I was thoroughly impressed with this one! A thriller that focuses on a small Appalachian town in Virginia; kids go missing in the town's dark woods and turn up dead. There's plenty of town lore about the man in the woods that takes the children and the Ashby family is known as the protectors of this town.

Families steeped in long histories and a new round of kids are going missing, bringing Cheyenne Ashby back to her family home to help her mom. Chey had left 5 years ago to escape those haunting woods and her return to the sleepy little town is anything but a homecoming. The lore of the man in the woods was probably my favorite part as all myths and legends are based on pieces of things that are real.

I was definitely creeped out through most of this one and enjoyed the overall story as well as the characters. A great read for thriller seekers or lovers of a good mystery!

If you love a slow burn, this is for you. The setting is both claustrophobic dark. The cover would be a fantastic addition to anyone’s fall TBR.

The narrative started to feel very repetitive, we kept hearing the same from both POVs which usually is used to give new info. I feel like this takes off at 60% in.

I found the villain to be predictable, and the monologue they go on seems a little disjointed and off balance with the for the rest but for a debut this was pretty good. I’ll be on the lookout for the author’s next book to see what she comes up with!

The Woods Are Waiting is a mystery that is set off by a horrible rhyme about the woods and staying away from the hickory man. It is scares children for years. But when children go missing no one seems to be able to find them until it is too late.

Cheyenne Ashby returns home to find her mother burning herbs and candles to ward off the evil spirits she knows are coming. She is saddened to see her in the state she is in. As Cheyenne cares for her mother, she begins to have nightmares since she has returned.

Another child has gone missing, but the man that was believed to be responsible was arrested. So who is the real culprit now.

This is a slow burning spooky read thanks to the "nursery rhyme" added to set the stage. It was a little too slow waiting for something to happen. But all in all, dragging it out added to the spooky feeling.

The Woods Are Waiting is such a creepy and well-done book! A forest with tales of the supernatural/monsters is a favorite premise for a book for me, and the characters really stood out to make this story unique. This was a slow-burn mystery, but the suspense was high throughout the entire story. I really loved the ending!

I love a spooky story with creepy woods - this one definitely will give you the creeps!

sadly, it was a slowwwww burn. It took me longer to finish because of that. I still absolutely enjoyed it though. I did love the short chapters, the small town drama, the characters & of course the creepy atmosphere. I really loved the absolute plot twist at the end which you think you see coming - but you will be mistaken!

A creepy tale about missing children in the woods and even though the supposed killer is behind bars, more kids are going missing. This one gave me the shivers and I don't scare easily in books. Fast paced with short chapters, I found this one incredibly hard to put down. Hard to believe it's a debut!

Thank you Katherine Greene, Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC e-book. This story was very creepy. We heard many nursery rhymes or different superstitions that have an eerie underlying meaning behind them. Some people are very superstitious and will follow along for as long as they can remember and may not even know why they do it after so long. This was one of those stories that definitely gave me the creeps with an underlying (because we tell ourselves monsters aren't real) who done it.

Cheyenne returns home to help her mom who is becoming increasingly erratic. Her small Appalachian town, located on the edge of a deep forest, has a dark history of missing and murdered children, and a creepy legend about the Hickory Man. Another kid goes missing, and Cheyenne and her two childhood best friends are determined to discover the truth about what's happening in the woods and who (or what) is taking the town's children.

Greene did a great job creating an atmosphere of creeping dread - between the stifling small town where everyone knows your business and the claustrophobia of the surrounding forest - yikes. Well done! The eventual explanation of what was going on was a little over the top, but it worked. The thing I didn't love... Cheyenne. She up and disappeared and everyone just welcomed her back with open arms without much apology or reflection? I think Natalie was a much more interesting character to root for by far.

Overall, this was a strong debut, and I look forward to reading future books by Greene.

“Keep silver in your pockets,
Walk with dirt in your shoes, …
Stay away from the hickories,
Stay away from the trees”

My thanks to Crooked Lane Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Woods Are Waiting’ by Katherine Greene.

