The Memory Wood is one of the most elegantly immersive crime novels I’ve read for a while- immediately involving, two highly intriguing young characters in Elijah and Elissa plus a twisted and compelling plot that holds your attention and your emotion throughout.

It’s a bit of a different way of telling a kidnap story- the victim here, Elissa, is no pushover, intelligent and determined but in one heck of a bind. Enter the elusive and odd Elijah, who may be her salvation but could equally be the death of her…

This is a clever plot executed pitch perfectly with some wonderful writing and a tendency to both tug on the heartstrings and keep you on the edge of your seat. It is an unexpected delight to read and one in which you can never assume you know what’s coming…

Overall a very very good read indeed. More like this please.

Recommended.

The Memory Wood is a chilling psychological thriller by written by Sam Lloyd.

“Never has she experienced anything like this, so much pain and horror condensed into such a focused knot.”
The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd.

The story focuses on the abduction of thirteen-year-old Elissa and the desperate search that follows. Elissa is being held captive and manacled inside “The Gingerbread House” deep within The Memory Wood. She soon comes to the terrifying realisation that she is not the first to be held captive here. Elissa is befriended my Elijah who lives in a cottage in The Memory Wood. He seems lonely and to have very little knowledge of the outside world.

Can Elissa trust him?

What must Elissa do to survive this terrifying ordeal?

“This place is real too. It’s not where I want to be, and I hope I’m not going to die here. I hope, more than anything, that you’re going to help me survive this- but it’s real, I promise you. It’s about as real as a thing can get.”
The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd,

This incredibly well-written story is told from the points of view of Elissa, Elijah and Detective Superintendent Mairead MacCullagh. Each point of view gives a unique perspective to the story and at times helped to ramp up the tension even higher.
Sam Lloyd has created incredible characters that I grew to love and loathe in equal measure, though the lines are frequently blurred so that it was often impossible to know who to trust. Alongside the main characters are a fantastic supporting cast each with an intriguing and heart-wrenching backstory of their own.
The Memory Wood is full of beautifully descriptive writing creating an atmosphere that drew me in and plunged me straight into the scene. What a dark and disturbing place this was at times!
This is an outstanding story that just got better and better with phenomenal writing that literally had me holding my breath!
I cannot recommend this book highly enough and very much look forward to reading more by this author in the future,
Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Transworld for the opportunity to read this ARC.

A psychological thriller which is very dark and creepy.
Child abduction, a strange little boy living in the woods and a story told from three different perspectives was interesting.

Elijah has lived in the Memory Wood for as long as he can remember. It’s the only home he’s ever known.

Elissa has only just arrived. And she’ll do everything she can to escape.

When Elijah stumbles across thirteen-year-old Elissa, in the woods where her abductor is hiding her, he refuses to alert the police. Because in his twelve years, Elijah has never had a proper friend. And he doesn’t want Elissa to leave.

Not only that, Elijah knows how this can end. After all, Elissa isn’t the first girl he’s found inside the Memory Wood.

As her abductor’s behaviour grows more erratic, Elissa realises that outwitting strange, lonely Elijah is her only hope of survival. Their cat-and-mouse game of deception and betrayal will determine both their fates, and whether either of them will ever leave the Memory Wood . . .


This book tells the story that all parents dread happening to them; the abduction of their child. It's told from the points of view of each of the main characters; Elissa, Elijah and Mairead, the detective in charge of the investigation. I really felt for all the main characters, Elijah hadn't had the best start in life, he just wanted a friend and he thought he could have that with Elissa, even though what was happening to her was wrong. Elissa's world had been torn apart in one split second when she was halfway through a chess tournament and Mairead was having a very harrowing time in her personal life, but she cast all that aside to try and bring Elissa back to her mother alive.

This a highly charged, atmospheric read, that will keep you guessing throughout. The blurb made it sound exciting, it was all that and more! It's a book that I found very difficult to put down and I'm certainly looking forward to reading more by this author, because as a debut novel this one is pure genius.

I'd like to thank Random House UK Transworld and Netgalley for the approval, I'll post my review on Amazon and Goodreads

EXCERPT: She can't be in here. She can't. And yet when I angle my head, there she is.

(Her) face looks like a piece of steak left too long on a barbecue, cracked and burnt and black. Her hair is gone, along with her ears and most of her nose. Clear fluid seeps from the fissures in her flesh.

