Review by Elizabeth C. Bunce
Fantasy fans likely know Terri Windling primarily as an anthologist, editor of collections of modern fairy tales with co-editor Ellen Datlow including Black Thorn, White Rose, The Green Man, A Wolf at the Door, and others. Now Windling’s own original novel, The Wood Wife (1996) is getting a new release from Tor Books as part of its “Tor Essentials” library of books.
Readers (and writers) who came of age in the 1990s will find much here that feels like coming home to a familiar landscape. Windling’s tale of magic in the American desert, and the humans seduced by it, is at once a murder mystery, a story about art and artists, and a haunting fairy tale. The Wood Wife is a classic example of American fantasy at its finest.
When a poet she’s never met dies and leaves writer Maggie Black his remote home in Arizona, Maggie seizes the chance to leave her nomadic life behind and settle in the stark and beautiful Sonoran Desert near Tucson. Hoping to write a biography of Davis Cooper, the poet she wrote her college thesis on, Maggie eagerly digs into his papers, not realizing she’s opening the door to more than just his past. Strange things begin to happen: objects and people go missing, she has mysterious encounters with even more mysterious strangers, and she begins experiencing rumbles of unearthly dangers. As Maggie grows to understand the desert, she also uncovers its underlying magic, learning it’s as full of folklore, fairy life, and magic as anywhere in Western literature.
joins 2011’s 
and 2013’s 
about the nation of Welce, where every citizen feels a kinship to one of the five elements, thanks in part to random blessings drawn by strangers at their birth. The sweela are drawn to the element of fire, and 
, etc.), to her Twelve Houses high fantasies (
, etc.), to the recent urban fantasy Shifting Circle novels (
, etc.), Shinn’s series consist of separate standalone stories linked by characters and worldbuilding—not one-long-novel-in-five-parts, although there may be an overarching series plot, as well. But it’s her worldbuilding that makes Shinn such a standout fantasy series writer. The worlds are rich, deep, unique, and immediately accessible. Shinn has said that Elemental Blessings was originally planned as a single book, but it was so obviously destined from its conception to be a classic Shinn five-volume series (we hope and assume!). Like many of Shinn’s worlds, Welce has a special sort of magic tied to the land within its borders. Not only do Welchins identify with the elements (the elay relate to air; the coru to water; the hunti to wood; and the torz to earth), but some possess an even stronger connection, sensing and even manipulating the elements around (and sometimes even within) them.
, a high fantasy adventure about a thief on the run who stumbles into a Renaissance era revolution. 
, by Suzanne Collins, 2009 Newbery winner 
by Neil Gaiman, and 2012 Eisner winner 
by Vera Brosgol. Elizabeth is one of only a handful of writers to have two books on Oprah’s Kids Reading List. Her first novel, 
is the fantasy noir sequel to 
, 
