I feel like the best part of this book is the setting, the author does a great job of transporting you to an ancient forest on the west coast. She clearly did her research on the fauna and flora of a forest to be able to make you feel like you are actually in a dark creepy forest with someone whispering as they watch you from the trees.

When I got to the end and all was revealed I 100% wanted the story to continue, it left me wanting to know what happened next?

The parts that I did not enjoy were the weird YA vibes, that felt like Y2k stereotypes. And that most of the characters were really unlikable. Despite all that I still devoured this book and recommend people just give it a shot.

4 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC

I would like to thank DAW and Gretchen McNeil for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
4.5 Stars

Jen Monroe left behind her hometown of Barrow, Washington after her father, a forest ranger, vanished seemingly into thin air. She vowed never to return...until she gets a text from her estranged mother. Her father's remains have been found.

When her friends old and new suggest camping trip into the woods in her father's memory, it feels like the opportunity Jen had been hoping for: to find her father. To find the truth. But what she finds lurking in the ancient, impenetrable forest may be deeper, darker and deadlier than she could have ever imagined. And it has no intention of letting her leave.

WOW. What a great story! I was absolutely hooked from the first page! I'm not sure if it was the writing, the story, or just the vibes, but I couldn't put the book down until I was finished.

Jen Monroe is a knowledgeable, honest, and relatable main character. She goes the extra mile for the things she cares about and she doesn't care about anything quite like the forest. It was enchanting to read her journey through the woods ad she tries to uncover what exactly happened to her father, and what exactly he was protecting.

The horror aspects were great, the gore detailed, and the imagery and atmosphere deliciously haunting!

There's something for everyone:
-Family drama
-Secrets
-Sexual tension
-Hidden agendas
-Who are your friends and who are your enemies
-Whispering woods
-That nagging feeling of being watched
-Great atmospheric tension
-More questions than answers until...
-A great satisfying ending

Would read this again and recommend it to all my friends!
Happy Hunting!

*Warning this title contains: Graphic depictions of gore/blood/death/cheating

They Fear Not Men in the Woods starts strong, with a moody, atmospheric setup that promises eerie mystery and psychological horror. The premise—returning to a haunted hometown and diving into the forest to uncover long-buried secrets—hits all the right notes for fans of Midsommar or The Last House on Needless Street. Jen’s grief and determination feel grounded, and the early chapters build a solid sense of unease.

But while the book flirts with big themes and chilling ideas, the payoff doesn’t quite live up to the buildup. Some plot twists are more confusing than shocking, and the horror leans more surreal than satisfying by the end. That said, it’s a quick, engaging read with creepy forest vibes and a few genuinely unsettling moments. If you’re in the mood for folk horror light, this one’s worth a try—but don’t expect it to stick with you for long.

This story had a lot of potential. I think the plot was interesting enough and the supernatural aspect was unique enough to keep you engaged but the (often cringey) dialogue and the unlikable characters did not reach the same bar. However, when describing some of the more horrific moments, the writing was stellar.

The unsurprising ending was still plenty satisfying without being overly trite - so no complaints there. And while some may accuse the author of queerbaiting when it comes to the sexual tension/final outcome between two of the characters, I think there’s enough implication of a sincere dynamic that will continue on - we just don’t get to see it.

I gave this one 2.5 stars on Storygraph, but rounding down here because I do think a 3-star review is a bit generous for this read. There are some light spoilers in this review, so read on at your own risk!

The author has previously written YA fiction, and you can definitely tell as this book reads more like a YA horror than an adult horror. There were a few things that I genuinely did enjoy about the book:
-The author's attention to detail when it comes to hiking and the description of the forest. I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and even though I'm not an avid hiker, my parents are, and I felt like the book displayed a good bit of knowledge around hiking, trees, gear, etc., so that level of research was appreciated.
-I was really drawn in at the beginning of the book, and there was an eerie scene in the first couple of chapters that led me optimistically into the book. Ultimately, though, I was let down.

The book follows grad student Jen, who is summoned home to her remote hometown when the remains of her missing father, of 6 years, are mysteriously found. Jen never believed that her father was dead, and, as the novel progresses, we learn more about his passion for the backcountry and his frequent excursions into uncharted areas of the forest in search of older, bigger trees. Jen and a group of fairly unlikeable high school "friends" head into the forest after Jen's dad's remains (along with a few other missing hikers) were found.

