by Daniel Mason
First published 2026
Miles Krzelewski tells his children wild bedtime stories and walks his truffle-hunting dog through land that grows no truffles. His Russian folklore dissertation sits twelve years unfinished. When his wife Kate takes a teaching job at a Vermont college, Miles sees his chance to restart his stalled life. The Vermont woods introduce him to peculiar locals: a tree surgeon who appears like a ghost, a biochemist obsessed with scythes, an actress who quotes Shakespeare, and a photographer who catalogs human delusions on thousands of index cards. Miles throws himself into these new friendships with his usual enthusiasm. Kate knows her husband falls in easily with anyone he meets. The enchanted forest setting feels like something from his folktales. Then Miles discovers a local legend that seems too strange to believe. As he investigates, the line between story and reality begins to blur. His quest forces him to examine his marriage, his role as a father, and his need to find meaning through the stories people tell themselves.
Genres: literary-fiction, family-life, mystery, contemporary, magical-realism, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Vermont, Russia
Period: 21st-century
320 pages · Hardcover · Random House