A History of Wild Places: A Novel

by Shea Ernshaw

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

You might recognize Shea Ernshaw as the YA fantasy author of the novel Winterwood. Here, Ernshaw brings the magic of her pen to an adult mystery/thriller. Never has the search for a missing person sent us on so many tangents. We are excited to be part of the search. Of course, THIS is the true magic of reading — and writing. Well done, Shea Ernshaw, well done.

In this “riveting, atmospheric thriller that messes with your mind in the best way” (Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author), three residents of a secluded, seemingly peaceful commune investigate the disappearances of two outsiders.

Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Often hired by families as a last resort, he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—and is soon led to a place many believed to be only a legend.

Called Pastoral, this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it…he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James.

Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease—rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms.

“As spine-chilling as it is beautifully crafted” (Ruth Emmie Lang, author of Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance), A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982164805
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	12/07/2021
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	6,017
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Shea Ernshaw is the author of A History of Wild Places, the New York Times bestseller The Wicked Deep, Winterwood, and A Wilderness of Stars. She is the winner of the 2019 Oregon Book Award. She lives in a small mountain town in Oregon and is happiest when lost in a good book, lost in the woods, or writing her next novel.

Editorial Reviews

10/04/2021

YA author Ernshaw (Winterwood) makes her adult debut with a lurid, fast-paced story of a reclusive commune. Travis Wren, a private investigator with psychic abilities, is hired by the parents of Maggie St. James to find her, five years after her disappearance at age 26. He follows her trail to Pastoral, an isolated community founded a generation earlier by hippies in Northern California’s Three River Mountains. Ernshaw then switches to life inside Pastoral, with no sign of Travis or Maggie, and where Theo, longing to leave and doubting the warnings from the new controlling leader, Levi, of a fatal disease beyond their village, repeatedly risks venturing past the boundary and finds himself unharmed, but doesn’t tell his wife, Calla, about these illicit expeditions. Calla’s younger blind sister, Bee, is carrying Levi’s baby and is shattered when Levi refuses to publicly acknowledge her pregnancy. When another woman’s baby is born in need of medical attention, Levi cruelly punishes the father for attempting to seek outside help. Meanwhile, Theo and Calla discover some items belonging to Travis and Maggie that suggest they were in Pastoral. As the mysteries deepen, Calla, Theo, and Bee piece together the shocking truth about the missing characters. When it’s revealed, it strains credulity, and the prose is often simplistic, but the twisty plot brims with tension. There’s plenty of fodder here for a miniseries. Agent: Jessica Regel, Foundry Literary + Media. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

07/01/2021

Famed for his ability to locate people who have vanished, Travis Wren traces missing children's author Maggie St. James to Pastoral, a community so secluded that people think it no longer exists. He promptly vanishes himself, his abandoned truck found years later by a member of the community, and the community's corrosive secrets start emerging. From the author of the New York Times best-selling The Wicked Deep; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

Let the wild rumpus start! A History of Wild Places is poignant and original, and will truly take you to uncharted places. One of the best novels I’ve read this year.

author of Every Last Fear and The Night Shift Alex Finlay

A gorgeously written tale of a community frozen in time and falling headlong into darkness. The plot twists will leave you breathless.

author of Gather the Daughters Jennie Melamed

"A History of Wild Places is as eerie and enticing as a gingerbread house in a dark forest. My advice? Gobble up the whole thing. This book will enchant you with its delicious, dangerous magic."

author of The Lightkeepers and The Wildlands Abby Geni

Dark and atmospheric, A History of Wild Places is a twisting, engrossing delight. Ernshaw’s skillful mix of mystery, psychological thriller, and paranormal-tinged drama keeps the ground shifting beneath her characters and readers. What a wonderful rabbit hole to fall down.

author of Light From Other Stars and The Book of S Erika Swyler

Deep in the woods, a hidden community lives by its own strange rules honed by myth, suggestion, and the terrible powers of groupthink. Is Pastoral as bucolic and lilting as its name, or do the trees split with rot, spewing a pox on all who dare to leave? In powerful, lush prose, Shea Ernshaw has created a world soaked through with the dread of nightmares. A terrifying and timely book.

bestselling author of The River at Night and Into Erica Ferencik

"An entirely enthralling novel, a true history of a world that pulls the reader into its depths. It is darkly rich in its setting, and its visual, visceral, and absorbing moments are both haunting and rewarding to the reader.

author of Madam Phoebe Wynne

"A richly embroidered tapestry deepens in hues as the story turns darker. Readers will sink into this one, and although they might question details of the resolution, they will be moved by the novel's power."

Booklist

A riveting, atmospheric thriller that messes with your mind in the best way. Shea Ernshaw knows what she’s doing.

New York Times bestselling author of Strange the D Laini Taylor

As spine-chilling as it is beautifully crafted, A History of Wild Places will have you compulsively checking your pulse and the whites of your eyes. It will almost certainly make you reconsider that walk in the woods, or at least, compel you to leave a trail of breadcrumbs in your wake.

author of Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance Ruth Emmie Lang