The Wood Wife

I've probably read Terri Windling's The Wood Wife twenty times since it was published in 1996, and obviously I love it. Windling's lyrical and imaginative descriptions of desert scenery and culture were the main reason I wanted to move there all through my impressionable teen years.

However.

Just once I would like to read a book where a wise, long-haired Native American makes his sweat lodge out of willow branches and lights the fire and plays the flute and listens for the spirit voices and then DOESN'T hear any mystical voices, and catches a cold from staying outside too long.