Thank you Random House Worlds & Chuck Wendig for this read & happy PUB day!

This book was such a brilliant read! It was a combination of haunted house horror but with a twist. It tackles many dark themes and some seems are just as unsettling as others are actually spooky. As I read this one night in the dark I actually was a bit creeped out - which doesn't happen too often with me!

The characters were flawed and real and the friendship between the protagonists was one of my favourite things - The Covenant!

The ending actually gave me shivers and I feel like I NEED MORE! I need more from where this story ends.

A great spooky read that no doubt will be a horror fav this year.

4.5/5

The story's about five high school buddies. Their loyalty gets a real test when they find this a staircase in the middle of woods. One of them climbs it and suddenly disappeared, leave no trace behind. The stairscase vanish too, leaving a mess of hurt feelings, guilt, and unanswered questions for years. After two decades, the staircase show up again, pulling them all back to confront their past and the real horror of what went down.
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I initially anticipated a thriller/crime novel, but it proved to be more of a horror. The chapters are short and captivating. However, I felt the plot was somewhat confusing due to its frequent shifts between past and present, and the writing style felt a little repetitive at times. The horror elements have a psychological impact and explore themes of friendship, guilt, regret, trauma, etc. Rather than being disappointing, I found it incredibly engaging, and I truly appreciate the story's atmosphere. It's eerie, dark, strange, a lil bit graphic, and emotional. The characters aren't likable, but they feel more realistic to me.
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I would like to recommend this book to readers who are searching for a psychological horror book.
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❗️TW
Self harm, Suicide, Murder, Child abuse, Addiction, Sexual assault
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Thank you to Chuck Wendig, Random House Worlds/Del Rey, and NetGalley for the free advance readers copy!

In The Staircase in the Woods, Chuck Wendig once again proves he’s a master of modern horror, spinning a story that is as emotionally resonant as it is unnervingly strange. Equal parts supernatural mystery, coming-of-age tale, and psychological thriller, this novel takes a simple premise—a staircase standing alone in the forest—and turns it into a chilling exploration of grief, memory, and the secrets we bury to survive.

The story centers on five high school friends, bound together by a solemn promise. Their loyalty is tested when, during a seemingly innocent camping trip, they encounter a bizarre, freestanding staircase deep in the woods. One friend climbs it—and vanishes. The staircase disappears soon after, leaving behind trauma, guilt, and questions that fester for two decades.

When the staircase reappears twenty years later, the group is drawn back to the forest to confront the unresolved past and face the horror of what really happened. Wendig deftly alternates between past and present, building tension through fractured relationships, buried truths, and a creeping sense of cosmic dread. The horror here isn’t just what lies beyond the staircase, but what lingers inside each character—the fears they’ve carried, the choices they regret, and the way time distorts both.

The atmosphere is thick with dread, but Wendig’s sharp prose and empathetic character work prevent it from feeling overly bleak. Each member of the group is richly drawn, their emotional scars palpable, and the interplay of friendship and betrayal adds depth to the terror. The supernatural elements are strange and nightmarish, but it’s the human drama that really lands.

The Staircase in the Woods is a standout in literary horror: eerie, elegiac, and thought-provoking. Wendig doesn’t just scare you—he unsettles you in ways that linger long after the final page. Fans of The Book of Accidents and Hide will find this a worthy, haunting successor.

Five high school friends, Mattie, Nick, Owen, Hamish and Lauren, go camping in the woods where they discover a staircase, seemingly going nowhere. The friends are close, having always looked out for each other and have made a covenant to always protect each other> However, when Mattie decides to climb the staircase and disappears at the top, none of his friends are brave enough to follow.

Now nearly three decades later, Nick has found another staircase in the woods and, under false pretences, has brought the others together to climb it with him. What they find at the top of the staircase is terrifying and nightmarish. Not only will the friends discover where Mattie went but, it will make them also face not their guilt at leaving him as well as their greatest fears and individual traumas from the past.

