Evie is only in her mid-twenties, but she’s already one of the Environmental Crisis Response Agency’s (ECRA) most powerful earth witches, and the organization whose mission is to purportedly help others (but really seeks to consolidate and control power) is keen to have her stay.
Evie, however, wants out, and not only because the agency expressed reservations about her adopting her eleven-year-old ward, Ruby. Her adult life has been bound to ECRA; she signed a twenty-year contract when she was eighteen, and saw no way out of it… until a loophole arrived in the mail.
The mayor of Iskendra wrote to Evie, asking if she would like to be the new caretaker of the small village’s sentient house. Her ECRA contract allows her to leave the agency to help preserve “rare magical phenomena,” and the house qualifies. ECRA reluctantly allows her and Ruby to go, with the stipulation that if she doesn’t bond with the house, she must return to ECRA, where her adoption of Ruby will likely not be finalized given the dangers of her job there.
And so the two go to Iskendra, full of hope and fear. There, they find out that the house is not well. It is grieving its old caretaker, literally falling apart when Evie and Ruby arrive, and something else seems to be wrong with it as well, though the house isn’t upfront with Evie (or anyone else) about what’s going on. To make things even more challenging for Evie, some of the townspeople resent her, an outsider, coming in as caretaker.
Evie is determined, however, to stay in the village and make the fledging family she’s started with Ruby a permanent thing. To do so, she must untangle the mystery of what’s going on with the house and save it. She knows she can’t do it alone, and she soon finds friends in the village, including Gil, her kind (and handsome) next-door neighbor who, along with his adorable dog, make her feel welcome even as she fears she won’t be able to stay.
Evie and Ruby begin to grow roots in Iskendra, finding community and, in the end and after some trials, a real home. They also uncover a magical secret along the way, as Evie and her earth magic connect with the house and old-growth forest outside its windows.
Jaleigh Johnson’s The Reimagining of Thornwood House is a cozy fantasy in every respect. Even though the novel doesn’t pretend that life is easy, the story takes place in a setting that cradles your heart, replete with a house that will create bespoke bedrooms for those it cares about and whose windows look out over a magical, ancient forest with some surprises of its own. The imagery in its pages—Evie connecting to nature with her magic and taking in the wild beauty of the forest, for example—vividly transport the reader into her world and also make the importance of caring for the environment a constant undertone of the story.
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The Reimagining of Thornwood House
Complex emotions are also embodied in the magic of this world. One example involves the magical mood garden right next to the house, where Evie observes different flowers bending, changing color, or emitting different scents depending on the feelings of the people near it: “Mood gardens were a reminder that even emotions people thought were ugly, the parts of themselves that they saw as weak or unkind, were necessary to the cycle of living things,” Evie observes. “Love and anger, fear and serenity, were all a part of this place.” People, and sentient houses, are a rich tapestry, and what better way to show that than through a magical garden that reflects that through visual and olfactory means?
Johnson’s novel is also about grief. The house is mourning its previous caretaker, and at one point in the book a character explains the following to Evie (and to us): “You don’t renovate a house that’s been through what it was, that can feel what it does, any more than you’d renovate a life that’s suffered a great loss. You nurture it, allow it to grieve, and, when it’s ready, help it to reimagine itself and what it’s going to be moving forward. It won’t be the same as it was, but it can still be something amazing.” Grief isn’t something you get over, it’s something that reshapes you, and it’s the same for a house that empathically expresses its feelings to those inside its walls.
At its core, however, The Reimagining of Thornwood House, is (unsurprisingly, given it involves a sentient building) about finding your home. We all yearn for belonging, for finding our people and our community. In Johnson’s world, that yearning becomes literal in the form of an ancient, sentient house that cares for its caretakers as much as they care for it. The book is a comforting read about found family, finding safe spaces, and embracing the wonder of the natural world. If any of those things are what you’re seeking, I highly recommend picking this book up.
The Reimagining of Thornwood House is published by Ace.
