Here are 100 books that After the Forest fans have personally recommended if you like
After the Forest.
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I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
This is one of those books that came along just when I needed it most.
Author Juliet Marillier viscerally shows the heartbreaking consequences for trauma survivors who are silenced and must keep a terrible secret. I loved the detailed medieval Irish setting, but I was especially drawn to this book because it’s a retelling of “The Wild Swans” (and I love this type of tale with a sister having to break her brothers’ curse in total silence). But what really sucked me in was the narrator’s plight and her quiet determination to persevere to save her loved ones at any cost to herself.
Sorcha, the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum, faces the difficult task of having to save her family from its enemies, who have bewitched her father and six older brothers while forcing her to choose between the life she has always known and a special love.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
Before reading Deerskin, I wouldn’t have believed any author could get away with writing a retelling of the "Donkeyskin"/"All Kinds of Fur" tale—and yet, Robin McKinley does a superb job.
McKinley keeps readers at a bit of a remove from this triggering tale (the one in which a lecherous king wants to marry his daughter), giving it a bit of a darkly dreamlike, dissociative quality. I love the way she focuses on the heroine’s healing rather than the trauma or its perpetrator.
It’s the tale of a long, dark teatime of the soul, and a quiet, very spiritual book.
“A fierce and beautiful story of rage and compassion, betrayal and loyalty, damage and love...A fairy tale for adults, one you'll never forget.”—Alice Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic
The only daughter of a beloved king and queen, Princess Lissar has grown up in the shadow of her parent’s infinite adoration for each other—an infatuation so great that it could only be broken by the queen’s unexpected passing. As Lissar reaches womanhood, it becomes clear to everyone in the kingdom that she has inherited her late mother’s breathtaking beauty. But on the eve of her…
I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
No book I’ve read before or since has made me feel seen the way Wendy, Darling does.
Author A.C. Wise perfectly captures the way a person’s past experience can be traumatic, and yet they still cling to it and think of it nostalgically. It felt like the author was inside my head (or I was in hers—but she was able to articulate things I never could). It’s cathartic and emotionally hard-hitting, and the writing is gorgeous. I love that Wendy is far from perfect but loves her found family fiercely and is on a path toward sorting herself out.
And yes, I know that some people don’t think of Peter Pan as a proper fairy tale, but I love this book too much to leave it out.
A lush, feminist re-imagining on what happened to Wendy after Neverland, for fans of Circe and The Mere Wife.
LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
Find the second star from the right, and fly straight on 'til morning, all the way to Neverland, a children's paradise with no rules, no adults, only endless adventure and enchanted forests - all led by the charismatic boy who will never grow old.
But Wendy Darling grew up. She has a husband and a young daughter called Jane, a life in London. But one night, after all these years, Peter Pan returns. Wendy…
Former model Kira McGovern picks up the paint brushes of her youth and through an unexpected epiphany she decides to mix ashes of the deceased with her paints to produce tributes for grieving families.
Unexpectedly this leads to visions and images of the subjects of her work and terrifying changes…
I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
This reimagining of the La Llorona legend hooked me with its perfect, gorgeous first line and would not let me go.
I loved author Maria DeBlassie’s unique voice and her loving depiction of the Southwest US. But most of all, I love the way Weep, Woman, Weep digs in to intergenerational trauma, and the way women inherit it from their mothers and, if they aren’t careful, pass it on to their daughters in return.
This is a story first and foremost of resilience, though. I wept all the way through, and it was so worth it.
A compelling gothic fairytale by bruja and award-winning writer Maria DeBlassie.