This is a very imaginative book with a lot of food for thought. While I found it dragged a little and became somewhat repetitive after they all went up the staircase, the novel gave me a lot to think about in terms of home, friendship and trauma. It also bothered me that the characters still sounded like they were in their twenties, some twenty eight years later on, but I think maybe that was because they were unable to fully grow up, after losing Mattie by letting him down, when he most needed them. I think I’m probably not in the right demographic for this novel, but those who enjoy creepy horror, and enjoy gaming, should find it works for them.

I originally requested this book because the title and cover for the book reminded me of the TikTok sensation, The Stairs, by Dougie Corrado. Which is my favorite storyteller on YouTube! I don’t know why I was expecting it to be similar to that story but It was completely different and surpassed my expectations. This story kept me up all night wondering what would happen next.

It’s hard to write a review without adding spoilers to it so I’m going to keep it short. The Staircase in the Woods is the type of book that challenges the conventions of horror by intertwining supernatural elements with deep emotional storytelling. It dives into the complexities of trauma, friendship, and guilt all while keeping the reader on the edge of their seats. The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking “how the hell did Chuck come up with this story?!” His writing was impeccable!

It does start off a bit slow with details regarding the backstory of each of the characters and the story’s build up but it’s definitely worth reading. There are a lot of trigger warnings as well. I can’t wait to read more from this author!

First I’d like to say Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Staircase in the Woods. This was my first book by Chuck Wendig so I was not sure what to expect. The story was very interesting and way darker than I expected. The writing style was easy to get into but i personally I was invested more into the “present” chapters than the “past” chapters. I will say that I dislike some of characters. Overall I did like the book.

This was kind of a disappointment. The teenagers involved in this group are not pleasant people. They have all had horrific childhoods and that has taken quite a toll. The whole book is a compendium of tales about violence within families and towards children. It is not a fun read.

Heart is where the home is. Home is where the horror is.

The premise is simple. 5 teenagers go camping. They find a staircase in the woods. Only 4 come home.

The Staircase in the Woods opens with a short chapter about how friendship is like a house. The writing here is excellent. This coming back as dialogue in a pivotal moment? Even better.

After this, we meet our main POV characters. Wendig lets us get to know who these characters are as people, who they are to each other, and how they’re broken. There are several moments of subtle foreshadowing. It lets the dread slowly accumulate before the horror show truly begins.

Each character is an example of the pain from having an abusive, neglectful, and/or selfish parent. Wendig really captures the different ways bad parents can break their kids, even into adulthood. If you’ve never endured this absence of love or vitriol of abuse, it feels impossible to explain. You learn to privately cope with the void it leaves inside you because who could possibly understand?

The flavor and degree of harm done is different in all of them as are the coping mechanisms. You hide it from the world and hide it from yourself. Younger people lack the words to articulate what they need. They cry for help in silence. If they cry out loud and no one answers, what else can you do?

This study of friendship and enduring trauma set against an adversarial nightmare from Hell was incredibly poignant and effective. The horrors of the world, what we do to those we care about, what we do to ourselves, who we become to survive. It is layered and complicated and visceral.

The light ambiguity of the ending works well. Everything about these characters, their situations, how they’re broken, and how they coped was messy. Why should the resolution be neat and tidy? You get enough answers to feel satisfied without feeling pandered to.

This is a book about the importance of friendship, the pain of losing it, and the perils of being human in hard times. You can’t endure everything alone. A home is as much the people in your heart as a building around you. Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for letting me up the stairs and into the void. 5/5

PS - Wendig has merch for some of his books on Void Merch. I look forward to seeing if this one gets any designs.

“A white smile and eyes like moons opened in the darkness.”

Chuck Wendig’s creativity will never cease to amaze me. How does seeing a staircase in the New Hampshire woods turn into a terrifying story that gradually put me in a chokehold and didn’t loosen its grip until the very last page?! A story with complex characters living in a world that feels both familiar and foreign; where the horror is lurking just below the surface, taunting us into believing what’s written on the page could happen to anyone anywhere, while also being scarier than anything we could ever imagine.