I am always drawn to novels featuring woodlands as while I love trees and woods, they also provide the perfect setting for tales of folk horror. I

Cheyenne Ashby has returned to the town of Blue Cliff, Virginia in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains, after receiving an urgent call from the local police chief about her mother’s increasingly eccentric behaviour. Constance Ashby had been raised seeped in the customs and generational superstitions linked to a local legend of an evil entity that haunts the forest: the Hickory Man. Cheyenne had sought to escape from Constance’s influence but now has been drawn back.

Five years ago when Cheyenne left, three local children went missing and their bodies were later found in the woods. Yet it was a man named Jasper Clinton, who was convicted of these heinous crimes rather than a mythical entity. Recently Jasper’s conviction has been overturned and he was released. Now another child has gone missing and the townspeople are up in arms.

Cheyenne and her former school friends, Natalie and Jackson, are determined to uncover the truth, little realising how dangerous seeking answers could prove. At the heart of the mystery is who or what is living in the woods?

Overall, I found ‘The Woods Are Waiting’ quite creepy and exactly what I would expect from the premise. It proved an atmospheric and engaging read and I felt that it was a promising debut. I will be looking forward to news of her future projects.

This didn't work for me. The story moved very slowly and I quickly became bored. Eventually, it did pick up the pace but that was more than halfway through and by that time I wasn't interested or invested at all.

The Woods Are Waiting by Katherine Green
Rating: 3 stars
Pub Date: 7/11

This story revolves around Cheyenne Ashby, a young woman who escaped her hometown to evade its dark history. Raised by her eccentric mother, Constance, amidst the haunting woods and their unsettling legends, Cheyenne is all too familiar with the town's deep-rooted superstitions. When another child goes missing, Cheyenne and her childhood friend Natalie embark on a journey to uncover the truth and expose the town's dangerous secrets.

Though this book wasn't my usual genre and was slightly creepier than I anticipated, I found myself engrossed in its atmospheric prose. Greene expertly captures the palpable tension, making the woods come alive and sending shivers down my spine. The pacing is swift, propelling the narrative forward and heightening the sense of unease with every turn of the page.

The characters, particularly Cheyenne and Natalie, are well-developed and relatable. Their determination to confront the horrors of their town and face their own fears adds depth to the story. Additionally, the author weaves a compelling mystery, gradually revealing the tangled web of secrets that have haunted Blue Cliff for years.

While The Woods Are Waiting pushed the boundaries of my comfort zone, I appreciate Katherine Greene's skill in crafting an unsettling and gripping tale. Fans of atmospheric thrillers will find themselves drawn into this dark descent into a town's horrifying past, where evil lurks within the waiting woods.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Reading Between the Wines book review #77/115 for 2023:
Rating: 4 🍷 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book: The Woods are Waiting
Author: Katherine Green
RELEASES on July 11, 2023!!! Happy Publication Day!

Sipping thoughts: The Woods are Waiting is such a spooky read. Brimming with ghost-like, evil, demonic, cultish superstitions, you will be on the edge of your seat trying to figure out what is happening to the kids in Blue Cliff. What I was expecting is nowhere near what happened but oh was it satisfying. I really enjoyed this read! If you don’t make this your summer read, you have to put it on your Halloween/Fall reads.

Cheers and thank you to @NetGalley and @CrookedLaneBooks for an advanced copy of @TheWoodsAreWaiting.
#TheWoodsAreWaiting #KatherineGreen #CrookedLaneBooks #NetGalley #advancedreadercopy #ARC #Kindle #Booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #nicoles_bookcellar #bookworm #bookdragon #booknerd #booklover #bookstagrammer #bookaholic #bookreview #bookreviewer #IHaveNoShelfControl #ReadingBetweenTheWines #fiction #thriller #suspense #mystery #MysteryAndThrillers #GeneralFictionAdult

In a Nutshell: A slowburn mystery set in the Appalachian region of Virginia. Great atmosphere, poorly-sketched characters, repetitive writing, below-average suspense, disappointing resolution.

