Appalachia is a region in the United States rife with ghost stories, folk tales, hauntings, and legends. It is here that Jen Julian sets her folk-inspired novel, The Winter Folk. Vera has aspirations of leaving her home town of Little Gunning and going to college. Unfortunately, college doesn’t quite agree with her and when she’s at her most vulnerable, distraught at her failures at college and frustrated by her mother, she is offered a chance at … something by the Winter Folk. She’s offered the chance to be a housekeeper at Deerhaven a hotel for fantastical, supernatural creatures.
A woman returns to the mysterious lodge in the woods where she once worked, and to the inscrutable creature that bound her there, in this haunting Appalachian gothic horror from singular voice Jen Julian. Perfect for fans of Alix E. Harrow and T. Kingfisher.
This is the story of Moth, who earned her name working for the Winter Folk.
Every year, the mythical Winter Folk gather at a secret lodge, a place known only as Deerhaven.
Moth was a housekeeper there once. A trusted confidant of Mr. Oslin, the enigmatic master of the house.
But Deerhaven is dangerous. The rules are exacting. The consequences for break them are dire.
Moth has not been allowed back in decades. Still, she feels its call. She will finder her way back. She needs to see him again. No matter the cost.
When Mr. Oslin offers her the job, she is renamed Moth and forbidden from sharing her real name within Deerhaven and equally forbidden from revealing her Deerhaven name outside the supernatural confines. She is also offered anything she wants as payment for her services at Deerhaven, she chooses a home of her own.
Not every guest at Deerhaven is amicable or friendly and because Mr. Oslin comes to trust Moth, he asks her to keep a close eye on a guest named Barkus. The name kind of gives away this character’s quality – loud, boisterous, and arrogant. Barkus has a sinister plan which spans Moth’s first winter in Deerhaven. In her second winter at the faerie hotel, a pregnant character named Mrs. Lys is the central point of consternation of the hotel staff.
Julian wonderfully evokes a sense of place with her novel, both in the small glimpses of the non-supernatural Appalachia and the environs of Deerhaven. I felt the history of Deerhaven as a crossroads of the supernatural that has existed for many, many years. In addition to that sense of place, Julian manages to layer in a sense of unease. Moth knows things aren’t exactly right even if she can’t pinpoint exactly what, at least at first.
Unfortunately, not much else worked for me in The Winter Folk. Foremost is that I was expecting a horror novel and that’s not what I feel as if I read. The plot was a bit meandering with very little sense of urgency. There was a romance that felt a little forced along the way, I didn’t fully buy into it. I also felt the stakes in the story weren’t very high for Moth or in general; I never felt her life or any character’s life was truly in danger. Moth (the first person narrator/protagonist) mentions early on in the novel that she was dismissed from Deerhaven and by the time the reason is revealed, I didn’t feel it was a very clear reason. Other characters (patrons and workers alike) were dismissed from Deerhaven very definitively with reasons given, but in Moth’s case, it didn’t seem nearly as clear. Ultimately, the ending fell very flat for me.
As I was following Moth’s narrative journey, I was enjoying the interesting characters she was meeting and was hoping we’d get some dark paths along the lines of Clive Barker’s underrated film Nightbreed. Unfortunately, there was very little darkness, scares, or terror and much more coziness in the feel of the story than I expected or hoped to experience. In other words, I was expecting a horror novel and that is most definitely not my reading experience with this novel – at most maybe, maybe elements of dark fairy tales along the lines of Lord Dunsany’s tales that feature doorways and divisions between the “real” world and Fairy. But horror? Nothing about this book (aside from the imprint stamp on the spine) would lead me to believe this is a horror novel. Is The Winter Folk a bad novel? No, not a bad novel. It is well written and as I’ve said, the elements of the fantastic/supernatural had a nice feel. But more than anything, this is what I’d expect somebody would want to see in a cozy fantasy novel.
This is not a book I can recommend as a horror novel on any level. I expect most horror readers would be disappointed in the same way I was at least in terms expecting The Winter Folk to be a horror novel.
Can I recommend it to someone looking for a cozy fantasy novel? I’d be more inclined in that regard, but still have reservations especially around the ending and the romance element.
© 2026 Rob H. Bedford
Trade Paperback | Run for It (Orbit/Hachette’s Horror Imprint)
July 2026 | 384 Pages
Excerpt: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/orbit-books/excerpt-the-winter-folk-by-jen-julian/
https://jenjulian.com/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