“That was the funny thing about a fear of the dark: you weren’t really afraid of it, but rather what lurked within it.”

I was introduced to Chuck Wendig with BLACK RIVER ORCHARD in 2023 and THE STAIRCASE IN THE WOODS just confirms that he’s an auto-read, and new favorite, author. I love everything about his writing style, storytelling, character development, and immense and awe-inspiring creativity. Every time I pick up one of his books, I know it’ll be an absorbing, wildly entertaining, and thrilling (or straight up terrifying) read, the kind of story that rewards you for just sitting back and enjoying the ride.

And one of the upsides of being so late to the party is that he has a massive backlist for me to work my way through while I wait for his next new release. Thank you SO MUCH to Del Ray Publishing for the ARC!

I think this is a hard one to discuss without getting into spoiler territory but I can say that this is one of the darkest and most heartbreaking stories I have read in a long time. Part of what makes it so sad is that I think only a very small number of us wouldn’t see some part of ourselves in the deeply flawed trauma-stricken characters. There are moments of pure terror and gore and the atmosphere is so beautifully creepy. I couldn’t help but feel Silent Hill vibes. I planned on mentioning that I felt the middle of the book was a little redundant and drug on a bit, but honestly after reading the authors notes I think it all makes perfect sense. I thought the ending was absolute perfection!

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Chuck Wendig, and Del Rey for the opportunity to read this arc copy.

Had some highs but they did not make up for the lows. There were times where the imagery, prose, and horror elements were interesting enough to carry me past DNFing and then the tension would fizzle out and I'd be left wanting. The attempts at injecting the story with political sermons often felt like someone was beating me over the head with a hammer, but a toy hammer because it all felt like lip service. I don't know what happened to subtlety but I wish we could get that back, or at least, if you're going to shove it down my throat make it mean something. The "friends having something tragic happening in their adolescence and coming together later to face it" had been done many times and I wish I could say this was a notable entry but all in all it was painfully average.

After reading The Book of Accidents and loving it, Chuck Wendig has become an author I want to read more from. This new horror book from Wendig is no exception. I didn’t know what to expect from this book and it did not let me down. It does start off a bit slow, giving you backstory and forming the characters, but once you hit the staircase, it dives right in. It’s creepy and gore filled and I found myself getting full body chills reading late into the night. Wendig dives into deeper topics with this book, so I would suggest checking the trigger warnings before reading. I do have to say, with all the gaming themes throughout the book it gave me Tomorrow X3 vibes but if it was horror and darker. The short chapters are also a plus and why I flew through it and finished it in two days ope!

Overall, I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who loves gaming, horror, and fucked up books!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: First and foremost, I really believe this will be my favorite book of the year. I don't think a book has ever touched me as much as this one. Chuck Wendig is easily in my top 3 favorite authors of all time. This is a hard story to read. It's human, it's scary, it's raw, it's all the things. Please check the trigger warnings, there are several due to the nature of the story being about trauma. The main themes of this book are friendship, trauma, home, growing up, and finding yourself while loving others. Wendig truly poured his heart into this. He showed us such vulnerable writing, and poured his soul into this book and did so without evening mentioning himself. That is the art of storytelling.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I am so overwhelmed by my love of it, I cannot fully write a review. You need to read it. This book needs to be experienced, shared and pondered on. This is a horror so it can be quite scary at times in ways I didn't expect. The horror is both inward and outward. Wendig is able to hold a deeply woven character driven story and an equally suspenseful plot.

I literally don't have a single complaint about this book. It's likely my favorite book of all time. I don't know what the rest of my reading has in store for 2025 but this is unlikely to be beat.

Such a creepy read!

I’ll be honest…the first 30% of this book was quite slow for me, and it took me that long to even get into the story. Then, suddenly, it picks up. What unfolds is a creepy horror story of what you find at the top of a staircase in the woods….

