“River of Spirits”: Shana Targosz’s Spellbinding Entry into the Underwild—A Lush, Lyrical Portal Fantasy Where Magic Is Memory and Danger Runs Deep

Magic as Inheritance, Memory as Resistance: River of Spirits and the Power of Returning

It begins with a shiver—like waking in the middle of a dream you’re not sure you ever left. That’s the feeling that trails every page of River of Spirits, Shana Targosz’s lush and lyrical debut into the Underwild, a realm that feels stitched together from half-remembered fairy tales, ghost-soaked forests, and the long ache of something lost. This isn’t just a story about magic. It’s about memory—what we forget, what we’re forced to forget, and the quiet courage it takes to remember.

Targosz writes with a rare atmospheric clarity. The world of the Underwild isn’t just visual—it’s tactile, emotional. Moss presses underfoot. The river hums with voices that don’t speak in words. And the creatures who inhabit this enchanted realm are not whimsical—they are watchful, wounded, and woven from myth. At the center is a young girl pulled between worlds, haunted not by monsters, but by the absence of truth. “The water never lies,” someone tells her. “It only reflects.” That line—simple and devastating—becomes the spiritual current of the novel.

The plot moves like a river: meandering through moments of wonder and shadow before tightening into whitewater urgency. The pacing never rushes, trusting the reader to breathe in the strangeness. Targosz doesn’t spoon-feed answers. Instead, she offers fragments, riddles, images that glint and vanish—like glimpsing something just beneath the surface, always almost remembered.

Themes of grief, transformation, and generational silence run deep, but they’re never heavy-handed. This is a story that allows you to feel your way through the dark, guided by intuition and longing. The magic here isn’t flashy—it’s sacred, rooted in land, in story, in ancestral echoes.

And while the Underwild is unfamiliar, it never feels alien. It feels… known. Like a dream you had as a child and forgot, only to stumble across its echo in a clearing where no path should exist.

Who Should Read This

River of Spirits is perfect for readers who crave immersive worlds and quiet magic with deep emotional resonance. Fans of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, The Hazel Wood, or A Snake Falls to Earth will be right at home in the Underwild. If you’re drawn to stories that feel like whispered secrets from another life—this is one to carry with you.