Welcome back to another Top 5 Saturday! Just in case you don’t know Top 5 Saturday is a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and it’s where we list the top five books (they can be books on your TBR, favourite books, books you loved/hated) based on the week’s topic. You can see the upcoming schedule at the end of my post 🙂 This week’s topic is actually: books set in the forest.
I focus most of my Top 5 Saturdays on books that are still on my TBR but this week I thought I’d take a look at five favourite books that are set in the forest. There’s a good mix of fantasy, romance, horror, and mystery in this lot and they were all wonderfully atmospheric reads—the forest often felt alive in these settings! Without further ado… Here are my recs for you!

The Bear and the Nightingale
At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.
After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.
And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. Read more…
Silver in the Wood
There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads.
When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.
Force of Nature
FIVE WOMEN GO ON A HIKE.
ONLY FOUR RETURN.
When five colleagues are forced to go on a corporate retreat in the wilderness, they reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking down the nuddy path. After all, this retreat is supposed to take the office workers out of their air-conditioned comfort zone. It’s supposed to be abonding experience. It’s supposed to be a bonding experience. It’s supposed to build trust.
But it doesn’t work out that way.
One of the women doesn’t come out of the woods. And each of her companions tellsa slightly different story about what happened. Read more…
Credence
Three of them, one of her, and a remote cabin in the woods. Let the hot, winter nights ensue…
Tiernan de Haas doesn’t care about anything anymore. The only child of a film producer and his starlet wife, she’s grown up with wealth and privilege but not love or guidance. Shipped off to boarding schools from an early age, it was still impossible to escape the loneliness and carve out a life of her own. The shadow of her parents’ fame followed her everywhere.
And when they suddenly pass away, she knows she should be devastated. But has anything really changed? She’s always been alone, hasn’t she? Read more…
Rules for Vanishing
In the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project comes the campfire story of a missing girl, a vengeful ghost, and the girl who is determined to find her sister–at all costs.
Once a year, the path appears in the forest and Lucy Gallows beckons. Who is brave enough to find her–and who won’t make it out of the woods?
It’s been exactly one year since Sara’s sister, Becca, disappeared, and high school life has far from settled back to normal. With her sister gone, Sara doesn’t know whether her former friends no longer like her…or are scared of her, and the days of eating alone at lunch have started to blend together. Read more…

OCTOBER SCHEDULE:
02 October: Magical Books09 October: Bones on the Cover- 16 October: Books set in the Forest
- 23 October: Blood on the Cover
- 30 October: Dark Reads

Do you enjoy books that are set in the forest? Have you read any of these books or are they on your TBR? What would be your picks?

I love books set in a forest!! Silver in the Woods is a fave.
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Yes, Silver in the Wood is amazing. I loved Tobias and Silver 🥰
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I am trying to think hard about books I read set in a forrest. I recently read (Trust) Falling for You which was set in a forrest, but Starry Eyes and The Other Side of Lost quickly came to mind too.
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Starry Eyes is on my TBR and I’ve heard so many good things about it! I can’t wait to give it a try 😍
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One of my fave Jenn Benn books
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Forest is one of my favorites settings, especially in fantasy
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Same here! Always such a great setting 😃
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Maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for forests but I feel like cover art using trees is so stunning and variable. I absolutely love the covers, let alone how the books themselves sound! And all so spooky. 😅 Silver in the woods is getting added to my TBR 😍
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I totally agree though! Forest covers are always so gorgeous and it honestly doesn’t take much for me to want to add them to my TBR lol Silver in the Wood is AMAZING and also a novella so not a long read! I hope you enjoy it 😍
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Credence has been on my TBR the last two months and just hasn’t happened yet. Better luck in November (I hope!).
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Ooh, yes! I hope you get around to it and enjoy it, too! I can’t wait to hear what you think 🙂
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I’ve only read The Bear and the Nightingale but I loved it. 😍
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I really need to re-read the book and then finish the series! Can’t wait 🥰
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What beautiful covers. But then, a forest is always beautiful.
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Very true! 😃
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Rules for Vanishing, I totally forgot about that one. Great list!
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Super creepy, that one! Haha I still can’t believe I’ve read it 😂
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I love this topic for some reason. Made me think of Tiffanie DeBartolo’s Sorrow.
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[…] Dini @ Dinipandareads — Top 5 Saturday: Books set in the Forest! […]
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I really need to find time to read The Bear and the Nightingale, I’ve heard such great things! Also Rules for Vanishing looks so good!
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Great topic! I need to read The Bear and the Nightingale. Rules for Vanishing was so creepy! Still not sure if I’ll read Credence.
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