To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother’s tales began - and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong.ĭiscussion: Much of this book is Alice’s journey to the Hazel Wood. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. Alice’s only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”Īlice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: Her mother is stolen away - by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother’s stories are set. Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. I’m a sucker for fairy tales, so it really is no surprise this book has been on my radar for so long. Plus the cover is the kind your fingers itch to touch black with shiny gold twisting vines with silvery fairy tale-inspired elements scattered about. Creepy houses tucked away in foreboding enchanted woods? Kidnapped mothers and malicious fairy tales? Color me interested. But that ARC I couldn’t take because it was a part of a promotional bookstore thing and a cool giveaway item. No - since I first saw it as an Advance Reader Copy many months before that. I bought this book only a handful of months ago, although I’ve desired it for much longer. The Hazel Wood, however, is not one of those books. I have 20 books that qualify as speculative on my shelves that I have yet to read - and that I have owned many for several years. The Hazel Wood is a part of my 2020 Resolution Project.

Into the hazel wood