Ten top literary woods

Lucy Christopher's novel Stolen was named a Printz Honor Book by the ALA and received England's Branford Boase award and Australia's golden Inky for best debut. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it "an emotionally raw thriller...a haunting account of captivity and the power of relationships." She is also the author of Flyaway, a novel for younger readers. Christopher's latest book, The Killing Woods, is a psychological thriller for teens.

For the Guardian she named her top 10 literary woods, including:

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce

I read this recently, thinking it might be research for my novel The Killing Woods. What I discovered was a novel deeply infused with the magic and mystery of the folklore of English woodlands. When Tara disappears from the local bluebell woods, no one expects to hear from her again … until she returns twenty years later, looking exactly as she did the day she left. Did fairies, helped along by the heady scent of the bluebells, bewitch her? Or has she actually gone mad and lost her mind and memories?

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Graham Joyce's Some Kind of Fairy Tale.

--Marshal Zeringue