Only her eyes have been spared. They stare with dreadful intensity, two baleful emeralds that have soaked up all the inferno's heat.

'Look at me, Elijah,' she whispers.

I scrunch up my eyes, turn my face to the floor. 'Look at me.'

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Elijah has lived in the Memory Wood for as long as he can remember. It’s the only home he’s ever known.

Elissa has only just arrived. And she’ll do everything she can to escape.

When Elijah stumbles across thirteen-year-old Elissa, in the woods where her abductor is hiding her, he refuses to alert the police. Because in his twelve years, Elijah has never had a proper friend. And he doesn’t want Elissa to leave.

Not only that, Elijah knows how this can end. After all, Elissa isn’t the first girl he’s found inside the Memory Wood.

As her abductor’s behaviour grows more erratic, Elissa realises that outwitting strange, lonely Elijah is her only hope of survival. Their cat-and-mouse game of deception and betrayal will determine both their fates, and whether either of them will ever leave the Memory Wood . . .

MY THOUGHTS: I read the first 70% of The Memory Wood in one sitting, unable to put it down. This is one heck of a debut novel! Twisty. Twisted. Incredibly creepy and compelling. Addictive. This is not your run of the mill abduction story.

The characters are scary. Very scary. Malevolent and scary. Mentally unstable and scary. Even the setting is scary - Memory Wood, where the trees are decorated in memory of people who have passed, not peacefully, and for whom you will never find graves or death certificates.

I have never read anything quite so nightmarish from a debut author, so well plotted and executed. Sam Lloyd has not put one word wrong. This author has a bright future ahead.

😱😱😱😱😱

#TheMemoryWood #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Sam Lloyd grew up in Hampshire, making up stories and building secret hideaways in his local woods. These days he lives in Surrey with his wife, three young sons and a dog that likes to howl. The Memory Wood is his debut thriller.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for providing a digital ARC of The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

Wow what a fantastic, dark and twisty read this was. It’s a hard book to review as I don’t want to give anything away!

This book just gripped me from the start as I found myself drawn into the terrifying unpredictable situation the children find themselves in. The descriptions are so vivid that at times I felt like I was there in the cabin, experiencing everything alongside the children My heart would start beating faster or I found myself literally holding my breath at certain scenes which shows how involved I was.

The characters were fantastic creations who I felt a lot of sympathy for. I liked how different the two of them were and how they brought different things to the story. I became very fond of them through the book and wished I could somehow rescue them from their predicament.

Overall I thought this was a well plotted and fast paced book which was incredibly twisty, making it hard to put down. It is a very dark read which seemed like Grimm’s fairy tales but tripled! The ending was a great way to end the book and it is definitely one that will stay with me as it was quite disturbing.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Thomas Hill from Transworld for my copy of this book.

When thirteen-year-old Elissa is abducted from a chess tournament, she fears the worst. Her captor keeps her chained up in a dark basement with a few candles and a bucket for a toilet. Elissa will be fed if she does what he wants - read out a transcript on camera saying she doesn't want to be found. Twelve-year-old Elijah knows that Elissa is being kept in the basement of a deserted house in Memory Wood, and he knows she's not the first. He wants to help her but doesn't want her to leave him.

Told from the viewpoint of Elissa, Elijah, and Mairead, the police detective, this is an intriguing mystery. At first I thought it was going to be a run of the mill police drama, but there is a clever twist to the tale that turns it into something else. I thought it was very well done, but the ending perhaps went on just a little too long. I would definitely recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers / Bantam Press, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

