the community of Pastoral he may find more then he bargains for.

I thought this part of the story was very easy to figure out and draw conclusions about the characters and where the story was going. However, I will say I was pleasantly surprised by the third act twist I didn't see coming. This book really focuses on the lengths people are willing to go to protect that sense of community. I will say the plot of the book did remind me a bit of The Village, but with a better and more satisfying ending.

Beautifully written, I think "A history of wild places" is a big metaphor for why a person joins and stays in a cult in real life.
Here are some moments of the book: https://www.tiktok.com/@__simoneneves/video/7026000213777140998?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&q=__simoneneves&t=1635869113433