What if your favorite children’s book characters were real? A real Winnie the Pooh? A real Peter Rabbit? In Jonathan Edward Durham’s novel Winterset Hollow, exactly that happens.

First we meet a young man named Eamon, who was raised by a single father who told him never leave their land, never join society, and taught young Eamon how to survive. One day, dad leaves and doesn’t return, so Eamon ignores his father’s command to stay. He makes friends with Caroline and Mark, and the three form an odd family of sorts. Caroline and Eamon are obsessed with the children’s book Winterset Hollow, which features four main characters: Runny the rabbit, Finn the fox, Flackwell the frog, and Bing the bear. Eamon feels the book saved him in some way, and Caroline has her own person ties to it. In the storybook, which is entirely written in poetic form using stanzas, the rabbit leaves the confines of their community, accidentally invites danger to the Hollow, and all the food made for Barely Day (a yearly celebration) is stolen.

Superfans of the storybook know when Barley Day is and where the author lived. It’s a remote island, because of course it is. Eamon, Caroline, and Mark, plus half a dozen others, are taken to the island, which is only populated by the author’s manor. He’s long since dead, but why not snoop around? Eventually, the humans learn that Runny, Finn, Flackwell, and Bing are very much alive, and they are, indeed celebrating Barley Day with a feast.

That is, until Finn grows impatient and asks if he can begin . . .

Barley Day is when the anthropomorphic animals hunt humans, rather than vice versa, as some form of debt repayment. The debt is not clear until the end of the novel, so what you get for two-thirds of the book is much like Ready or Not or The Hunt. Basically, all the humans are fleeing for their lives with no hope of help or escape off the island (the boat captain that brought them has gone), but you also get dry humor that makes you laugh in spite of yourself. Just after the hunt has started, Runny and Flackwell, one old and disabled, the other more brilliant chef than game hunter, sit at the dining table and lament that they could not finish their feast:

“I do wish you would have brought that trifle [from the kitchen], though. Raspberries, crème patisserie, and homemade ladyfingers. Your favorite.” [said Flackwell].

“Sounds lovely,” Runny returned with a forced and fleeting smile. “Perhaps later when everybody’s dead.”

Durham’s novel isn’t about the hunt itself, but old injuries that cut to one’s spirit, creating a hatred that cannot be quelled. Runny and Flackwell are content to peace and exhausted by the yearly hunt, whereas Bing and Finn cannot forget how they were hurt by humans. You could boil it down to a classic revenge story, one in which hatred makes the victim the villain.

Winterset Hollow did surprise me, particularly in the last third when I had not ascertained how it would end and who would live. It’s a beautifully written book, which can prove challenging, as the prose is surprisingly dense. Inserted in the novel and stanzas from the Winterset Hollow children’s book that Eamon loves. At times, the Durham hiccups with the rhythm of his stanzas, but overall, it works. However, I found Durham’s novel wholly immersive, like when you leave the cinema and forget the world existed all along.