The women of Sueño, New Mexico don't know how to live a life without sorrows. That's La Llorona's doing. She roams the waterways looking for the next generation of girls to baptize, filling them with more tears than any woman should have to hold. And there's not much they can do about the Weeping Woman except to avoid walking along the riverbank at night and to try to keep their sadness in check. That's what attracts her to them: the pain and heartache that gets passed down from one…
I used to get in trouble (nightly) for eating with my book propped against my plate. Yet with all the books I devoured, there was never one about a kid that looked like me with a family like mine. The single anomaly was Blubber, which absolutely thrilled me to see a supporting character named Tracy Wu. And while the YA world has thankfully become more diverse, BIPOC authors and protagonists are still the exception in adult literature. I’m excited to share this list of badass female AAPI authors who write equally strong protagonists because, though we’ve come a long way since Tracy Wu, we still have further to go.
I started this book on a plane, continued to read in my seat after the plane landed, and was seriously annoyed at the flight attendant when forced to deplane. This is one of those books with a simple twist on the fantasy genre I wish I’d thought of—a race of beings who subsist on eating books.
Dean’s world building is superb, the protagonist is a badass, and the portrayal of the fractured relationships among characters—especially with her son—complicated and relatable. I finished it (in a chair at the airport) in one sitting, and it was worth it.
THE NO. 2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'I devoured this' V.E. Schwab
'A vampire-themed Handmaid's Tale, with effective thrills that are intensified by social commentary' Guardian
A gorgeous new fantasy horror - a book about stories and fairy tales with family and love at its dark heart...
A gorgeous new fantasy horror - a book about stories and fairy tales with family and love at its dark heart...
Hidden across England and Scotland live six old Book Eater families.
The last of their lines, they exist on the fringes of society and subsist on a diet of stories and legends.
From my early days of reading Fire and Hemlock and various books of mythology, I’ve loved traditional tales from all around the world. In college I didn’t aim to major in things that would be useful to me as a fantasy writer, but anthropology and folklore made a great background for that job. Nowadays, I actively seek out books based on traditional stories, especially those that go beyond the most well-known European fairy tales and myths. Sometimes, they inspire me, in turn, to write my own stories!
This is an absolutely gorgeous, lyrical read that does my favorite thing: blending folklore–in this case, Eastern European Jewish traditions–with historical individuals and events. It’s melancholy without being unrelentingly grim, hopeful without ignoring the hard edges of history, and it does a beautiful job of weaving its various strands together.
I don’t tend to read a lot of books that captivate me from the first page with their prose, but this was one of them.
A SPELLBINDING TALE OF LOVE AND LOSS, SISTERHOOD AND THE TANGLED THREADS OF FATE.
'Blending folktale with history, hope with tragedy, its touch will linger on your heart long after you put it down' Marie Brennan, author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent series
This is how a fairy tale begins . . .
Deep in the Hungarian woods, the sacred magic of King Solomon lives on in his descendants. Gathering under the midnight stars, they perform small miracles and none are more gifted than the great Rabbi Isaac and his three daughters.
Rusty Allen is an Iraqi War veteran with PTSD. He moves to his grandfather's cabin in the mountains to find some peace and go back to wilderness training.
He gets wrapped up in a kidnapping first, as a suspect and then as a guide. He tolerates the sheriff's deputy with…
As a former journalist, I was trained to look at all sides of a story. When I read, I am drawn to books that have multiple characters with their own narratives. Sometimes the stories intersect with an “aha!” moment, and sometimes they’re told side-by-side inside each character’s head. Either way, it’s intriguing to have different perspectives—especially in a mystery or thriller. That’s why I use the points of view of three wives in An Inconvenient Wife to give my readers insight into each of these fascinating women.
I love a good legal thriller, especially one that focuses on character. The intern of the title is young and hungry, eager and ambitious. But she’s got a secret, one that would cause her to lose her job if the judge she’s working for found out about it. Not that the judge doesn’t have her own secrets.
Told from both the intern and judge’s points of view, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to see who would discover the other’s secrets first.
A young Harvard law student falls under the spell of a charismatic judge in this timely and thrilling novel about class, ambition, family and murder.
Madison Rivera lands the internship of a lifetime working for Judge Kathryn Conroy. But Madison has a secret that could destroy her career. Her troubled younger brother Danny has been arrested, and Conroy is the judge on his case.
