Spirit of the Wood by Kristen Britain

Source: Netgalley, thank you to the publisher!!
TL;DR: An absolutely lovely novella for new and old readers about empathy and how life continues on.

Plot: A new Green Rider has to keep his cold superior alive after an attack. They end up in a deep wood, and then magic!
Characters: I loved the characters, and this as someone who completely forgot who Laren was from the original series. I fell in love all over again.
Setting: Beautiful. I’m a sucker for any forest or woodland settings though, and I think Kristen Britain did a wonderful job drawing it in the story (both in the art and words!)
Magic: I love an empathy based magic, and Tavin in this one has a powerful gift of it.

Thoughts:

This was such a lovely story. Can I tell you how relieved I am to pick up an adult fantasy and it feel like a real epic fantasy, even as a novella? Spirit of the Wood follows Tavin as he struggles to heal and help his mentor after a brutal attack while on patrol. He is dealing not only with a cold, and seemingly distant mentor but his own unique empathic ability to feel what others feel.

I’m going to try not to spoil this, so instead let me say that I adored this return to the world of Green Rider. I haven’t read one of these books in easily 10 years, so this felt like a fresh jump in. In fact, though one of the characters is a strong one in the series I had completely forgotten as much and didn’t remember till much later on. By that time I was very much in love with them, so it was a job well done on the author’s part to reintroduce me and make me love them again.

The magic in this is vague, but that’s on purpose. Tavin’s ability is greatly explored but as to where and why, that is up in the air. Where is magic, what is it in this world? For me, while this wasn’t the point of the novella it definitely rewet my appetite for it. I’m excited to return to this world and find out more.

There is a lot in this one about grief, a lot of hard imagery of a woman who has lost her love, and the horrible way that happened. So be wary going in if those are difficult topics or scenes for you to process but I really recommend this for new and old readers. Give this a try if you love adult fantasy, I think you’ll enjoy it.

4 out 5 sassy squirrels (so many squirrels, I was so happy about the squirrels)