shape these relationships. Her novels, stories, and essays reveal the complexities of home, work, and the Midwestern landscape. Thomas is a Teaching Professor in the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College. Her first book, States of Motion, was a finalist for a Foreword Reviews Indie Award.
Thomas's new novel is The Meaning of Fear.
At Electric Lit she tagged "nine novels [that] tell the stories of women who find themselves battling their own wilds." One title on the list:
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren GroffRead about the other novels on the list at Electric Lit.
The Vaster Wilds pits woman against the wilds from its first lines. Set in 1609, young Lamentations flees from Virginia’s Jamestown colony into the “greatand terrible wilderness” to escape starvation and a crime that deprivation drove her to commit. More Lot’s wife than Robinson Crusoe, the girl flees north through the dense forest without looking back. As she fights the cold, malnutrition, and the toll of past trauma, Lamentations chops fish from the ice and shelters in fallen logs. At first, survival means outrunning the men who pursue her. Later, as her health and stamina slip, true survival means learning when to flee and when to shelter in “one of the quiet good places of this new land.” Throughout the novel, Groff cuts to the nearby Powhatan gathering food and building communities as a reminder that this world is only wild to the woman not born to it.
The Vaster Wilds is among Peggy Townsend's five notable wilderness thrillers featuring fearless women and Daniel Schreiber's top ten books about solitary living.
--Marshal Zeringue
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