When Danny goes missing after accusing the judge of corruption, Madison’s quest for answers brings her deep into the judge’s glamorous world. Is Kathryn Conroy a mentor, a victim, or a criminal? Is she trying to…
Growing up as a fat kid, I hardly ever saw myself reflected in the media I consumed. If I did, it was by someone relegated to the side character status as the funny fat friend or the cautionary tale. Now, it’s my great joy to spread the word about books that put fat people in the spotlight—living our best lives, falling in love, and just having our much-deserved Main Character Moments.
I love this book because, in true Crystal Maldonado fashion, it’s funny and heartfelt and full of immaculate vibes AND tackles big topics like fatphobia and living with chronic illness in frank, relatable ways.
Whit leaps off the page and felt instantly recognizable to me as a fat person who has been there. And then there’s the absolutely swoony romance—I was hooked right away!
Could you plan the Fall Formal with your (hot) nemesis? Whit Rivera is about to find out.
Frenemies Whit and Zay have been at odds for years (ever since he broke up with her in, like, the most embarrassing way imaginable), so when they’re forced to organize the fall formal together, it's a literal disaster. Sparks fly as Whitney—type-A, passionate, a perfectionist, and a certified sweater-weather fanatic—butts heads with Zay, a dry, relaxed skater boy who takes everything in stride. But not all of those sparks are bad. . . .
Has their feud been a big misunderstanding all along?…
This recommendation list is a celebration of these authors’ creativity! Like every reader I love a good story, and this list highlights five books that not only weave entertainment within their respective genres—but also tell their stories in unique visual ways by being fearless with formatting. I love being into a story and seeing there’s a journal entry or letter coming up—it’s like an intimate view into the characters’ world and experiences, and I want to eat it up! If you’re interested in finding more authors who do this, Googling “epistolary novels” will help.
I loved Maame not only because it is the perfect concoction of tender and funny, but because the Google searches formatted within the story were like the perfect cherry on top of the perfectly assembled turtle sundae.
I found myself looking forward to every time the main character Google-searched her next new-adulthood obstacle—like friendship, grief, dating, and caregiving.
It was visually stimulating, and hilarious, and a fun edition to the story.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! • A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick • A February 2023 Indie Next Pick
"Sparkling." ―The New York Times
"An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys―and the guilt―of trying to find your own way in life." ―Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts
"Lively, funny, poignant . . . Prepare to fall in love with Maddie. I did!" ―Bonnie Garmus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman.
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
by
Alexis Krasilovsky,
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
I love old records: there’s a romance to thinking about who originally owned them, where they were listened to, what life soundtrack they defined. My connection to the music industry is tenuous at best. I’ve been in recording studios, helped load equipment in and out of gigs—roadie duty?—designed liner notes, and even performed as a backup singer in a pick-up band of coworkers from the retailer where I worked. (We had two gigs.) I also like when humor is used in mysteries to offset the darkness of murder and define a character—how he or she will get through the challenge. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
I’m a fan of characters who have messy lives that need fixing, and that’s Dahlia “Doll” Devine (lead singer of a country band).
Instead of the record side of the industry, this one gives us the grimy dive bar version with a house all-girl band. I easily pictured being up there on stage with Dahlia (drums, maybe? tambourine?). There’s a strong character growth arc, too, which was satisfying.
From award-winning author Lori Rader-Day, Wreck Your Heart is an engaging, “wisecracking and wonderful” crime novel with a big heart, about a country and midwestern singer out to catch her big break before family―or murder―wrecks everything.
Dahlia “Doll” Devine had the kind of hardscrabble beginning that could launch a thousand broken-hearted country songs, but now she’s the star of her own stage at McPhee’s Tavern. As part of Chicago’s―yes, Chicago’s―country music scene, Dahlia is an up-and-coming singer in spangles and boots of classic country tunes. Up and coming, that is, until her boyfriend Joey up and went, taking the rent…
