The Hallow Wood Asks Nothing and Gives Nothing
“If Tobias answered, Silver did not hear it. A moment later he shook his head hard. The Hallow Wood asked nothing and offered nothing; it only was―”
Emily Tesh, Drowned Country
About
Drowned Country is the the stunning sequel to Silver in the Wood, Emily Tesh’s lush, folkloric debut. This second volume of the Greenhollow duology once again invites readers to lose themselves in the story of Henry and Tobias, and the magic of a myth they’ve always known.
Even the Wild Man of Greenhollow can’t ignore a summons from his mother, when that mother is the indomitable Adela Silver, practical folklorist. Henry Silver does not relish what he’ll find in the grimy seaside town of Rothport, where once the ancient wood extended before it was drowned beneath the sea―a missing girl, a monster on the loose, or, worst of all, Tobias Finch, who loves him.
My Thoughts
Drowned Country is one of the most atmospheric books I had ever read only to be beaten by its predecessor Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh. It was whimsical, verdant, and dark. Even now, a year later, I still get the mental image of a deep, lustrous forest full of secrets. Silver in the Wood was the first book in the Greenhollow Duology. The second, Drowned Country, is just as good as the first, though its tone is slightly different.
Drowned Country brings back many of the characters from the first story, particularly the two male leads, Tobias and Silver. Where Silver in the Wood was very much Tobias’s story, Drowned Country belongs to Silver. Two years have passed since the events of the first novella. In that first story, the deep dark woods felt as much like a character as Tobias himself. Here, in Drowned Country, the temperament of the story shifts into something much more character-driven.
Silver has a difficult time finding his footing as the new wild man of the forest. He is sulky, petulant, and bored. Tobias, meanwhile, has taken to working with Silver’s mother, the aging monster hunter Adela Silver. When Adela asks Silver to help with her newest monster problem, a 900-year-old vampire and a missing ingenue in need of rescue, he jumps at the chance. Silver is bored and eager to reclaim some of the excitement he had before becoming the wild man. Thus begins their adventure, though things do not pan out quite the way we expect.
Most of the story’s real tension lies between Silver and Tobias. There is a certain charm between the two of them, a lightness that comes easily and speaks to how good Tesh’s writing is. Their relationship has an effortless quality. I spent much of the book wishing they would simply work things out. The background story involving elves and Maud matters, but it never feels as important as the relationship at the center of the novella. It is what they are doing, but it is not what the story is truly about.
The one small detractor for me is that I wished the book had been longer and that the plot had felt a bit more substantial. I wanted it to be more fleshed out. There were a few vague points that lost me as a reader, and because of that vagueness, the book also lost some of the atmospheric power that made Silver in the Wood so memorable. I could not picture this one quite as vividly as I could the first.
In the end, Tesh still does a wonderful job here. It is a fine ending, or beginning, depending on how you choose to look at it, for this duology. I loved the romance between Silver and Tobias. There is a slow-burn quality to it that comes very close to feeling steamy. This book gave me some real warm fuzzies.
I am sad the series is over, but in many ways, Silver and Tobias’s journey is only just beginning.
