A women-in-horror anthology edited by Lindy Ryan. Foreword by Christina Henry.
Into the Forest features twenty-three new and exclusive stories inspired by the Baba Yaga—the witch of Slavic folklore—written by some of today’s leading women-in-horror. Featured contributors include Bram Stoker Award® winners and nominees Gwendolyn Kiste, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Mercedes M. Yardley, Monique Snyman, Donna Lynch, Lisa Quigley, and R. J. Joseph, among others, as well as New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline West, and an introduction by novelist Christina Henry. The collection also features a poem from Bram Stoker Award® winning poet, Stephanie M. Wytovich, and pieces penned by “freshly hatched” voices of women-in-horror from around the globe
Deep in the dark forest, in a cottage that spins on birds’ legs behind a fence topped with human skulls, lives the Baba Yaga. A guardian of the water of life, she lives with her sisters and takes to the skies in a giant mortar and pestle, creating tempests as she goes. Those who come across the Baba Yaga may find help, or hinderance, or horror.
She is wild, she is woman, she is witch—and these are her tales.
Edited by Lindy Ryan (Under Her Skin), this collection brings together some of today’s leading voices of women-in-horror as they pay tribute to the baba yaga, and go Into the Forest. Each story reflects the wild and temperamental nature of the Baba Yaga, ranging from dark fantasy and folklore to horror as each go deep in the dark forest, and the diverse and inclusive experiences of women as they look to Baba Yaga as their muse.
Lindy Ryan is a bestselling and multi-award-winning author-editor-director with numerous titles in development for film/television adaptation. An award-winning professor, Lindy has published two textbooks on visual data analytics as well as numerous papers and chapters. She also writes seasonal romance as Lindy Miller and is the author of the forthcoming books-to-film Renovate My Heart and The Magic Ingredient. Lindy currently serves as a board member for the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and was named a 2020 Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree. She is an active member and staff volunteer for the Horror Writers Association.
Christina Henry is the best-selling author of the BLACK WINGS series featuring Agent of Death Madeline Black and her popcorn-loving gargoyle Beezle. She enjoys running long distances, reading anything she can get her hands on and watching movies with samurai, zombies and/or subtitles in her spare time. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son.
My thoughts: as a child the only witch I was afraid of was Baba Yaga, all of the fairy tales, myths and legends I read, all of the scary things dwelling in the pages but only an old woman in a house on chicken legs, with a fence made of bones, who travels in a giant pestle and mortar, terrified me.
This excellent collection of poems, short stories and reimaginings reignited the finger of fear that Baba Yaga left in my spine as a child. I can’t pick a favourite piece, they’re all so good. And while all of the authors are women, they’re a diverse crowd and bring their unique styles and backgrounds to these tales. While the Baba Yaga originated in Slavic countries and the most famous version is Russian, she resonates in many cultures and traditions, the old woman whose sometimes young, sometimes one or three, and sometimes she’s you, or me…
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 