After the Forest

A lush fantasy retelling of Hansel and Gretel set in seventeenth-century Germany, perfect for fans of Brigid Kemmerer, Naomi Novik and Marissa Meyer.

Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their father and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.

Greta has a secret, though: the witch’s grimoire, secreted away and whispering in Greta’s ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you’ve ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat. But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her mysteriously addictive gingerbread, not to mention the rumours about her childhood misadventures, are a source of gossip and suspicion.

And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta’s magic – magic she is still trying to understand – may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn’t kill her first.