Another book from Lesley Pearse that I was looking forward to reading, but unfortunately, for me, it failed to deliver the same impact of most of her other books I have read.

I wasn't initially taken by the cover but I'm glad I requested this based on the blurb. This was a great read.

A story of a small village and it’s newest inhabitants, Duncan and Maisy are twins who have a distant father and an insane mother. They relocate to Violet Mitcham’s grand house, she is their grandmother and only other relation. All is well until Duncan disappears.

This is a story of friendship and family as well as a small mystery. I made it to the end but for me this book failed the 100 page test, which I’ve been using this year.
Somehow I still made it to the end.

While this was a ‘whodunnit’, the villain wasn’t guessable. This made it more of a crime fiction and not a suspenseful, dramatic thriller. Unfortunately it was not to my taste.

Unfortunately, this book wasn't book for me, but I can guarantee that the right people found this book and appreciated it the way it deserved.

Really sorry but I haven't been able to finish this novel. I have very much enjoyed other Lesley Pearse books but found the first few chapters of this one written in a style that reminded me of the kind of books I enjoyed as a child - E Nesbit or Enid Blyton. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for this kind of read. Apologies again.

Loved this book! Couldn’t put it down despite my own twins being 4 and climbing all over me at points!
This story of teenage twins coming of age and dealing with tricky family dynamics and emotions had me intrigued but when it turned into a mystery with a dark twist, I was hooked and had to keep reading to learn the fates of everyone involved. With both lovable and hateful characters, it had me gripped from the beginning. Don’t let the cover fool you, it’s not a twee story about a lady living in the woods by any means!

First I would like to thank Lesley Pearse, Penguin Publishers and Net Galley for allowing me to review this book.
I have read all of Lesley Pearse, she,s one of my favourites as she never disappoints her reader's. This book is another page turner and I finished it in two days. The twins characters were immediately drawn to me add their lives had been through some extremely said events but is also a real heart moving read.

Lesley Pearse usually never fails to weave an amazing story. This one tells the tale of twin girls and their uprooting through difficult circumstances to their somewhat unpleasant grandmother.. to be honest this book did not hold my interest as much as her other books perhaps because I found it hard to get into and then slightly predictable. Looking forward to Lesley’s next book though

The first book I have read by this author and I loved it. Very atmospheric, the 60s setting was very evocative. The relationships between the characters were lovely - it was good to see the characters change and grow as the book progressed. It was a bit gruesome in places, but perhaps I felt that because the subject matter didn't really chime with the cover. Highly recommended.

My first book by Lesley Pearce and definitely NOT my last. Emotional, heartbreaking and utterly gripping.

Oh My goodness, this was rather a surprise, it covers some rather shocking and brutal subjects.

The book begins very beguilingly and gently, it starts almost like an Enid Blyton - "5 go down to the woods" featuring Maisy and Duncan, a very innocent pair of teenage twins going to stay with their grandmother who doesn't want them at her home, or even like them much. Their father is also a very remote and dour character and their Mother has recently been committed to a mental asylum!

It's just as well that this brother and sister are very close and don't really need anyone else, they are happy to spend a lot of their leisure time together, having picnics, exploring the countryside and New Forest on their bicycles, it could almost be idyllic and I was lulled into an era of innocence and naivety. They even begin to make friends with the family helper Janis becoming almost a surrogate Mum and getting to know the strange and reclusive inhabitants of the forest including Grace, the woman in the wood.

But suddenly everything turns sour when Duncan suddenly disappears. Despite a police search the family aren't too concerned, only Maisy knows her twin so well she knows he wouldn't run away without telling her and she cannot give up her search for him.

It's just as well for what has happened to Duncan is no Babes in the wood fairy tale, its something out of a nightmare. The story is part mystery, part psychological drama.

Something terrible really has happened and it is up to Maisy to try and find out what.

There are some very dark and nasty things which are described mainly quite sparsely, leaving a lot to the imagination and without too much sensationalism or graphic detail. But one brief description of what happened to one young boy, quite literally gave me nightmares.

A very readable yet scary look at madness, survival, abduction and abuse, wrapped in a candy coating which doesn't take away the very unpleasant taste of things you don't want to think about.

Maisie and Duncan leave their home in London where they lived with their father and mentally ill mother, their mother is put into a home and the children move to the New Forest to live with their paternal Grandmother, who is certainly not the loving doting Grandmother many are used to. Maisie and Duncan settle into their new lives in the New Forest making new friends and developing new interests. That is until tragedy strikes and Duncan goes missing, throwing everyone's lives into disarray. What folllows is a rather harrowing story of abuse and eventual justice. A well written and enjoyable book overall.

I’m a huge fan of this author and have read all her books . So was so looking forward to this one. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it as much as the others. Whilst it was a good read it just didn’t have the same effect as her other books have done . It was based in around the 1960’s but I felt it seemed to be more like the 1930’a with the descriptions and language used . A 3.5 star read for me .

Why did I pick it?
I’ve read lots of Lesley Pearse novels over the years, ever since I read Remember Me as a teenager I’ve been hooked. However, I haven’t really been interested in any of her novels set in more recent time periods so this was a bit of a first for me and I wasn’t sure what to expect.

What I loved about it
Despite the time period the story soon fell into one of unputdownable suspense like most Lesley Pearse novels, I just don’t know how she does it. I found myself gripped from the first few chapters and I ended up finishing it in record time. If I’m picking a book up during my lunch hour that’s usually the sign of a good book for me.

I love the layers to Lesley’s novels. You obviously have the main plot line but running alongside are often many “subplots” and layers of discovery. I particularly enjoyed the “coming of age” plotline for Maisy. it was thoughtfully done and very relatable.