Story Synopsis:
Blue Cliff is a town steeped in superstition, as residents believe that the local hickory woods are haunted. It is also infamous as the town where three children were found dead in the woods five years ago. Jasper Clinton was convicted for his crimes almost immediately, but now another child has gone missing.
Cheyenne Ashby left her hometown of Blue Cliff to escape its dark history and her superstitious mother. But with her mother’s health on the decline, their old family friend and police chief asks Cheyenne to return.
Her childhood friend Natalie is no longer on speaking terms with her. But when reality starts becoming more bizarre, Cheyenne and Natalie realise that they must team up to save the missing boy, even if it means confronting the being who lives in the woods.
The story comes to us in the first person perspectives of Cheyenne and Natalie.

Bookish Yays:
💐 Loved the use of the location. The hickory woods create a nice atmospheric setting, further enhanced by the small town culture.
💐 Enjoyed the way superstitions were used to amp up the tension.
💐 A gorgeous cover with a matching title. Loved the vibes generated by the cover pic.

Bookish Mixed Bags:
🌹 The character sketching of Cheyenne and Natalie. I liked how they were strong women who didn’t shy away from tough talk or tough decisions or even tough actions. It was a refreshing change to see such women at the helm of a contemporary mystery rather than the usual whiny protagonists we encounter. At the same time, there were certain things in their situation that were impossible to accept. Natalie’s blindness to her fiancé’s attitude towards her was too farfetched to believe. Then again, her pov is mostly useless and more focussed on her personal issues than on the central mystery. Her character development had a lot of wasted potential.

Bookish Nays:
🌵 Sloooooooooow. Nothing much happens until the second half. And even then, only a little happens. Basically, the book contains a whole load of talk and hardly any action.
🌵 The above-mentioned talk is also quite repetitive, with the same situations and comments being brought up again and again in the first half.
🌵 Several characters were infuriating, chief of whom being Natalie’s fiancé Hunter. Unlikeable characters aren’t a problem, but when they are unlikeable as well as unidimensional, it’s tough to enjoy the book.
🌵 Cheyenne and Natalie are both given first person voices, but there is nothing to distinguish them by as the writing in both perspectives sounds the same. It would have been better if Natalie had been written in third person to create a distinction between the two leads.
🌵 Several events in the plot feel quite flat and brushed aside without proper resolution. The reason for Cheyenne’s rushing away from Blue Cliff five years ago seems flimsy, and her return is almost instant without much stress. The resolution of her broken relationship with Natalie is also pretty conflict-free. The silence of some townspeople over certain key events is also unrealistic.
🌵 Even worse than the above half-baked portrayals is the lack of logic in the people and the plot. Kids have disappeared in threes for centuries and yet there is no deeper investigation by any higher authority? A suspect has been convicted for the latest triple murder five years back, and this relaxes everyone, without wondering how the earlier kids died? So many deaths of little ones, and people still willingly stay in this nondescript with their families carrying just cornhusk dolls and silver coins for protection? There seems to be not an iota of common sense in the townspeople.
🌵 The final 20% of the book comprises mostly of an extended infodump scene with the villain and some other characters. It killed the little enjoyment I had had until that point. I know cosy mysteries often end with an infodump full of reveals, but 20% is just too much. It didn’t help that the reveal was utterly disappointing and farfetched.
🌵 Guessing the villain’s identity is a cakewalk. Honestly, you don’t even need to be an avid mystery reader. If you pay careful attention to the character names, you will guess the identity of the culprit instantaneously. This is the biggest shortcoming of the book because no mystery should be so easy to resolve.
🌵 What was the point of the last sentence of the book? A cliffhanger just for the sake of it? To disprove everything that occurred till then?


All in all, I had high hopes from this one because of that interesting premise. But the poor pacing and the repetition were dampeners. Atmosphere alone can’t sustain a book. Moreover, a mystery novel is only as good as its ending, and the ending of this one is so tiresome that my rating, which was around 3 stars until the 80% mark, slid down by a whole star.
This is a debut work, and jointly written by two authors under a combined pen name. Their imagination is certainly in the right place, and more writing experience will hopefully help iron out plot holes as were present this one.
Well, whom do I recommend this book to? I don’t know. Maybe you will like it better if you have more patience with slow and action-free and somewhat predictable cosy mysteries set in a small town.
2 stars.

My thanks to NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books for the DRC, and Dreamscape Media for the ALC of “The Woods are Waiting”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.

