The Lanternwood Inn

When museum curator Nora Wren inherits her aunt Vivian’s remote country inn, she sees it as a temporary escape from professional disappointment. The crumbling Victorian building at the edge of Lanternwood Forest seems like just another problem to solve—until she notices the forest glowing with an impossible blue-green light at night.

As Nora reluctantly settles into innkeeper duties, she discovers her inheritance includes far more than antique furniture and leaky pipes. The forest is awakening, the boundary stones are shifting, and mysterious creatures leave gifts at the garden wall. When she finds her aunt’s journals filled with accounts of magical phenomena and forest protection rituals, Nora must decide whether to dismiss them as eccentric fancy or accept a role she never imagined.

Her unexpected ally is Bram Calder, a taciturn craftsman with his own secrets and a deeper connection to Lanternwood than he initially reveals. Together, they discover the inn stands at a literal boundary between worlds, and Nora’s aunt was its keeper and protector—a role now passed to her.

As outside development threatens to destroy the forest’s delicate balance, Nora must embrace her inherited responsibility while navigating a village divided between tradition and progress. With the boundaries between worlds growing thin and the forest itself reaching out for help, Nora will need to integrate her curator’s precision with newly awakened magical abilities to preserve Lanternwood before it’s too late.

“A beautifully crafted tale of finding one’s place at the intersection of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Wolstenholm weaves a story as cozy as a fireside chair at a country inn and as magical as an ancient forest after dark.”