This warped house was so spooky. Such horror and hatred prevailed. I was pulled in for a bit…but then it became very repetitive. To be honest, I’m really struggling with my thoughts and feelings on this book. I think it was a great concept, just not well executed. The lore of staircases in the woods is so interesting, so this had so much potential, but ultimately I thought it was too long, repetitive, too slow at times, and no likable characters.

⭐️⭐️💫

Thank you Del Rey and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Staircase In The Woods by Chuck Wendig is, at its core, a story about friendship, found family, and the people in your life that, no matter what, you equally love and hate. Overall, I found the experience of this book to be enjoyable and I rather liked it, but I think the execution of the inner themes revolving around abuse, love, and finding yourself and others to be disappointing.

I think where this novel excels is the exploration of human emotion, and how that veers into resentment, anger, and even hatred toward people that, in the end, you do still love. Owen's bitterness toward his friends for their success, the grief of abuse becoming a vicious, inescapable cycle, and how friendships over time can degrade due to a variety of outside reasons are all explored in depth in this novel.

I think that is Chuck Wendig's strongest point in the novel. The ability to explore the darkest emotions we experience is often frowned upon or shamed in society, either toward people experiencing these emotions, or in online spaces, such as where fandom culture permeates. I found these explorations to be very real and very human, and at points, watching them degrade into more feral natures was a relief, because it showed that you could still be the "good guys" while feeling and acting on these "bad things."

The problem I had with Staircase in the Woods was how much a lot of the language came across as "preachy." I'm far left and somewhere complicated under the nonbinary label, and the way Lore's character was handled under the LGBTQ label was... odd. Lore is a lot like myself in many ways, so seeing her character, essentially, time and again, be re-labeled as "Woman-Lite" despite preachy language showing high support toward queer themes and lifestyles felt like an awkward, accidental parody rather than a character that existed to be representative of a marginalized, under represented group of the queer umbrella.

Alongside that, while I'm aware that the politics of Chuck Wendig mirrors the politics of his book in this case, the way's it was approach in text equally felt preachy, and came across as awkward. There were several scenes where Lore (IMO rightly) came after Hamish for certain opinions he has, but it felt awkward and hard to read in how it was approached rather than from sincerity.

All that aside, one aspect I really liked about this novel veers a touch into spoiler territory, so without saying much and leaving a lot of room to find out on your own, I loved how this novel got into the "guts" of the situation, both in a figurative as well as literal sense. Having to traverse physically into the evil entity that is holding you hostage is something that can be found in a lot of media, but in this case, it feels like a special nod that goes back to I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream in particular, as well as movie by the name of The House That Jack Built.

In the later half of the book, right through to the end, it felt like this was a purposeful choice to compare the evil entity within the book to AM, Allied Mastercomputer, from Harlan Ellison's classic, and the visceral descriptions involving the group's journey into their own version of Hell left me wishing the rest of the book was exactly like this. A lot of content felt flat to me, shocking scenarios meant to break down the characters that were just that: shocking, flat scenarios. But the journey through the entity itself felt refreshing by comparison, and the strength of the novel lies within these sections of the last quarter of the novel.

Overall, The Staircase In the Woods was a fun read, but I feel like it won't be the best representative of Chuck Wendig's work as an author. A lot of parts left me wanting much more out of it. I thought it was rather inventive at times, but at others I was left feeling unimpressed.

Thank you to NetGalley, Chuck Wendig, Random House Worlds, and Del Rey for this early copy!

Absolutely classic Chuck Wendig. I'm not a huge horror fan, I'm kind of a scaredy-cat, so Wendig usually scares me about as much as I can handle :) I definitely will be recommending this one!

Horrific & Terrific - Friends til the End!

Chuck Wendig is an exceptionally talented writer. This goes without question and is stated as fact, because it is. The Staircase in the Woods continues to showcase his amazing talents. This novel, at its center, is about friendships and how relationships evolve. With that being said, expect that this book is full of horror and terrifying imagery, but it is also powerful because I had my emotions engaged throughout this whole story.

