The Red Grove: A Novel

“Intoxicating and impossible to put down.”

—Rufi Thorpe, author of Margo’s Got Money Troubles

The Red Grove is a special place, protected. Some say a spell was cast by its founder, Tamsen Nightingale. Some say the mountain lions stalking the nearby hills guard its mysteries and its boundaries. Some say the mighty redwoods keep its people safe.

Yet a man has died on the Red Grove’s sacred ground. And Luce’s mother, Gloria, has vanished. The Red Grove is Luce’s whole world. She is utterly devoted to its mission, its rituals and history. Still, she knows that her mother, frustrated free spirit though she might be, wouldn’t just leave without a word. But strange things begin to happen as Luce tries to figure out where her mother has gone. Clicks echo out from the trees, flies pound against the windows, and a strange man keeps calling on the phone. The deeper Luce digs, the more she must ask if her beloved home, the women she admires, and the stories they tell might be built on a devastating lie.

The debut novel by the acclaimed author of The Electric Woman, Tessa Fontaine’s The Red Grove is a story about mothers, daughters, and sisters, about the dangers of being a woman in this world, and about the flawed, fierce choices we make to protect what we love.

About the Author

Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a best book of the year by Southern Living, Refinery29, and the New York Post. Her writing can be found in Outside, Glamour, Agni, and The Believer. She has been a sideshow performer, a shoe saleswoman, and a professor, and she taught for years in jails and prisons. She cofounded and runs the Accountability Workshops with the writer Annie Hartnett. Raised among the redwoods of Northern California, she now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband, daughter, goofy dog, and sassy cat.