Delightful and darkly magical. Julia Fine has written a beautiful modern myth, a coming-of-age story for a girl with a worrisome power over life and death. I loved it. Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Travelers Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry

Finalist for the Bram Stoker Superior Achievement in a First Novel AwardShortlisted for the Chicago Review of Books Best Novel PrizeA Bustle Unmissable Debut of the YearA Popsugar Best Book of the YearA Washington Post Best Fantasy Book of MayA Refinery 29 Best May BookA Chicago Review of Books Best May BookA Verge Gripping Fantasy Novel of May

In this darkly funny, striking debut, a highly unusual young woman must venture into the woods at the edge of her home to remove a curse that has plagued the women in her family for millenniaan utterly original novel with all the mesmerizing power of The Tigers Wife, The Snow Child, and Swamplandia!

Cursed. Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her familys manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisies father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories. What he does not tell Maisie is that for over a millennium her female ancestors have also vanished into the wood, never to emergefor she is descended from a long line of cursed women.

But one day Maisies father disappears, and Maisie must venture beyond the walls of her carefully constructed life to find him. Away from her home and the wood for the very first time, she encounters a strange world filled with wonder and deception. Yet the farther she strays, the more the wood calls her home. For only there can Maisie finally reckon with her power and come to understand the wildest parts of herself.