Here are my gripes with the novel:
-A lot of exposition, not a lot of payoff. We don't start seeing actual horror elements until about 60% of the way through the book, and I'd say that the author does suspense a lot better than horror elements.
-All of the characters are unlikeable, which is fine. I don't have issues with unlikeable characters if they're well done and serve a purpose for the plot. However, in this case, when bad things happened to the characters, I was completely unmoved because I didn't care about them.
-Jen's inner monologue definitely stifles the novel and is the main reason that it reads more YA than adult. There are many instances in the book that read as childish, and the cadence of her internal thoughts becomes repetitive and almost predictable.
-There's an info-dump via journal entries near the last climax of the book. They didn't read like realistic journal entries because it was plot-driven.
-Finally, my biggest issue, especially as a queer reader is the sapphic sub-plot of this story which is largely one dimensional and entirely plot-driven. The female love interest reads like a cliche "hot girl" (for reasons that become apparent later in the novel) but there wasn't a lot of meat to the romance besides "physical attraction" so I'd be hesitant to add this to queer roundups or reading lists. The queer storyline just felt really disjointed and surface level and in contrast, the mail love interest gets a more robust backstory and characterization. I did appreciate the attempt at the queer elements of this story, ultimately that was also a letdown.

Overall, the premise of the book was very interesting, and I was excited to read it. The cover also rocks. But I have to say that I was let down by this one.

If you're looking for a quick YA-esque read, light horror, and a main character with a really distinctive voice, then this might be up your alley!

This novel masterfully blends elements of horror with a strong feminist perspective, appealing to readers who have always sensed that something ominous dwells in the wilderness. Its unsettling atmosphere and complex themes make it a compelling read, keeping the audience on edge as Jen confronts both external threats and her own inner demons. Ultimately, this story serves as a haunting reminder of the mysteries that nature holds and the personal battles we each must face.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and DAW for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. ✨️

I'm sad to only give this one 2 stars as I was expecting it to be better, especially given the premise and the description that was used for this book.

<b>For fans of Midsommar, Catriona Ward, and Sarah Gailey, this addictively readable modern horror novel unfolds like a movie with a climax you’ll never see coming
</b>

Sounds promising, right? I wish it would have been. I wish there was a good plot twist or it had the same eerie atmosphere as Midsommar. I wish we got characters we would actually care about who are not just one-dimensional and I wish the book would have at least redeemed itself with a horror aspect.
But alas, it didn't.

"They Fear Not Men In The Woods" is about Jen, a woman whose father went missing seven years ago while hiking out in the woods. One day, his remains are found, and she returns to her hometown determined to find out what happened to him by hiking down the same trail he did before disappearing. A group of friends tags along and surprise surprise, things go horribly wrong.

The premise sounds great, giving off "The Blair Witch Project" vibes.
Unfortunately, the book drags. The pace is slow, and things don't start getting exciting until 60% in.
Moreover, the main character Jen is unlikable. Same as any of the other characters. The story was also predictable, there was no surprise or massive plot twist for me personally.
There was no huge payoff after being 60% in either. The horror was lackluster and only appeared after the 60% mark.

I really wish i would have liked this book more. It does read a bit like a r/nosleep story, albeit not one of the good ones.

An eco horror novel that has shades of both The Blair Witch Project and Horror in the High Desert, this forest based horror novel was very creepy and entertaining. Highly recommended.

Cover, title and description promised me atmospheric forest horror, but all I got was a bunch of unlikable people stumbling through the woods. Among them is the protagonist Jen Monroe, who returned to her childhood home after the remains of her missing father were found in the forest. But some things don't add up for her and she had the strangest experiences in the forest lately, so she doesn't believe in her father's death. Jen and a group of other people – I would call them her friends, but I don't think anyone actually liked her – set out into the forest to take a look at the place. Of course, things don't go as planned and the forest turns out to be more dangerous than expected. But when I tell you that the first horror adjacent thing didn't happen until the 60% mark of the book, and until then it was a lot of walking and petty smalltown talk, and Jen not getting along with other people. I understand that she was supposed to be an isolated character that still craves connection, but her behavior was mostly unlikable, sometimes even childish. She was not someone I would ever want to read about. The first 10% were about how she's having an affair with a married man, and that she's somehow angry with his wife when he literally sleeps with everyone. And no, that whole part did not play any role in the rest of the book. It was just there to annoy me, I guess. Same with the characters. They were basically introduced just to be killed off in the last third of the book. Everyone was very one dimensional, as in everyone had one single character trait: one is Jen's shady ex, one makes stupid sex jokes all the time, one is sexualized by everyone, two are a couple, and two were so forgettable that I can't even remember.

