When the Woods Called Us Home

Rachel Griffin’s When the Woods Called Us Home is a gothic fantasy novel centred on Emma Pierce, a young arborist living in the isolated coastal town of Bone Creek, Washington, where forests, storms, and old family legends shape everyday life. The novel explores inherited trauma, family secrets, the relationship between humans and nature, and the question of whether curses are real or whether people create their own curses by refusing to confront the past. The story begins with Emma approaching her twenty-ninth birthday, an age that carries enormous fear in her family because of a long-standing rumour that the women of the Pierce family are cursed to die before reaching thirty. Emma has spent her life rejecting this belief, insisting that the deaths of her grandmother and mother were tragic accidents rather than evidence of supernatural forces. However, as her birthday approaches, she begins to realise that even if she does not believe in the curse, her family has never escaped its influence.

Emma lives in the small blue house where she grew up with her father, grandfather Norman (“Paps”), and younger sister Brynn. Her mother died when Emma was eight, leaving a permanent emptiness in the family. The house is filled with reminders of her mother, including the wooden sign Emma made with her as a child, and the entire family continues to live around the shape of that loss. Emma has become the responsible one, especially toward Brynn, who was too young to fully remember their mother. Emma believes it is her duty to protect her sister from pain and instability, which becomes one of the reasons she struggles to move forward in her own life.

Emma’s boyfriend Eli is the person who understands her best, but even their relationship is under pressure. Eli loves Emma and wants to marry her, but Emma is afraid of taking that step. She loves him deeply, yet she feels responsible for keeping her family together. When Eli almost proposes again during her birthday dinner, Emma silently asks him not to do it, showing that despite her love for him she is still trapped by fear and obligation. Their relationship is loving, but Emma’s inability to imagine a future beyond her family’s trauma creates distance between them.