Silver in the Wood

Tobias Finch has guarded Greenhollow Wood for more than four hundred years. He is the Wild Man of the forest, bound to the trees, tending its dryads and keeping the villagers safe from the things that live among them, with only a cat for company in his cottage. Then Henry Silver arrives, rain-soaked, the new owner of the woods and of Greenhollow Hall, and an amateur folklorist eager to collect the local legends.

As the two men grow close, Henry's research into stories of a wild man who carries off young men begins to point at old secrets, and Tobias has to face his own past and the darker magic in the wood. Silver in the Wood, the debut novella from Emily Tesh and the first book of the Greenhollow Duology, is a queer reimagining of the Green Man myth set in a Victorian-like England. It won the 2020 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella.