Exclusive Excerpt from THE LORD OF THE WOOD Chapter 7:
Arthur bit his lip. It seemed strange the forest would offer a haven after putting him through so much, but the vale seemed safe enough. Safer than where they’d been, at any rate, but whose home was it? Whoever lived here might jump out and attack, or challenge him to a series of riddles, of which he’d get the last wrong and be turned to stone, or eaten, or perhaps they’d skip the formalities and eat him right off the bat.
Well, no good standing here.
He knocked on the door of the oddly shaped house. “Hello?”
Not a house: a tree. Rather, it was a house, but a house built into—or growing from—an oak tree with an impossibly distended belly. Instead of a roof, the crown of the tree branched up and out, extending past the surrounding evergreens in both directions. Arthur gaped, recollected himself, and knocked again.
“I don’t mean to intrude, but . . .”
The door creaked open. Arthur swallowed. Notwithstanding their helpfulness, he didn’t like the way things kept responding to him—as if someone were watching.
He peered into the tree-house. “Hello?”
It was unlike any house he’d ever seen, all wooden curves and smooth edges. The door and windows curved into funny, fairy-tale shapes. Greenery draped the walls and stairs, but he couldn’t tell whether it grew from them or had been hung there. The thin light of a winter evening filtered through the windows and, somehow, the ceiling. Craning his neck, Arthur found the ceiling wasn’t a ceiling so much as the dense and tangled canopy of a tree, except that no cold or snow came through. Odds and ends dangled from the branches: dried bunches of herbs, coils of rope, bags of roots and apples, and a curious silver basin.
For all its wonder, the house was tiny. By the door was a small round table with a single chair tucked under it. Beyond were a woodstove and two armchairs, one shabby, the other barely touched. A double bed with a curved headboard and a patchwork quilt squeezed into the far corner alongside a small side table and a chest of drawers. An icebox and counter were along the front wall. A short, low staircase curved around the wall behind the stove and disappeared, perhaps to a washroom. That was it.
The house was warm and dry, however, which was all Arthur could wish for. A fire crackled within the stove; a pot of stew simmered on its surface. Arthur’s mouth watered. Someone must have been here recently, to have left the fire going, but he stepped farther into the house without thinking. His extremities stung in the sudden warmth. No longer did he wonder whether the vale was safe, what eldritch creature might live here, why the forest might have led him to safety after all the tricks it had played. His whole concern was for his immediate needs, all of which the house promised to meet.
Freya had already wandered as far as the armchairs, nosing at them as if to determine which was more comfortable.
“By all means,” Arthur said. “Make yourself at home.”
He staggered toward the woodstove, but his legs wobbled and gave way. Now that he seemed safe, his body had given up on, well, everything.
Not sure what else to do, he kicked his shoes off and dragged himself to the bed. He collapsed on the patchwork quilt, too exhausted to bother getting under it. The cat curled into a fluffy black ball at his side. Within minutes, they were both asleep.
They hadn’t been asleep long when they awoke to a figure standing over the bed.
The cat hissed and streaked across the room, darting under one of the armchairs.
Arthur’s heart hammered, but he sat up slowly. The figure was a man, mostly. Shorter than Arthur by several inches, with pallid skin, as if he hadn’t seen the sun in a long time, and dark hair in a knot. A scar ran from his left brow to his cheek, his eye milky and faded; his other eye was hazel, dark and mossy in the dim light of the woodstove. He wore old furs and a knee brace, put his weight on his left leg.
The man had antlers. Autumn leaves, crimson and gold, wound around them. A tangle of greenery curled over his shoulders and around his throat as if it had grown there.
Arthur’s breath caught. The man was like something from a fairy tale.
Or he was, until he growled, “This is too much.”
Arthur scrunched his shirt in his fists. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude, I—”
“Is it not enough for men to destroy the forest? Must you penetrate my very home?”
Gripping Arthur by the shoulder, the man dragged him from the bed. Arthur’s mouth went dry. The man’s fingers dug into him, hard and hurting.