I could have gotten past all of this if the horror had been actually good. I like the idea of a living forest and the female forest creatures had my attention for sure, but in the end that couldn't save it for me either. I rolled my eyes so, so many times during the "horror" part, because everything was so dull and tropey:

- The characters say that they better stay together, and oops in the very next chapter they are all separated.
- Some characters say that they saw something creepy, but no one believes them of course. (Because someone has to die first.)
- Jen finds a journal and reads about how all the creepy stuff happened to another group before them, journal entries written out and everything. Like, could we concentrate on the actual story, please?
- The way that one guy sent like 5 employees of his into the forest and all of them died, and no one was thinking that that was kinda weird. (It's actually hilarious now that I write it down.)

I have to admit that the ending was very "good for her" and that I liked it. But that of course didn't make me forget literally the entire rest of the book. A big disappointment for me.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and DAW for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a stunning novel, horrific and sapphic and just perfectly written. I loved the tongue in cheek attitude of the protagonist, and the build up where you are uncertain if this is going to be a psychological horror or full on gore (it’s a perfect mix). The ending is beautiful and believable. I loved all the research of plant and fauna species that went into the story.

They Fear Not Men In The Woods

The woods are already an uneasy place, especially in uncharted/ forgotten paths.

Jen the protagonist is confronted with a reality that her missing father’s remains have been found, and must return home. Although not believing her father is really gone, and wants to find exactly where he went missing several years ago.
We follow what I want to say, a long character building four chapters.To get to the point of most homecoming scenes, “nothings changed” “where did everyone go?”.

I did like the eerie atmosphere and the focus on the woods, as well as forest rangers and their importance in real life.

I did not care for Jen’s adult life or anything she did outside of being in the woods. Felt like watching a full grown teenager cosplaying as an adult, I wanted to physically throttle her if I was able too.


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

Jen hasn’t been home in a number of years. Why should she after her father went missing and her mother proved herself completely disinterested in having a relationship with her? But then, her father’s remains are found, which prompts Jen to return home. Before she knows it, she’s on a trip to a hidden area of the forest with old friends and one new, a woman named Sammy. But everything she thinks she knows is wrong, and at least one person will betray her.

This eco-horror book was a good read. It does dive into fantasy too, so be aware. If you like the idea of forest folk mixed with intensely disturbing deaths, then this one is for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

Jen Monroe's father disappeared six years ago. Receiving news that his body has been found, she makes the journey back to her hometown to attend his memorial service and finally say goodbye. Jen becomes skeptical of his official cause of death when she learns that his remains were immediately cremated, and decides to go hiking to visit the grove wherein she believes he disappeared. She's joined in this trip by her best friend, Miranda, Miranda's boyfriend and her childhood friend Todd, Jen's ex boyfriend and son of the town's logging magnate Chaz, and a mysterious Finnish stranger that all of the men in the camping party (and sometimes Jen) are sexually attracted to, Sammy. Also, three other men who don't really stand out as their own characters. The further they get from civilization, the clearer it becomes that something in the woods is following them and doesn't want them to leave.

I try not to be too negative with these reviews, but 'They Fear Not Men in the Woods' is kind of a mess. Jen's narration is a mix between poetic descriptions of the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest and some of the most agonizingly dated 'trying-to-sound-young' slang you'll ever read. She calls people cringe, complains about man buns, and tells pithy, Whedon-esque jokes that are, according to the other characters in the story, funny. The story takes inspiration from slashers, by having the characters be annoying not-quite-teens getting sequentially killed by the threat, but the deaths don't start until around the 65% mark and the initial camping party consists of eight people. This is a lot of characters to juggle, especially when the characters are made to be disliked. Ellis, Dmitri, and Brandon are interchangeable frat-bro characters (with Brandon being the most egregious, as he's not in attendance of the initial friend get-together) who exist to demean Jen over her superior tree knowledge or be Chaz's hype-men. Two of them are revealed to be in a secret gay relationship, and incidentally they're the first to die, which is... certainly a choice.

The pacing is all over the place. A lot of the early book is dedicated to Jen sleeping with her professor and how much of a harpy her mother is, which doesn't amount to anything other than adding two more unlikable characters to a cast that's packed full of them. A 'survival record' is literally given to our main character, and it's frustratingly by someone who likes to say 'goddamn' a lot but it too afraid to not abbreviate it (he doesn't even seem particularly religious in the text, so perhaps he wants to make sure he's not demonetized or hidden by the algorithm). Jen's relationship with her so-called friends vacillates between them being nuisances she doesn't even want to see to her guilting them about not reaching out because they're supposed to be 'best friends'. Todd suddenly develops an unwavering belief in aliens that becomes his defining trait about 2/3rds into the novel.