This is my review of The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd which is his debut novel. Take a read and make your own judgement, if you like your novels dark and creepy.
Elijah has always lived in the Memory Wood, in a cottage with his parents and brother. He’s not lived anywhere else. The wood is where he likes to explore and the rundown cottage is one of the places he goes to a lot and that is where he found Elissa. She has only just arrived but all she wants to do is escape which is difficult due to the manacle around her wrist. There is only a year separating their ages. Now Elijah has found her, he doesn’t want her to go and he won’t go to the police to reveal where she is.
Elissa loves chess and was at a chess tournament with her mum when she was abducted. She got bundled into a van and something put over her mouth, that’s all she remembers. Then waking up in the dark room. She tries mapping it out like a chess board so she can place where the bucket for the toilet is, the other bucket is and the candles are. What do they want with her? She goes through her rucksack, there is still some food in there and her water. Then the ghoul comes visiting.
Elijah has seen this before though, Elissa isn’t the first girl that he has found in the cottage and he wants to keep her, have her as a friend. Elijah gains her trust and they chat, he gets her to teach him the rules of chess and they write a letter to request a free chess board. All Elijah has to do is find a way to post the letter. Unfortunately, when he goes to post the letter on the other side of the memory wood, he gets picked up by the police as he gets lost so he has to be picked up by his father.
After Elijah has mistakenly left his torch after a visit, the ghoul knows that someone else is visiting the cottage. The next time Elijah visits, Elissa is gone but where to? Will she be saved in time? Will the police understand the clues Elissa has sent them?
I found this to be a dark tale that was well written and very descriptive, it felt like you were living the story. The chapters were named after a main character so you knew whose part of the story you were going to be reading, ie Elijah, Elissa.

My thanks to Random House U.K. Transworld Publishers/Bantam Press for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Memory Wood’ by Sam Lloyd in exchange for an honest review. It was published on 20 February.

This is a highly engaging thriller that has received a fair amount of prepublication buzz. I was totally hooked from the start and after completing certainly feel that it well deserved the advance praise.

The plot sees thirteen-year-old Elissa abducted from a Bournemouth chess tournament. She wakes up imprisoned in the cellar of a house. She is secretly visited by the strange and lonely Elijah, who tells her that the house is in the ‘Memory Wood’.

Elissa is very clever and determined to survive. She encourages Elijah in a fantasy that he is Hansel to her Gretel, making her place of confinement the Gingerbread House. She tries to convince him to report where she is to the police. Meanwhile, the person Elissa calls ‘The Ghoul’ begins to execute their sinister plan.

The novel moved between several narrative viewpoints. Along with Elissa and Elijah is Detective Superintendent Mairéad MacCullagh, who is heading up the police investigation. It turns out that Elissa isn’t the first missing child taken in a similar manner.

This was a thriller/police procedural that delivered on all fronts. It was peppered with intriguing clues and provided some great twists along with a nail biting final few chapters. Its characters were well realised, coming alive on the page.

It is a dark tale as befits its tribute to the Grimm fairy tale and I will admit that some scenes were difficult to read, especially as I empathised with the main characters.

Certainly Sam Lloyd will be a writer to watch. I wonder if we will see more from Det Super Mairéad MacCullag in the future?

Highly recommended.

Elijah is 12 years old and has lived the Memory Wood for as long as he can remember.


Elissa is a talented young chess player who has been abducted from a chess tournament, brought to the basement of a building in the Memory Wood, and is now held captive there. Waking up manacled, in a dark, smelly basement with some candles and a bucket, you can’t help but feel the horror and bewilderment of this poor 13 year old child whose world has been turned upside down in an instant.


Elijah finds Elissa down in the basement and tries to befriend her. He calls her ‘Gretel’ to his own ‘Hansel’ and the place she is held in is the ‘Gingerbread House’. Recognising a potential friend and rescuer in Elijah, Elissa begins to bond with this strange boy, although he quickly shows himself to be highly sensitive and volatile, so she’s not actually sure if she’s any better off for having him on her side or if he is really dangerous. He obviously knows that what’s happening to Elissa is wrong but he seems far too scared and conflicted to do anything about it. It also appears that this isn’t the first time he’s been through this which is even more unsettling.

When news of the abduction breaks, there are potential links and similarities to previous cases of missing girls, and Det. Supt, Mairead McCullough is determined to find the connection, and bring Elissa back alive. Mairead has her own issues going on and her behaviour around this was the only bit of this book I found a unlikely – you’ll see why when you read it, but I felt it was unnecessary and distracted a bit from the main story.

The book flips between Elissa, Elijah and Mairead’s perspectives and in doing so flows really well and gives you little snippets of clues as to what’s really going on in the Memory Wood. The characters are very well written and really leap off the page at you. There’s a lot of confusion throughout the book as you think you know what’s happening, then realise you really didn’t. It’s twisty, but it’s clever – the twists come at you from nowhere and change your whole perception of what’s happening and why. You think you’ve got a handle on it and it’s gone – and it’s like that right up until the last few pages.

