A Land So Wide

Author: Erin A. Craig

Genre: Fantasy

Publication Date: September 2, 2025

Publisher: Pantheon

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Thirteenth Child comes an irresistible blend of dark fairytale and romantic fantasy.

The town of Mistaken has a secret…and it’s up to one woman to uncover the truth, confront her past, and save the man she loves.

Like everyone else in the settlement of Mistaken, Greer Mackenzie is trapped. Founded by an ambitious lumber merchant, the village is blessed with rich natural resources that have made its people prosperous—but at a cost. The same woods that have lined the townsfolks’ pockets harbor dangerous beasts: wolves, bears, and the Bright-Eyeds—monsters beyond description who have rained utter destruction down on nearby settlements. But Mistaken’s founders made a deal with the mysterious Benevolence: the Warding Stones that surround the town will keep the Bright-Eyeds out—and the town’s citizens in. Anyone who spends a night within Mistaken’s borders belongs to it forever.

Greer, a mapmaker and eccentric dreamer, has always ached to explore the world outside, even though she knows she and her longtime love, Ellis Beaufort, will never see it. Until, on the day she and Ellis are meant to finally begin their lives together, Greer watches in horror as her beloved disappears beyond the Warding Stones, pursued by a monstrous creature. Determined to rescue Ellis, she figures out a way to defy Mistaken’s curse and begins a trek through the cold and pitiless wilderness. But there, Greer is hunted, not only by the ruthless Bright-Eyeds but by the secret truths behind Mistaken’s founding and her own origins.

Playfully drawing from Scottish folklore, Erin A. Craig’s adult debut is both a deeply atmospheric and profoundly romantic exploration of freedom versus security: a stunning celebration of one woman’s relentless bravery on a quest to reclaim her lost love—and seize her own future.

When I rediscovered my love of reading a few years ago, one of the first YA authors that I really loved was Erin A. Craig. There is something enchanting about her writing that I really enjoy, perhaps because she has a talent for spinning an entire book out of the barest bones of fairy tales, and having them feel old-fashioned yet still easy enough to empathize with the characters. So when I heard that she was publishing her adult debut, I was thrilled.

I don’t know much about Scottish folklore, but I do know that Craig can spin a yarn that I can’t put down, and I wanted to see what her adult book would be like. This one reminded me of Shea Ernshaw’s A History of Wild Places, both featuring a town that is impossible to escape. The border of Craig’s Mistaken is a bit more porous than that of Ernshaw’s Pastoral, and the dangers are a lot darker. 

The story begins with the long, perilous journey led by an ambitious lumber merchant on a near-obsessive hunt for a more profitable type of wood in the far north. Mistaken began on a dark and negative note, but generations later, we see what this town becomes: a small community, isolated by the dangers around them. Anyone who spends a night in the town is unable to leave the protection of the strange boulders that keep them penned in, yet also keep them safe from the ever-present threat of Bright-Eyeds. 

Initially, we meet Greer, the creative daughter of the town’s wealthiest man. Her father is a jerk—he doesn’t listen to her and doesn’t value what she brings to the table. She’s in her late 20s, waiting to marry her lifelong sweetheart, Ellis. The town has an almost puritanical feel, kind of like an Arctic version of Salem, Massachusetts, except it isn’t quite set in our world. Even though I know this isn’t real, it still makes me a little nervous to think about planning a trip to Alaska, just in case, you know?

The romance between Greer and Ellis is comfortable and has grown over the course of their whole lives, which are intertwined. Her best friend is his sister, and from the start, it is clear that this town is too small for Greer’s big dreams. All the other girls want to draw the eye of sons of the wealthier or more powerful families so they can settle into their own house and start their own families. Greer works as a mapmaker, charting the boundaries allowed by the stones, and the landmarks surrounding them—including the bay where ships come to sell cargo and buy lumber. In her quiet moments, she dreams of someday being able to escape the stones and see the wider world, live a larger life.

I really loved seeing the world through Greer’s eyes. She’s both dreamy and practical, open to emotion and yet raised by an emotionally distant father and his perfunctory new wife after the death of Greer’s mother. The town is made up of the offspring of the original members of the town and those who have come seeking a safe refuge from the Bright-Eyed’s vicious attacks. There aren’t many survivors of the attacks, and of those, none are willing to talk about what they’ve seen, so the threat of these creatures hangs heavy over Greer and the other residents of Mistaken. The fact that they’re unseen and unknown only makes them scarier. 

The true star of the story is Greer and the lengths she’s willing to go to for the man she loves when he leaves the protection of the warding stones. She sees him flee, pursued by a creature so awful it could only be a Bright-Eyed, and she isn’t willing to walk away and settle down with a new husband. Outsmarting the curse, she follows after him, braving the dangerous beasts of the wild woods, the freezing cold, and the complete lack of anyone else to rely on, as well as Bright-Eyeds. I have to be honest here, things head in the horror-lite direction and I wasn’t expecting that. At least it never went into actual scary territory; this is more of the kind of simmering underlying threat that creates tension. 

Overall, this is a great read that I thoroughly enjoyed. It combines the dark folklore surrounding vampires and shapeshifters with the fairy tale aesthetic, and does a fantastic job at that. The pacing was a little bit uneven, with things moving slower in the middle of the story where not as much as happening. It’s easy to get lost in the story and the mystical, magical writing that makes this as intriguing of a book as it is. Just be prepared that it is a bit darker than her YA books, and that it leans a bit into horror-lite without being too scary. 

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