My first thoughts are about the cover of this eerie novel. I loved it. It brings the title together with the content of the book. It's just enough to pique my interest of what could be within the pages under the cover.

The writing style is slightly different from most other reads I've read lately. It took me a bit to get into, but once I did I was not disappointed in the least. Hunts writing was almost poetic, but in a dreamlike, grim way. His foreshadowing was brilliant. It was symbolic and literary in so many ways, I can see this being on many TBR lists.

The content was a perfect read for this time of year. It was full of the colonial time period witches, dark magic, grim forest, revenge and creepy characters. It isn't too often a book will give me feelings other than love and happiness. This one, however, gave me the feels of something I couldn't quite put together while reading. I felt the chills, I felt entrapped in the words on the page wanting to know more and more. I felt my mind racing after about a quarter way through with dark thoughts and gloomy characters. 


Overall:
Four stars. I would recommend this dark and twisted fairy tale to anyone, especially this time of year.

A mother’s errand turns dark and mystical in Hunt’s newest take on witches in Colonial New England. A bright-eyed Goody walks into the woods to gather berries for her husband and young son when the air turns dark. Soon our nameless protagonist is lost, and encounters a magnetic Captain Jane, a bizarre hermit named Eliza, and an ephemeral girl in a yellow dress, each one welcoming and yet exuding a cautious eagerness. Circumstances continually keep the Goody from making her way home. As the tale unravels, snippets of the Goody’s past come into focus and the reader begins to understand that Goody has much more in common with the dark, ominous forest than it first appeared.

With an unambiguous ending, IN THE HOUSE IN THE DARK OF THE WOODS is a quick and thoroughly enjoyable horror novel. Hunt’s style will not please readers who strongly prefer prosaic writing, but the story is so engrossing that one can easily overcome any prejudices regarding narrative style. A perfect treat (or is it a trick?) for Halloween. Highly recommended for horror fans and admirers of lyrical narrative. 

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.

After thinking about it for a few days, I still have mixed feelings about this book. I think this was a good book. I just don’t think it was for me. I’ll start with the things I did like, because there was  lot to enjoy about this book. I mentioned that I like weird scary books, and this one was definitely no exception. I really love when authors invent strange and super creepy elements of their story, and I think Hunt did a great job. It was definitely one my favorite parts of the story, and was definitely effective at depriving me of sleep.

I also enjoyed the setting. Apparently, I hadn’t read the synopsis all the way through (or at all), because I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was set in colonial New England. I love early American history, and it made for such an interesting setting for a horror novel. I think it worked really well, and I was definitely a fan.

What prevented me from loving this book was the writing. Which, to be fair, I think was objectively good. I’ve read a lot of poorly written books, but In the House in the Dark of the Woods is not one of them. I just wasn’t personally a fan. And I think the writing kept me from becoming invested in the characters and the story. It just felt a bit distant. I’m struggling to find the exact words to describe how I felt about the writing. It wasn’t slow, but it just kind made the main character seem a bit unintelligent, which I didn’t love. I don’t think it was by any means bad, I just didn’t connect with it, personally.

You'd first meet a woman nicknamed 'Goody' who would then meet Captain Jane, Eliza and Granny Someone, all of whom were witches, although one of them will claim she was not, and that she was in the woods to save lost souls.

When Goody was taken in by the woods and the lives in it, she ultimately had to decide whether to stay or to return home to her abusive husband and 6 yo son. 

Took me awhile to get into the Hart's writing style. But once I got the hang of it, I was hooked! 

The story builds slowly and gradually, but beautifully... Just be prepared though. You don't want to be caught off guard when you find yourself in the deepest, darkest part of the woods, one that's chilling and eerie. You want to be ready when you are off flying above the clouds in a boat made of human flesh and human bones, with a witch claiming to 'have a mercy to perform.'

The story gets darker with every page. You'll be surrounded by screams, howls, cries so piercing you'll have a hard time listening your thoughts.

Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are of my own.

A full review will be posted on my blog and Goodreads closer to publication day, and shared via Twitter and Litsy.

I received a digital arc of In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt in exchange for an honest review. It will be on shelves on 10/16 so you don’t have to wait long to add it to your Halloween TBR, which I highly recommend you do. This is a twisted, and mysterious dark fantasy. It’s loaded with references to mythic tales of fae, witches, and things that go bump in the night. It gave me nightmares.

A book of American mythology is the perfect way to sum up this dark and frankly kind of messed up story. I promise I mean that lovingly. Immediately I was reminded of one of my all-time favorite animated shows, Over the Garden Wall. You can watch the whole show in about 1.5 hours, and it’s all on Hulu. I recommend you check it out with your whole family this Halloween.

The main character in In the House finds herself lost in the woods and has to contend with several strange people and occurrences on her journey home. Her journey was terrifying, but still fun in some ways. The exposition in the story comes through in small pieces from beginning to end. Just when you think you have everything figured out, a new piece of information throws a wrench into the gears. This forced me to re-evaluate my feelings toward each character at various points in the story, which was really interesting.

There are some big themes in this book as well, and I found myself ruminating on my relationship with my mom a lot. There is a focus on what we inherit from those we encounter, whether we want to or not. Watching various characters deal with that struggle in different ways kept me interested in the story. Honestly, I think it could have used another 50 pages or so, but I was captivated throughout.

If you love dark witchy books with roots in fae mythology I would highly recommend this poetic and nightmare-inducing read. Maybe don’t make my mistake, and read it with all the lights on.

A dark adult fairytale, reminiscent of Grimm's.  I do not normally enjoy adult fairytales, but Hunt has wonderful description of place.

All of the fairy tales warn us to stay out of the woods. But, at the outset of Laird Hunt’s unsettling novel In the House in the Dark of the Woods, a young woman walks into the woods to collect berries for her man and young son. She is never the same again.

Things start to go wrong for our protagonist shortly after she starts picking, though she won’t know just how much trouble she’s in until later. The narrator has been in the woods for a few hours when she sees one of the “first-folk,” who tries to get her to go away. She hurts herself on the way out and falls unconscious. When she wakes, she wanders and gets even more lost. Our protagonist might have made it out but for the dangerously loaded offers of help she receives from the strange inhabitants of the woods.

Hunt’s novel has hints of traditional European folklore. In addition to the “stay out of the woods” trope, there are characters I see as the maiden, mother, and crone; a character who can’t stop playing and singing; characters that might represent the devil. But unlike European folklore, which staunchly supports following the rules, the protagonist’s memories of her home and family make us wonder which world she really fits in. Her home is Puritanical. The woods are anarchic. There are dangers to both, but it becomes clear over the course of the novel (one of the few clear things) that our protagonist fits much better in one world than the other.

I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for books that play around with traditional European folklore. Most of the ones I’ve found, however, hew closer to the original characters and tropes. Perhaps they spin things a little, but they feel familiar if you know your fairy tales. In In the House in the Dark of the Woods, Hunt creates an original folkloric world and characters. Even the slightly familiar characters get original makeovers. I had no idea what these characters were after or how it would all play out and I loved it.