A brilliant read, The Memory Wood is a genuinely creepy best-selling Thriller in waiting, with a dark fairy-tale feel, a couple of main characters that you’re really rooting for, and some amazing twists that leave you wondering page after page.

What a debut! Quite a chilling tale with descriptions that make this tale frightening and believable. The wood, The Gingerbread House, the characters all described in such detail you can actually visualise the surroundings and the characters. How many abductors? how many victims? Twists and turns that you just don't see coming! Very edge of the seat reading.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Sam Lloyd/Random House for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

When Elissa is kidnapped she finds solace in a boy called Elijah who visits her – but will he be willing to help his new friend escape?

The Memory Wood is a dark crime thriller that is not afraid to pull punches in its plot development. The chapters shift between a boy who knows his Memory Wood contains a dark secret, a girl who’s been abducted and a police detective with problems of her own – there is a lot to unpack here but it certainly leads to a compelling and fast paced read.

The Memory Wood gives a fresh perspective and a unique twist on the abducted child genre. The end twist certainly took me completely by surprise and was one that stayed with me for days after reading it. I really enjoyed how well developed all three of the main characters were and how much detail had been used to paint them. Mairead’s sorrow at trying to have a child of her own, Elissa’s love of chess and how she used it to solve everyday problems and Elijah’s way of seeing the world around him showed how skilled Sam Lloyd is in creating characters you can really empathise with. From what I can see this also seems to be a debut for Mr Lloyd and I can confidently say I am excited to see what comes next! I also really liked the fact that although we got to hear so much about Detective Mairead’s personal life it didn’t feel like the start of another procedural series – it was a nice standalone novel.

Overall The Memory Wood is a twisty thriller that will stay with you long after you finished reading it. Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK & Transworld Publishers – Bantam for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have a sneaky suspicion that this thriller is going to be a big hit in 2020. I absolutely loved it, and I’m sure many others will too. I must have read hundreds upon hundreds of thrillers in my time (as it’s my favourite genre) and as I’m sure you can imagine, they can sometimes become a bit monotonous and somewhat similar. The good news is that this book breaks that trend. This is a thriller unlike any other that I’ve read before.

The main characters in this book are two children – Elyssa, who is thirteen years old and who has been abducted and hidden in the woods, and Elijah, who has lived in the woods for as long as he can remember and who’s extremely lonely and in need of a friend. So, when Elijah finds Elyssa manacled, neglected, abused and held captive in a deserted cottage in the woods, he refuses to contact the police. He doesn’t want Elyssa to leave. She’s his friend.

Straight off the bat, this concept just appealed to me. I saw the book as having so much potential, and I felt that this read could be much more than a run of the mill thriller, possibly delving into some interesting psychological concepts. And I was largely right. The idea that a young boy could feel so alone, and so lonely, that he basically aids and abets the perpetration of a crime merely to secure a friend really messed with my mind. And it left me with lots to think about.

This is a thriller that twisted and turned all over the place, and when the hits came, they came hard and fast. It’s a somewhat dark thriller, without being overly intense. The reason that I say this is because I found the descriptions of Elyssa’s experiences at the hands of her captor rather terrifying, in a psychological way, and some of the events that unfolded in the story were pretty dark too. The scenes were described with such clarity that I could literally see the tiny basement that Elyssa was held in, and I could feel the damp, the cold and the darkness. (For those of you that are sensitive, take comfort in the fact that there are no scenes of sexual abuse or anything of that nature).

As far as thrillers go, I highly recommend this one. It’s a great read, and it’s going to be a big hit. Perhaps there were a few lose ends left at the end, and a few questions left that weren’t answered, but never mind that, this is a knock out read. I highly recommend it.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review The Memory Wood. I was intrigued by the premise- I love a multi-person narrative and a good old mystery but somehow I struggled to connect. The writing is sharp and the characters of Elijah and Elissa are well-drawn but, for me, there was something missing and I struggled to engage I'm afraid.

More twists and turns than a drive through the Swiss Alps. I absolutely loved the plot and it kept we guessing throughout. The characters were well written and I engaged with each of them. Highly suspenseful and a great read!

I enjoyed this...gripping story which keeps its pace and interest throughout...I'd like there to have been more character development around the perpetrators, but it didnt suffer too badly as written.

