A beautiful forest. A terrifying legend.
It’s 1986. Two strangers, hundreds of miles apart, grapple with disturbing incidents in a one-of-a-kind quaking aspen forest.
Knox is a new Forest Service ranger assigned to a vast, remote territory in Utah.
Sandy is a producer fighting for her place in a tough TV newsroom.
Both have heard about the shadowy figure believed to menace visitors to the forest. When a man disappears and reports of the Root Witch begin coming in, Knox and Sandy are plunged into a living nightmare.
Their lives converge on Halloween. Sandy sends a news crew to investigate the sightings. But when the team goes missing, and a shocking video surfaces revealing the ghastly truth, Knox and Sandy face the biggest decision of their lives.
This novel is based on a short story, “The Root Witch: An Urban Legend Caught on Tape.”
The Root Witch is part of Debra Castaneda’s Dark Earth Rising series of standalone novels. Read the books in any order.
Content warning: Animal death; anxiety; profanity
Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe! This will be a quick review today as my favourite things about this story are mostly spoilers so, alas, I can’t bleat on about it too much! I’ve been on the hunt for adult horror featuring witches recently – this genre is much harder to find than vampires, ghosts, or zombies. I don’t know why, because witches are awesome! Of my recent reads, I really did like the protagonists (especially Sandy) the most. We have dual narratives going, tied into the same plot of course. Sandy is a woman who works in a news station, having to work twice as hard as the guys around her for less praise, and is particularly annoyed when some rich kid waltzes in because of nepotism. Knox has recently moved into town and is a new ranger. Inevitably, their paths will meet!
I enjoyed the story but my favourite thing about it was Sandy. I found her so relatable and likeable and I really looked forward to her sections the most. She seemed to be dealing with a million things and I was interested in all of them. Similarly, I feared for Knox (being a forest ranger when there’s something dastardly lurking in the woods!), but I was also very invested in his personal life. I was pretty gripped, in terms of character. That’s not to say that the story itself fell by the wayside, I just mention it because my favourite part of a book, when done well, is the characters, and I loved them here.
If you’re looking for a witchy horror book with a woodland/small town setting, you might enjoy this! If you’d like to check out the book or author there are links below for you:
Happy Goat Horror 
Leave a comment