Bumpy Oak Books

**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

4 stars

Kristen Ciccarelli returns with a standalone fantasy centered on song and sacrifice. Readers follow Emeline Lark who is living her dream of making her way in the music industry. But as Emeline works to realize her dream, there is much she is leaving behind. Whenever Emeline sings, the woods come for her. When her grandfather is missing and a tithe marker is left in his place, Emeline has to return to Edgewood to bring him home.

Ciccarelli’s Edgewood has every bit of feeling of old world fairy tales. The shiftlings, the Wood King, the shadow skins, and all the rest of the dangers and delights of the wood are the very embodiments of the modern fairy tale. Even the themes of sacrifice and equivalent exchange and fairy deals are all things that are common to the genre and familiar. Edgewood isn’t successful because it is doing something new. It is successful because Ciccarelli does it well.

The most powerful part of Edgewood, for me, is the running themes around memory. Keeping it, losing it. the value of it. Anyone who has had the experience of watching a loved one lose themselves to age will feel the presence of Ewan Lark strongly. Anyone who has had the experience of gaining and losing love will feel Hawthorne. And anyone who has felt the drive for a dream and questioned whether or not that dream should actually come true will feel Emeline.

Overall, Ciccarelli has added a wonderful story to the realm of fairy tales and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to explore Edgewood early.