WINTERWOOD

No one in Anders Bach’s family believed his old tales of Winterwood, a place where Krampus and his Wild Hunt rule a frozen land and where bad children don’t get coal for Christmas, they get baked into pies or forced into slavery. But now the Yule Lads have kidnapped Anders’s grandsons, and he has to rescue them before they’re lost forever. Anders and his daughter must cross the divide between worlds and enter Winterwood, where evil holds sway and even the reindeer have a taste for human flesh. By the time the sun rises, they’ll learn the awful truth about Winterwood: there is no escape without sacrifice.

 Many years ago, I wrote a short story, "The Yule Cat," for an anthology (Appalachian Winter Hauntings) that

 involved the northern European tales of The Hunt and delved into the dark fables that eventually gave rise to modern Christmas. The whole concept has always fascinated me, and when the opportunity came up to be part of Samhain Publishing's Childhood Fears collection of novellas, I knew I had to go back into the woods and create a longer tale. After all, what could be a worse fear than discovering that not only does Santa exist, but he's a bloodthirsty ogre with a taste for the flesh of children?

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