He threw Arthur into the snow. Arthur landed hard on his elbows, socks damp and skin stinging with cold. The man stood over him, chest heaving. Breath curled from his nose like steam. A tendril of greenery lifted from his shoulder as if looking over it.
Freya slipped past and stood over Arthur, her fur standing on end.
“Get out,” the man said, his voice low and hoarse, “and if the forest lets you live, tell the rest of your kind to stay away.”
Arthur rolled shakily to his knees. He noticed, with a shiver, that the man had a wolf ’s paws instead of human feet.
“All right,” Arthur gasped, “all right, I’m going—let me grab my shoes and I’ll—”
The man lunged. Arthur flinched, but the man merely grabbed the silver acorn hanging from his neck and glinting in the winter twilight. Freya hissed; he ignored her. The green tendril shot toward her, bobbing about her ears. She batted it away.
“Where did you get this?” the man asked.
“It was my father’s,” Arthur squeaked.
The man’s grip tightened, knuckles against his throat. Arthur swallowed.
The man’s eyes flickered over his face. “Your father?”
“George Throckmorton.”
The man’s anger drained away, leaving his expression unreadable. The greenery at his shoulders swayed confusedly.
“George Throckmorton,” he repeated under his breath.
He let out a huff of something like laughter. His breath fogged Arthur’s glasses.
He released the acorn, hand dropping to his side. For the first time, he considered Arthur. Arthur shrank under his gaze, wondering what he was looking for. What he saw.
“You must be Arthur,” the man said.
Arthur’s skin prickled. He hadn’t known what to expect when he’d found the vale, when he’d entered the tree-house, but it wasn’t this. He didn’t know what to make of this angry little man with his antlers and paws, his scar and knee brace, who was unknown to Arthur but knew his name.
“How do you—I don’t—” Arthur got to his feet, hugging the cat. She twisted in his arms to glare at the man and his greenery. “Who are you?”
The man dragged a hand over his face.
“The Lord of the Wood,” he said.
From THE LORD OF THE WOOD by E.M Anderson. Copyright 2026 by E.M Anderson. Published by Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HTP/Harper Collins.
Narrator: Joshua Manning, Elle Newlands
The cozy fantasy of TJ Klune meets the creeping horror of T. Kingfisher in this magical novel about a man who enters a deadly enchanted forest expecting it to endanger his life, but not his heart…
Clockmaker Arthur Throckmorton lives a quiet life with his sister and her children, only dreaming of adventure. So when a wealthy client offers him a job that involves traversing Shiftleaf—an enchanted forest that claimed his father decades ago—he reluctantly accepts. The forest is treacherous, but the money will change his family’s lives.
The journey quickly turns perilous. Fleeing from monstrous birds, Arthur stumbles upon a hidden vale where he meets the Lord of the Wood—a figure from his father’s many stories. Instead of the fairy prince Arthur always imagined, Ira is a morose man, slowly transforming into a beast, his power over a dying forest waning.
Arthur enjoys the safety of the vale, and Ira’s company. But he yearns for his family. To safely return home and rescue Ira from a cursed and lonely existence, Arthur and Ira must reach the heart of the wood to heal the forest. Except the further they venture from the vale, the more beastly Ira becomes. If they can’t complete their mission before he turns completely, Arthur could lose the man he’s falling for—and never see his family again.
Horror | LGBTQ [ Hanover Square Press, On Sale: July 21, 2026, Trade Paperback / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9781335002273 / eISBN: 9780369775283 ]
E.M. Anderson (they/she) is a queer, neurodivergent writer and the author of The Keeper of Lonely Spirits, The Lord of the Wood, and The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher (currently out of print). Their work has appeared in SJ Whitby’s Awakenings: A Cute Mutants Anthology and Wyldblood Press’s From the Depths: A Fantasy Anthology, among other publications. She has two master’s degrees and a feral passion for trees, birds, pole fitness, and Uncle Iroh. Despite all their book smarts, it is her doom to one day vanish into the depths of a mysterious forest, never to be seen again, after ignoring the warnings of the locals because she wanted to befriend the trees, or maybe find a cool rock.
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