One of the best Appalachian mysteries I have ever read. I felt and lived the story. ( )

30% DNF
I didn’t like the character or the jumping between pats and present . Also found myself bored.

Silly romance

One Sentence Summary: After the death of her best friend Sarah, Mel takes her ashes to Sarah’s family’s home in the small mountain town Morgan’s Gap, only to end up wrapped up in the town, the people, and the wildwood that refuses to let her go.

Overall
If Garden Spells (Sarah Addison Allen) had a baby with For the Wolf (Hannah Whitten) and made Snow Dust and Boneshine (Grendolyn Peach Soleil) and Quaking Soul (Jennifer M. Zeiger) it’s godmothers, I’m pretty sure Wildwood Whispers would be the product. It’s witchy and magical and the reverence to nature is stunning. There’s also something of an ideological undercurrent to the whole story as the people of Morgan’s Gap and the Sect community just a few miles away have a silent war going on. But Wildwood Whispers is also all about Mel, a foster child all her life, finally finding her place and a home and purpose.

Extended Thoughts
Mel and Sarah met as children in foster care. Mel never knew her parents and Sarah’s mother was killed. But they have each other and they call each other sisters, drawn together as though by magic. When Sarah is killed, Mel keeps her promise of taking her ashes to the Ross cabin in Morgan’s Gap, a small Appalachian town on the edge of the wildwood.

Mel never intended on staying in Morgan’s Gap, but an elderly woman affectionately called Granny by everyone in town, takes her on as an apprentice, giving her time to heal and to learn. The longer she stays, the stronger Mel is tied to Morgan’s Gap and the wildwood, uncovering secrets and magic, and earning the hate of Reverend Moon, the man who runs a strict Sect community just a few miles away, compelling Mel to believe Sarah’s death wasn’t just an accident.

Wildwood Whispers is a witchy read. It’s witchier than I expected, but I loved it because of that. It doesn’t shy away from the magic, doesn’t give a sprinkle of magic and call it magical realism. It really brings magic into our reality, and made me believe in it all over again. I feel about ready to start gardening and hope it turns out to be just as magical as the wildwood.

Morgan’s Gap is an incredible and odd little town in the mountains of Virginia. It’s close knit, though traditions have started falling by the wayside and younger generations are more interested in modern times than the old magical ways of their parents and grandparents. It’s quaint, but didn’t always feel quintessentially southern to me. Still, I really liked how small and close it was. When times called for it, the town rallied together. There’s a delightful magical thread that runs through it all, connecting people and offering the wisewomen and woodsmen certain magical affinities and a unique closeness to the wildwood around the town. The wildwood was fascinating. At times, it felt truly alive and protective. At other times, it kind of freaked me out a little, but I loved how there’s such a close bond between it and the people. It’s a big part of the story and, while I probably wouldn’t want to wander around it, I couldn’t help but appreciate and love it.

At the same time, there’s something of a religious or ideological conflict underlying the entire story because a Sect community is just a few miles away. It’s strange and strict and cruel, especially to the women and girls. Led by Reverend Moon, it keeps its women close and obedient, though many seek the wisdom, magic, and healing of the Ross women and Granny. Moon, however, is displeased and haunts Mel as she moves through town, a threatening, shadowy figure who is good friends with Morgan’s Gap’s mayor.

As Mel becomes tangled more and more in Morgan’s Gap, she understands someone might have intentionally killed Sarah and her mother. She’s determined to solve that mystery, but it means danger is in her near future. Mel, though, is strong and brave. Once protective younger sister of Sarah, she’s now determined to find out exactly what happened to her friend and why while also taking her own rightful place in Morgan’s Gap. No matter how much danger it puts her in.

I had a hard time figuring Mel out. The story is told from her perspective, but I found it a struggle to get to know her. She repeatedly tells the reader how tough and closed off she is, but I couldn’t help but think of her as something softer. I know everything she did and why, but I didn’t always feel I understood, or even that she understood, what she was doing and why. The wildwood just seemed to hook it’s thorns into her and she was helpless. But I did like her. She’s so strong and wants so badly to do what’s right. In a way, she seems to be taking Sarah’s place, which kind of felt weird, but I loved that she was finding her own feet, her own home.

There’s also a bit of a romance. While it comes on early, it’s not very present. Jacob Walker is, for some reason, distrusted by Granny, but Mel feels pulled towards him. I enjoyed the conflicted feelings, but it also felt fairly predictable. How they ended up so closely wound, though, was a lot of fun. They have a unique, weird relationship.

The one thing that bothered me about Wildwood Whispers was the beginning. It switched so fast between Mel and Sarah I almost felt like I was getting whiplash. It took me a couple of chapters to really find my feet with this book. The flashbacks/memories were also a little jarring, but, by the end, they started making sense. I just wish they had tied in a little bit more into Mel’s story. It felt like they were built up around one detail and just spun out so they spanned a few pages.

Wildwood Whispers is a fun, magical, witchy read. I loved that some of the people had certain abilities, certain magical parts of their beings. I also loved the care it took with the natural world. It’s detailed and lush and there’s clearly a huge tie between the people and the wildwood. It felt at many times like it was showing reverence to nature, gently telling readers how important it is to respect nature and accept its gifts. I loved how the wisewomen used the nature offered to tend to the people of Morgan’s Gap, to offer remedies and aids and any kind of help they could.

Thank you to Angela Man at Orbit and NetGalley for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.
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I think this is going to be my most favorite read of 2021. It is my most surprising this year, so far. I was expecting a pleasant read that had some drama and was set in the place my heart calls home. I figured it might be a little emotional for me. I was right but oh so wrong, too. It was that but so much more. This book holds so many genres inside its cover that I really can’t determine a best match to just one.
The author did an amazing job with descriptions. I felt the forest and pictured it coming alive in my mind. The characters were well written with some feeling familiar to me. Reading this I thought often of the women who are no longer here but influenced my world. There were romances. The major one between Mel and Jacob. But also some lesser ones that were lovely and written in so naturally it didn’t feel completely like a romance novel at all. There was also the non romantic love between friends who become family. There was a mystery to solve that involved murder bringing with it ties to human trafficking. There was the lessens from nature and folk remedies. The magic found in the hills and hollers that you can hear of in sayings, songs and folklore still today. This would probably fall into the fantasy genre but, as a woman who still holds deeply her girl belief in fairies, I hesitate to place it completely in that genre. There is a battle between good and evil. I would have liked a bit of blending between Christianity and the Old Beliefs but that’s just me. I have a blended belief that holds both equally. Sadly, though, I know there are still religions, (mostly in the extremes, I feel), that lock out other beliefs. The battle between the two religions made for riveting reading, especially in terms of how women can be treated within any religion extremist beliefs. It is a book about small towns and the secrets they can hold. It is a book about grieving and a young woman finding herself while letting go of her best friend. So you can see why I find it difficult to put this book into one genre and why I think this book will be my most favorite of the year. I honestly want to buy copies for all my friends and tell them, “you must read this book!” I hope you, reading the reviews, decide to read it and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

*I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. No review was required, just as no word of mouth recommendations are, but I will be doing both. My review is based on my overwhelming delight in reading this book.*
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