What I loathed about it
Nothing to loathe here, the book dealt with a lot more brutal and sinister plotlines than I was used to and so it didn’t feel as much like a Lesley Pearse novel as I would have liked but it was enjoyable despite this.

The time period didn’t cause me any issues in regards to enjoyment, it’s just not a big favourite of mine. The setting and pace reminded me of the TV series Endeavour (which I do love btw!) it’s just never going to be a fav, I would read another though if the storyline was as gripping as this.

Thoughts
Full of drama, full of suspense, I couldn’t have asked for more!

This is the first book I’ve read by Lesley Pearse and was one I received just after its publication date, so it sat on my virtual shelf for a long time, as books prior to publication took precedence over it. I found The Woman In The Woods thoroughly engrossing, while at the same time suspending a slight disbelief at times. Written in an early sixties nostalgic style reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s classic series of books, it’s a mystery/adventure, but with a more grown-up, modern day sinister edge. There are some quite grim and graphic sections that are hard to read, which are all the more incongruous when you’re halfway through a quite breezily written adventure story and not expecting it.
The story starts off with an old fashioned feel to it, telling how teenage twins, Duncan and Maisie, are packed off to their grandmother’s home in the country by their father. Their sick mother has been taken from their home in the middle of the night and committed to an asylum with many questions unanswered. Their grandmother proves to be cast in the same mould as their father, cold, disinterested and unfeeling, but they immediately warm to Janice, their motherly housekeeper. Allowed the freedom to roam the nearby forest, they come across the locally feared, mysterious woman, who lives in a shack there, who is suspicious of their reasons to befriend her.
The twins have always had a close relationship, but Maisie is starting to develop her own, more feminine interests. Meanwhile Duncan enjoys his forays in the forest until one day he doesn’t return. The police are slow to act, believing he has just taken himself off somewhere, but Maisie knows they were too close for him to disappear without telling her where he was going. As time passes, more boys go missing and their bodies are found one by one. Maisie refuses to believe that Duncan will not return and dances with death when she begins her own dangerous investigation with an unlikely ally - the mysterious woman in the wood.
In spite of my earlier criticism, the author certainly knows how to engage the reader and create a suspenseful plot, peppered with gripping incidents. I really cared about what happened to the three main protagonists. At the beginning the twins are staggeringly young for their 15 years by today’s standards, but by the end of the story and aged 17, are much more mature than most for their age. I would have given this book four stars out of five if some of the subject matter hadn’t been quite so dark and detailed in its gruesome nature.
Many thanks to Netgalley, Penguin UK - Michael Joseph and Lesley Pearse for the opportunity to read and review The Woman In The Wood.

A good read. Written very well, it flowed while reading it. The writing style is one i enjoy as it read like I would speak which always makes books easier for me to get connected to. Each character was examined and brought to life in a way that made me cate about them. That makes for a book that I hate having to put down. The storyline was gripping, and the ending not too fairytale-ish. I enjoyed this book and would attempt more from this author.

Another fantastic read by Lesley Pearse!
The author keeps you inside the characters from start to finish, with twists and turns that you don't see coming.
I gave "The Woman in the Wood" 5 stars, and it really did deserve every one of them.
My thanks to Net Galley for the ARC copy.

It's 1960. Maisy and Duncan are fifteen year old twins who are very close to each other.
Over a night their life changes; their dad has their mum committed to an asylum and they move from London to live in the country with their cold-hearted grandmother.
They explore the forest on their bikes and they stumble across a recluse who lives in the forest. The locals have labelled her a witch.
One day Duncan doesn't return home and soon bodies of boys are found. Who's responsible? Is Grace Deville involved?
A book that has you wanting more all of the time.

DNF @ 25%

25% might seem like an early place to give up, but nothing had happened and I was getting fed up. I almost put it down at 15% but reading Janel's (Keeper of Pages) review spurred me on to reading the next 10% before I had to give up.

The characters, for me, felt stiff and unrealistic, and the dialogue was so clunky! So stilted and proper. I didn't like any of the characters I had read about that far into the story, so I couldn't imagine liking any of them at any point! And that's not a good thing when the main character is actually supposed to be likeable...

Clearly this is a well loved book, judging by the reviews in Goodreads, but personally, I couldn't get into this one. I didn't like the writing from page 1. It was very "this happens and then this happens and then they do this and then they also do this". There was no slow tension building, it was all just a quick succession of the twins doing one thing after another after another. I mean just look at that synopsis! No paragraph breaks! I can't usually get with a book that's 80% dialogue and 20% descriptions, and this was exactly that.

I'm not really sure who the audience was meant to be for this one? On one level is felt a little juvenile, so maybe a young adult audience, and then it felt rather cosy, so maybe for readers if "women's fiction". Apparently if I stuck with it, I would find it's actually quite a dark mystery thriller, but I can't bring myself to get that far!

If you like the sound of this by it's synopsis, I'd say pick it up because I'm very clearly in the minority for this one, you might enjoy it! Unfortunately, it wasn't for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for giving me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review! Sorry I didn't enjoy it!

This was an interesting story. The characters were all well drawn, they changed gradually throughout the book as events developed. The descriptions of landscapes, especially the forest were good but not over long. The tension developed over a long period of time and the end was foreseeable to a certain extent and yet it was not possible to guess exactly how the denouement would happen. The clever thing about the book is that it is a historical novel, based in the early sixties but the storyline about abuse is a modern one. Some of t.he detail was a little too graphic for me but I do think it was needed to enhance the plot. It is also an interesting book about how independence comes earlier in modern times and how young girls had limited ideas about careers and life choices. At the centre though is the family and loyalty. There is plenty to think about.