How many books with witches living on the edge of a dangerous wood have you read? Probably many, and even if you haven’t, maybe from just looking at blurbs you already know what to expect. The witch is maybe young or young-looking, and very pretty, and there’s usually a “witch hunter” or a demon or a shapeshifter that’s prohibitively hot and sassy and is after her for the same reason cats go after mice.

Gone are the days of the witch in Hänsel and Gretel. And I, for one, find that replacing one fairy tale trope for another modern fairy tale trope that’s not even part of the traditional lore isn’t my idea of improvement.

So when I do pick up a book with a witch protagonist, it must have something worthwhile to offer. In the case of this book, the blurb wasn’t selling me anything out of the ordinary, I took it up on A. G. Slatter’s name alone.

I’ve said this before: the author reminds me of another Angela for how she writes and weaves fairy tales and folklore into her stories in a way that makes them read both familiar and different at the same time, very immersive and atmospheric. That was my impression when I first found her work in an anthology years ago, by now she’s had enough experience and has polished her own style to be different to Angela Carter’s. Some similarities remain, and I’m glad for it, but Slatter is her own distinct flavour of fairy teller.

What does A Forest Darkly offer that’s different to the legion of witch-in-a-dark-wood stories out there? Oh, the answer is easy: Mehrab.

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