There are so many good horror stories that take place in the Pacific Northwest woods. There are so many good horror stories about spooky trees and forest spirits and evil logging tycoons that I don't know what 'They Fear Not Men in the Woods' brings to the table, other than being a not-quite YA book that could be a daring teen's first foray into horror. I will give it to McNeil--the gore is very gross, but I don't think that's a good enough reward for sifting through the banal personal dramas of people who aren't over high school.

They Fear Not Men in the Woods is an interesting spin on the tried and true horror trope of something creepy in the woods. The novel follows Jen Monroe, a forestry graduate student who is estranged from her mother and still mourning her father, who has been missing for years. A ranger who passed his love of the outdoors on to Jen, he disappeared while hiking and left a hole in Jen’s life that she has not recovered from. When the novel begins, Jen learns that her father’s remains have been found in the woods and she reluctantly returns home for his burial. Once there, she and some childhood friends stumble upon evidence that there is something very strange happening in the woods and trails surrounding her hometown.

There’s something almost primordial about the idea of the woods as other, frightening, and strange and I loved this book’s setup. However, ultimately this one didn’t work for me. Though it is an adult novel, the author has written in the YA genre and the book felt young to me in the sense that the characters didn’t seem like adults though they were supposed to be in their early twenties. The novel’s twists were very predictable, though I did love the mythology McNeil drew on (I won’t go into more detail to avoid spoilers). Ultimately, it was just okay—a quick read that passed the time, but not one I will return to. That said, if you’re intrigued by the premise it’s worth giving it a try.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an early copy of this book.

4.5 ⭐ rounded up for Goodreads.

There’s something unnatural about this place.

When I first started this book I found it slow, and the characters extremely unlikeable. As a matter of fact, nothing really happens for the first 50% of the book. Yet, as someone who never hesitates to DNF, something kept me invested and rooted(pun intended...iykyk), to this book. I am so glad I stuck it out.

As mentioned above, the first half of the book is world building, character drama and the occasional spooky, unexplainable occurrence. At times, I did struggle to connect with the FMC, however, her sharp wit, dry sarcastic humor and blunt personality, kept me entertained. She certainly wasn't a boring narrator.

When the story started to pick up, I was engrossed and couldn't look away. The book took an entirely different route than what I was expecting. I was both pleasantly surprised and horrified. The body horror, the setting, the isolation, are all some of my favorite tropes and executed so well. This story was a unique take on the supernatural sub-genre, with a touch of eco-horror to boast.
I love that the author took a little inspiration from a decades old mystery, "The Yuba Five."
The ending was equally beautiful and filled with abject horror. I was seriously impressed at how much I ended up loving this one.

Thank you to Netgalley, DAW Books, and Gretchen McNeil. For my eARC of this book. All opinions are my own. Pub date: September 9th, 2025.

(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

This book feels like is two different stories in one: the first one has a very slow rhythm and feels so realistic it sometimes made me feel I was learning about someone’s deepest secrets. TMI (Too much information), included. I was not very fond of this story.
I was, however, a huge fan of the second story, the one I really came for: the trees, the forest, the claustrophobic setting.
So it’s a 50/50 for me.

When the remains of her missing father turn up in the woods, Jen Monroe returns home to try to find out what really happened.
The author takes her time to set the scene but once you get to the woods all the action starts and you are drawn into a horror adventure that isn't too gruesome although it is perhaps a little predictable.
The novel is slow paced and it's hard to get to the interesting part but it's definitely worth a read.

A little arboreal horror (I don't know if that's a real genre or if I just made it up) sees Jen Monroe return home to find out what happened to her father, years after he went missing.

It starts a little slow but picks up the pace in the second half as the forest pulls them in and doesn't let go. There is a bit of gore, although not too graphic. Definitely not in the "scary" category but tense at times. I think the forest setting worked well with the descriptions really creating a strong backdrop, evoking the feeling of a deep dark wood.

Thanks to @netgalley and @dawbooks for this ARC.

I’ll start off by saying thank you so much for the opportunity on reading this in exchange for a review! This isn’t my usual genre nor have I really ever gave it a chance but the cover of this book and reading the synopsis really drew me in. I’m so glad that I did. I loved it. The plot. The story. The characters. I was completely engaged in this and it was hard to put down. I’m a new fan of horror! Thank you

I don't really think of this as horror but it is creepy and gory in some parts.

When Jen gets the news her father's remains have been found after disappearing unexpectedly 7 years ago. She comes home to find out what happened to him and disprove his death. She and her friends set off into the woods where her dad had been spending a lot of time. Only as soon as they get into the woods creepy stuff starts to happen and not everything is as it seems.

The first half of this book was slow and then in the last half of the book it started to pick up. This book will make you think differently about going into the woods.