This was dark, creepy, and atmospheric! I absolutely loved the way the author set the stage for this book.

I was able to predict the ending, but I didn’t find that it took away from my enjoyment of the book at all. I will also say that there were enough red herrings that I wasn’t always 100% sure I was correct about who the perpetrator was.

I definitely recommend this one to anyone who loves thrillers!

I received a free eARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

What a delightful spooky-forest-of-doom read!! Seriously you guys, this is brilliant. And a debut novel too? I'm amazed.

I love books that are mostly or partially set in forests because that will never not be creepy. There's so many things that go bump in the night so it's easy to imagine how living next to something like that might make people feel. And especially with the Hickory Man legends they all grew up with.

So basically this is a town where kids go missing, always, seemingly in threes. It's been happening for hundreds of years and no one really knows why, except of course that it must be because of the Hickory Man.

Cheyenne's family has always lived in the woods, and they're sort of the town's protectors. She gets called home when another kid goes missing and gets wrapped up in a mystery for the ages.

We follow her PoV, but also her former best friend Natalie's as well. The two PoVs balanced each other out. I initially wasn't sure if I wanted anyone other than Cheyenne to tell the story, but Natalie won me over pretty fast. Her PoV was just as interesting as Cheyenne's.

What I liked most about this book is the atmosphere and the small town superstitions that got passed down from generation to generation. Why do they carry silver coins or put dirt in their shoes? To protect them from the evil lurking in the trees, duh. I love that.

And the salt, herbs, poppets, crystals, rituals, all of that was interesting to read about and helped build up the spook factor.

There was even a little romance thrown in, with Cheyenne and her first boyfriend Jack. He's very much like a puppy, and I liked the two of them together.

I did guess some things, but I didn't let myself speculate too much, I just went with the flow and it worked well for me. I had a good time.

Until the very end I wasn't sure if the Hickory Man was real or not and after finishing this...ALL I'M GONNA SAY IS THAT THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY SPOOKY THINGS IN THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS OKAY. AND IF YOU HEAR ANYTHING CALLING OUT YOUR NAME FROM THE FOREST NO, YOU DO NOT.

I can't wait to see what these authors (yes, there's 2) put out next. And if they set it in Appalachia again, well, I'll come running.

*Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review*

This mystery/suspense follows Cheyenne Ashby as she returns home to Blue Cliff, Virginia after being away for 5 years. She grew up with her eccentric mother in the woods - the woods where local legend the Hickory Man is said to wait and kidnap children. Only five years ago, it wasn't the Hickory Man who murdered three children but a man named Jasper Clinton. Now, Jasper is released due to new evidence coming to light, another child goes missing from Blue Cliff, and Cheyenne's mother is becoming obsessive with her superstitions and protection rituals. When Cheyenne reconnects with her friend, Natalie, the two are determined to find out what is truly happening to the children of Blue Cliff.

TW/CW: kidnapping, death of a child,

This was a fantastically creepy read. The small town Appalachia setting combined with a great supernatural undercurrent really worked well together to create a great atmosphere for the entire book. The town of Blue Cliff is a mix of people who outwardly believe in the superstitions, those who pretend they don't but believe behind closed doors, and outsiders who don't believe at all. This creates a really great dynamic and fuel for tension as more children go missing. There's a constant push/pull between the superstitions and reality as the people of Blue Cliff try to figure out what is happening to their town.

The Hickory Man legend was really well developed and did a lot of work in the story. I did a quick search to see if this was a well-known Appalachian legend but didn't find anything so I believe Greene created it. We get a really great backstory through some flashbacks that show how entwined the Hickory Man and Blue Cliff are. Layered on top, we have Cheyenne's family of the Ashbys being charged as the town's protectors - a role which her mother takes very seriously. I loved the details of the nursery rhyme that the children chant and adults follow to protect the children from the Hickory Man. When I was reading, I could almost hear the creepy children singing this rhyme and I loved it. The Hickory Man wasn't just a background story to our characters, he is a real legend and Greene used that to her full advantage throughout this read.

