Officially speaking, Vermont loves its transplants, but it’s not always easy being a newcomer to the state. Novelist Ashley Woo is herself a 2019 transplant from Boston to Norwich. And in Wildwood, her recently released debut, the experience is downright chilling.
Like many gothic novels, Wildwood kicks off with an unexpected inheritance. Elinor Leighton is nine weeks pregnant and has just lost her tech job when she learns that her great-uncle died and left her Wildwood, his run-down 18th-century mansion in rural Vermont. The catch: To secure the property, she’ll have to reside there an entire year.
Fright fans will recognize this as a classic horror setup: If you need to bribe people to live in your palatial home, it’s probably haunted. Woo delivers on that premise, with some modern wrinkles.
Elinor, who narrates the novel in present tense, has idyllic memories of Wildwood from childhood visits. But once she and her husband, Topher, move in, she grows restless and nervous, uncomfortable in her new role as a stay-at-home wife. The eerie woodland mural in their bedroom haunts her dreams. Soon she’s hearing whispers in the forest and having frightening visions of a woman being hanged as a witch.
As all good Vermonters know, only one witch trial has ever been documented in the state (and the “witch” survived). Trying to prove that Wildwood was caught up in the same hysteria as Salem, Mass., Elinor gets the runaround from the local historical society and even her own husband, who thinks she’s losing it. For his part, Topher is increasingly enthralled with their new neighbors, the Brooks, an old-school Vermont dynasty with a newly trendy cashmere business. Glamorous Madeline Brook has welcomed the Leightons with open arms, but could she be hiding secrets that explain Wildwood’s strange and contentious history?
The novel’s well-crafted plot suggests a witchy twist on Rosemary’s Baby, with enough gaslighting to illuminate a Victorian block. Besides being terrorized by the supernatural, Elinor is dismayed by a new sense of imbalance in her once-egalitarian marriage. “Now, I’m pregnant and frightened, believing in ghosts. Now, my husband is looking at me like I’m something to be protected,” she reflects. “The thought shouldn’t unsettle me, but it does.”
Every theme and motif in Wildwood is flatly stated this way; nothing remains implied or ambiguous. There’s evocative creepiness in Elinor’s realization that there might be “something inherently foreboding about rural landscapes, from the vulnerability that comes with space.” But the novel’s approach to that dread tends to be straightforward and literal.
As a result, Wildwood doesn’t get under our skin in the way the most haunting ghost stories do. Elinor’s internal monologue often feels more perseverating than purposeful, and this admittedly picky reader was distracted by infelicities and errors (“wretch into the toilet”) in the final copy.
For readers who prefer their horror neither highbrow nor gory, however, Wildwood offers satisfying spookiness and ample surprises in the Jennifer McMahon vein. And local fans of gothic thrillers will appreciate how Woo links the story to broader issues of who “belongs” in the Green Mountain State. Who hasn’t wondered if our vibrant autumn woodlands are haunted by the echoing footsteps of those who came before? ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Ashley Woo’s Debut, Wildwood, Is a Gothic Thriller of Witches and White Elephants”
This article appears in October 14 • 2026.
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