The Staircase in the Woods knows its audience for sure. Readers who grew up hearing the whispers of staircases in the woods that go nowhere but could take you SOMEwhere. In addition to this, readers are going to go in and expect some creepy language and terrifying sequences, and they are absolutely going to get those within these pages. This story has some of the creepiest imagery that I have read in a while, and I loved it. I was engaged and creeped out. I felt like someone was watching me the whole time I was reading it (it will make more sense once you read it)! However, the themes of evolving friendships and relationship is told through this lens.

The themes are going to hit readers like a brick to the face. There is such a connection to knowing how friendships might dissolve or change over time, and how that is a sad process. I found myself genuinely upset and sad at times in this story, reflecting on relationships in my life and how they compare to those in the story. It is just beautifully written. PERIOD.

You absolutely need to check this story out! It is perfect for fans of Channel Zero (Season 3), How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix, and IT by Stephen King.

I'd like to thank Random House and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in advance to it's release date on April 29th, 2025. This review may contain spoilers so be advised.

Overall I'm giving this story a 4 rating. It was good enough to keep me reading even when I had to stop to tend to other events, tasks, etc, but it didn't hook me enough to make me want to close myself off in a closet away from people. It gets dark in some areas, but the story as a whole tackles some real hard hitting topics that most everyone has dealt with at some point. The take on this book starts with a staircase in the woods and is a rollercoaster ride from there. The idea of a staircase in the woods is creepy alone, but to then see your friend disappear in front of your eyes once at the top? That's a wild plot that drew me in from the get go. (The author's letter in the back of the book talks of real staircases in the woods so of course I had to do a deep dive, and he's correct, the feeling of seeing the pictures is unsettling but is also so very intriguing.)

I didn't really bond with the characters too much, but I felt them all on a different level and could really see their personalities and why they were the way they were. I don't want to give too many spoilers, but for those who enjoy horror, thriller, and suspense, I think this is a good book to pick up at anytime. This is my second Chuck Wendig book and it proved to be much more "adulty" than the other I read, The Book of Accidents. There's real trauma, emotion, and discussion that goes on in this novel that could be compared to real life situations and how hard they are to deal with. I liked that I was able to connect with the book on that level.

Now for some discrepancies, I noticed a few errors throughout. I saw some grammar issues but also story issues. Some examples begin with when Lore ascends the staircase. She first puts down her bag but then magically has it while on the staircase again. During the funeral scene, Lore passes her candle to Owen before going up to read her poem, but then when Matty's mom approaches her, she drops both her candle and her poem. While in the crawlspace Hamish tells Lore to enter the crawlspace first which makes sense since she's more of a leader, but then in the next chapter she's following him. It's the little things like that that can kill a story in the moment because if they keep happening then the reader gets tripped up on the errors.

In chapter 70 the use of the word "akimbo" was used in a odd manor. I read it several times, had to google it, and still with the definition it didn't fit the flashlight scene.

In the Interlude when Dan meets Eddie it says "It was only later that Dan realized: He told Eddie his name." That's a typo that kills the whole punch line of the story since it should have said. "It was only later that Dan realized: He hadn't told Eddie his name."

Overall I think I would have given the book a 4.5 rating had there not been so many story errors and grammatical issues. Many I didn't include. The story was great and touched on relatable issues so I really enjoyed it. I think it would make a great bookclub book because it's one you want to talk to other people about while reading. Thank you again to NetGalley and Random House for the early read!

This was a deeply unsettling and strange book, it feeds on your deepest fears and darkest secrets and doesn’t let you go. I was sucked in from the start and could NOT stop reading.

This was my first read by this author and I LOVE his writing style. From the first page I was IN IT. Just a wild mix of death, micro dosing, video game coding and highly creepy supernatural occurrences. If you’re a suspenseful horror fan I definitely recommend!