This is a must read psychological thriller read.

This is dark and gritty about children getting lost and abducted in the woods.

The story is suspenseful, thrilling and dark which makes me want to keep reading.

It kept me gripped from start to end because I wanted to find out what was going on and if it got sorted out at the end

The Memory Wood is not like anything I’ve read in a long time. It’s an unpredictable wild ride, at no point could I relax while reading this book. I was so hooked from the first chapter that I finished this book within 24 hours.

The character development was really well done, I love that Elissa is a chess prodigy and this shows in her personality and throughout the ordeal in terms of how she tries to cope with the situation she finds herself in. I felt really connected to Elissa and became really invested in what happened to her. For a thriller this is beautifully written, I loved the setting of The Memory Wood and the idea of the Gingerbread House.

I enjoyed where the author took this thriller and I look forward to reading more from him in the future.

Elissa is a 13 yo chess champion who is abducted when she steps outside a chess tournament for five minutes to grab something from her mother's car. She coins her kidnapper "the ghoul" due to his presentation and character. He hides her in a cabin in what she comes to learn is The Memory Wood.

She befriends Elijah, a 12 yo boy who lives in the Memory Wood. He visits Elissa whilst she is held captive and it soon becomes apparent Elijah knows Elissa's fate, just as he has witnessed the fate of others who have come before her.

What follows is a game of wits between Elissa and Elijah with the reader wondering whether Elissa can outsmart him (or convince him) into helping her escape. Another perspective is also given by Mairead, the police officer investigating Elissa's abduction. Elissa's survival is observed to be of prime importance to Mairead who is aware time is slipping away and finding Elissa alive becomes increasingly unlikely. Mairead takes her responsibilities seriously and we see the personal toll it takes upon her.

This is an intense psychological thriller which on the surface appears to be about the uneasy friendship between two adolescents in a bizarre situation. Elissa is an incredible girl and her abilities with chess lead to compartmentalisation of her surroundings to gather her own evidence in order to assess her captor and his intentions. Elijah is a sad, lonely boy who seems always to be looking over his shoulder. Mairead in the background is a grafter, working away without fuss, pomp and ceremony in an attempt to bring Elissa home.

The story was a tad like a fairytale with references to gingerbread cottages and Hansel and Gretel, although you got the feeling a fairy tale ending was not going to be realised.
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I'm grateful to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for an eARC of this book in exchange for a review. The views expressed are genuine and all mine.

This review will appear on my bookstagram page @aplace_inthesun prior to or on the day of publication.

This book is for publication on 20 February 2020.

Thirteen-year-old chess prodigy Elissa Mirzoyan is abducted in the middle of a tournament after leaving the venue to fetch one of her possessions from the car. The kidnapper, nicknamed The Ghoul by Elissa, thrust her into the back of his van and spirited her away to The Memory Wood. When she wakes from her slumber she realises that she is chained and being held captive and notices she is covered in bruises. She wonders how she will escape her godawful situation and her only hope is if long-term memory wood resident twelve-year-old Elijah decides to come to her rescue. However, young Elijah is extremely lonely and isolated from the world and he decides he wants to keep Elissa close to him for his own selfish needs. It soon becomes clear that both Elijah and his brother, Kyle, are very odd and complex characters with many dark secrets to hide. Can Elissa persuade Elijah to free her?

This is a chillingly macabre and disturbing tale and it got under my skin so effectively that I actually dreamed about the story. It captivates and enthrals from first chapter to last and was gruesomely twisty and superbly plotted. The tension was expertly ratcheted up and the underlying mystique and foreboding atmosphere was a large part of why the book ended up feeling so deliciously dark, creepy and sinister. The Memory Wood is a complex and accomplished novel with an ominous fairytale vibe to it and I was stunned by Ms Lloyd’s ability to elevate the book above the formulaic, run-of-the-mill standard often experienced in the genre. If you're a fan of thrillers that move at a swift pace, have a cast of intriguing characters and consistently whip you up into an exciting frenzy then I feel this should be on the list of all self-proclaimed crime connoisseurs.

I expect this to become one of the biggest thrillers of 2020 as it certainly deserves to be. I cannot recommend this highly enough. Many thanks to Bantam Press for an ARC.