Rating:

Tree Vengeance

Author: Debra Castaneda

is something ancient in the aspen forest, and it hates us.

Newly hired Forest Service Ranger Knox has mixed feelings about his Utah post. While he is excited to have a job, he is terrified to tell his wife that they are leaving her beloved big city for a remote posting. His cabin, right next to the rare clone aspen forest, is majestic and beautiful. But there are none of the big city mod cons and nowhere for Knox’s increasingly agitated wife to escape the isolation. Add to that the fact that something about the forest, scientifically unique as it is, is disturbing her, slowly eroding her patience.

Meanwhile, TV journalist Sandra has been overworking herself for years to finally get into production of main-line, regular viewing hours. When her new upstart intern, a mouthy guy who got the job because of his connections, gets all of her opportunities, Sandra starts to loose it. When a chance drops into her lap, however, she makes the most of it, sending her crew out to the aspen forest to report on a local monster right on Halloween. It should make some good prime time viewing, especially since eye witnesses are reporting run-ins with a malicious creature.

As the two characters converge, there storylines intersecting and overlapping, they begin to dig deeper into the legend, begin to suspect that it’s not something in the forest, but the forest itself that is so angry, so intent on killing.

I came to The Root Witch through one of my many GoodRead’s book clubs. It wasn’t the option I’d voted for, and it wasn’t a tale that I was especially enthusiastic about reading. It all sounded too much like The Blair Witch Project or, more recently, Paranormal Activity. These semi-reality based, oooops-I-caught-something-mystical-on-camera stories tend to be low budget in both execution and originality. I prefer creatures that come out to play, that allow you to fully see and revel in their beastliness, and characters who are less intent on going viral and more interested in solving some sort of problem and surviving an onslaught. So, needless to say, I read this ready to absolutely hate it and say a big “I told you so” to my book club. And, as always, I was surprised. Although the premise is simple and the action slow-burn, The Root Witch captured me, pulled me into a world where I was curious about both the forest and the individual lives of our two main characters. It just worked and worked well.

Firstly, the author captures our attention with Knox’s marital problems. Running low on money, married to a wife who demands that he pull his weight and provide, yet hates the career he chose, Knox is already down and nearly out when we meet him. Aside from the mystical and creepy aspects of his new work location, his strained relationship has a distinctive and compelling reality. His emotions are not overblown. They are controlled, yet deep and poignant, and it’s this instant emotional pull that makes us care what happens to these people (well, Knox anyway, I was totally rooting for the wife to get eaten).

Meanwhile, Sandra’s work problems and her slowly building relationship captivate us in another relatable way. Sandra has been struggling to prove a woman’s worth in a male dominated career path, and it’s not been an easy ride. Sandra has self-worth and self-esteem issues, and she is afraid that the man to whom she is attracted is too good to be true. It’s hard for Sandra to trust, and as she works on her career and controlling her anxiety, peppering it all with interesting details about working in journalism, we start to care deeply about her too.

By the time the creepy forest goes full out horror, I was deeply connected to both Knox and Sandra. I would have kept reading even if a monster never showed up, because I was invested in these very real-life problems and the emotions of these characters. The writing itself captured their dilemmas well without overdrawing anything and also created a relatable facsimile of hope, despair, and fear.

The main baddie of the story, a creepy forest with some very un-planetly activities, is unique. At first, I thought it would be lame. I mean, who’s afraid of trees? But author Debra Castaneda took the beauty of this silent, rustling forest and turned it into something subtle and malignant. By the time the cameras are rolling and the forest is coming out to play, we are ready to fully believe. The footage is incidental to the story, and the slow encroachment of the malevolent forest goes from subtle to all-out war quickly, escalating in a way that outpaces the slow burn of the story, but works with the reality of something ancient and evil awakening, craving revenge, and going on a rampage.

It sounds silly writing it all down, but it really wasn’t. At times it was spooky, at times it was downright terrifying, at times sad, and at other times simply imaginative and evocative. I wouldn’t have minded more of an explanation about the creature, more of a why-now twist, but overall, the story does a good job bringing about the confrontation and closing it in a realistic manner. The caught-on-camera moment doesn’t go the way you think it will, and instead serves as a catalyst for a surprisingly sensible character reaction.

Overall, I enjoyed The Root Witch immensely. I hope to read more from this author, and I still have fond memories of being captured and entwined by this strange little tale. Recommended.

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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