I really enjoyed the characters and their relationships were so complex. Small towns are a favorite setting of mine for this exact reason. Everyone knows everyone and that can be useful but also can cause tension when suspicion turns inward and the townsfolk turn on one another. The chapters alternate between following Cheyenne and Natalie and it was interesting to see the difference in their lives. They were friends since they were little, but when Cheyenne left suddenly five years ago, their lives took very different paths. The comparison between Cheyenne, who is now treated as a bit of an outsider, and Natalie, who is now engaged to the mayor's son, is really fascinating.

I thought the solution to the mystery came together really well and tied together a lot of the details we got throughout the story. My favorite element to these folk horror/superstition mysteries is finding out if the supernatural entity is real or if someone is using it as a cover for their crimes. I did see a post on Twitter comparing this read to a specific movie that did spoil the general ending a bit but I didn't guess the exact details so it was still a fun read figuring out what is really going on in this small town. I did find the main story ended a little quickly for my liking, but we do get an epilogue so we are able to see a bit of the aftermath of the ending reveal which I always appreciate.

Overall, this was a great, creepy, folk horror read that really paid off on the premise. The small town setting and legend of the Hickory Man were really used to their utmost potential and really heightened this story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC. Publication date is July 11, 2023.

I love the lore around the Appalachian Mountains so this was a fun read for me. The spooky vibes were off the charts and I liked the big reveal at the end of who the murderer was. The characters were interesting and I really enjoyed the plot.

**Spoilers ahead**

This book started off so promising. I started reading and thought oh, this is going to be fun! Only it quickly started to get tedious and I finished it just to see what would happen (the ending didn't help things).

This is the story of a town in the woods where children go missing every few years, always three at a time. Cheyenne, one of our points of view, is the daughter of the "crazy lady" who lives in the woods. The lady who is doing everything she can to protect the town from the Hickory Man, the local legend of the monster that lives in the woods. Cheyenne left town as soon as she could without a backward glance, leaving everyone behind without a word. Only now someone has contacted her to let her know her mom isn't doing very well and she might want to check up on her. So this is the first time in 5 years she has come back.

When she left she left her bff's Natalie and Jack behind. The second point of view we get is Natalies and...she is engaged to her high school boyfriend who is really verbally abusive though no one ever mentions that. I did not understand why she put up with him and even when she broke up she still never really reflected on exactly how toxic he was. Or I should say when he broke up with her and she decided not to go back to him when he came crawling back. I just...him and his family were awful so it didn't make sense why anyone in town really liked them. Oh well.

So with Cheyenne back and a new kid missing there is a lot of worry and anxiety in town. Cheyenne always thought the old superstitions were bs and she gets so angry any time anyone brings up something like that. Like it couldn't possibly be true. And while in the end it was people murdering children there was still the hint of otherworldy something going on. It was obvious that some of the townspeople were in on whatever was happening, but the end was really disappointing. I really expected more of the town to be in on it, more people knowing what is going on instead of basically 2 people. So...and the whole bad guy explaining everything in the end was not so great.

Now besides the ending not working for me and being disappointing the other main issue was the characters themselves. Especially Cheyenne. She was almost cartoonish for me. They oftentimes didn't read like real people. The conversations were off and I don't know it didn't work for me. So that is why it was sliding downhill, but I was hoping for some cool monster in the woods only to be let down by that as well. The end kind of leaves it open to there might actually be something there, but eh.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

I wasn't impressed with this debut thriller. The characters lacked depth and seemed overly stereotypical of small town residents. The story moved at an even pace but the outcome was predictable. Sorry, I can't recommend this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an advanced reader copy.

Cheyenne left Blue Cliff and never planned to return. But when she gets the call that her eccentric mother isn’t doing well, Cheyenne packs up her life and heads back home.

Blue Cliff is a place of tragedy. Many times over many years, children have gone missing and then been found dead. Superstitions fly rampant, especially as another child goes missing. Cheyanne, her childhood best friend, and her first love must figure out what is truly going on, before another child disappears.

The first chapter of the book is written in an over the top, way too cliched style. But I’m glad I pushed past that, because the rest of the book is written really well. This story is very suspenseful, with an eerie factor and a twist ending I did not see coming. I would recommend this book.