A History of Wild Places

Hauntingly atmospheric, Shea Ernshaw's A History of Wild Places explores the isolated cult-like community of Pastoral and one family that is about to be rocked to its core. Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, are lifelong members of Pastoral, an idyllic commune founded in the 1970s. Since its founding, however, Pastoral has grown increasingly alienated from the rest of the world, as its residents have come to believe that to leave the community limits would be to catch a mysterious and deadly disease called the rot. But when Theo finds evidence that two outsiders--a missing children's book author and the man hired to find her--have entered Pastoral and since disappeared, Theo, Calla and Bee's bonds with each other and with their community will be tested.

Split between the three protagonists' perspectives, A History of Wild Places is written as a kaleidoscope of colliding realities. The result is a novel about paranoia that is hypnotic in the way it pieces together the lies its characters tell each other and themselves. While the mystery at its center--the fate of one enigmatic author--keeps readers guessing, it is the mesmerizing details about Pastoral that prove truly captivating in this chilling tale. Full of discomforting rituals, mysterious myths and rugged beauty, Pastoral is as seductive as it is terrifying, a fantasy world transformed into nightmare by an uncannily familiar desire for control. Ernshaw's slow-burn thriller may have a conclusion, but the spell Pastoral places over its readers cannot be so easily resolved. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

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