This book took me through so many emotions. I went from blushing and kicking my legs, to in the thralls of suspense, to crying, to excitement. It was a little dark romance, Appalachian fantasy horror, science fiction, all of my favorite genres. I think fans of horror novelists like TJ Payne and also lovers of the romance intrigue aspects of Noferatu and You would love to devour this book.

At 14 Clara killed her parents, still living with the guilt and the blame her sister puts on her. Her, her sister, bestfriend/kind of more, and his little brother decide to go on a trip together 10 years after her parent's death. But during the drive they break down in the middle of the forest and a creepy yet enticing guy from the gas station is haunting Clara's mind and things start to get strange and terrifying.


I loved reading this book, it's genius and has all of my favorite elements in one.

(I received this book as a arc)

Ten years after the death of her parents Clara, her sister and their friends head into the mountains for the weekend, along the way their car breaks down and they are stranded in the forest where everything becomes sinister.

Based on the description, and cover, of this book I went into it expecting a botanical horror, with a twisted love story but that’s really not the book I read and I’m not really sure what I thought of it. I definitely didn’t hate it, but there were a lot of things which didn’t really work for me.

The first half is rather slow, filling in the back story and the relationship between the four characters heading off for the weekend. Once the story really starts it becomes apparent this is a sci-fi style monster story, questioning what truly makes us human in a way that reminded me of Frankenstein.

The writing has a distinct style, which I’m sure lots of people will love, but never quite flowed for me. I didn’t massively connect with any of the main characters, though they all had their sympathetic aspects. The story is told through three different POVs but they never felt as though they had distinct voices, and given one of them is essentially lying/unreliable throughout to enable the twist it maybe would have worked better just to be told from Clara’s POV. I could imagine this book working really well as a film adaptation, the ending in particular.

Thank you to NetGalley and 47North for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and 47North for the ARC.
Brittany Amara’s debut horror novel, The Bleeding Woods, is an ambitious and nearly traumatizing story that explores what it means to be human while stuck in a horrifying forest in the middle of nowhere. It had some good moments, but the story was definitely a little rough for me.
There were plenty of things I loved about this book. Jasper’s character introduction was incredibly strong, I was intrigued by him immediately. He’s a monster, but heartbreakingly so. His yearning for love and connection, twisted by violence and obsession, creates genuine internal conflict for the reader. He just wanted the love he never had. I loved him. Then I hated him. Then I loved him. Then I hated him. I still don’t know how to feel.
That being said, I found the introductions of the other three main characters to be extremely flat. I felt like there wasn’t much individuality between them, like they all had a similar edgy vibe that felt very forced. I really disliked the book at first for this reason. I felt they were all really annoying. However, once I got to Chapter 5, things really started to get interesting real quick. I was instantly obsessed with the gas station scene. I felt like the story immediately got much better from there. I’m not sure if it was just because there was finally some plot going on, or if the writer just didn’t quite know how to introduce this story.
Additionally, while this book seemed right up my alley from the description, upon reading it, I was kind of disappointed. This book really leans into that whole sci-fi trope of secret science labs doing shady horrible things and experimenting on people/monsters/whatever etc., that I don’t typically enjoy much at all. To put it simply, I don’t think the description gives the best idea of what you’re getting yourself into.
Overall, I really enjoyed some of the twists. I didn’t see the really big twist coming at all. I loved and hated so much all of the tragedy. My heart was broken over and over again. Some of the writing was really well executed and almost kind of lyrical or melodic in a way that I really don’t know how to explain fully. However, at other times the writing could be a bit clunky and cringey.
A really solid and interesting debut novel, however, maybe not the best story for me. Brittany Amara shows clear talent for dark, emotional storytelling and a flair for atmospheric horror. With a little more work, she has the potential to become a major voice in the genre.

A young woman discovering dangerous new powers finds herself lost in the mountains with her first love, the sister she betrayed, and an infatuated stranger bound to her telepathically as a string of vicious murders taints the woods red.

An exploration of trauma, power and the monstrousness within that expertly weaves a tale that will leave chills down your spine.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝟒𝟕𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐯𝐢𝐚 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐀𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐚

This book was interesting. During the first half I really enjoyed the atmosphere, and the spooky feeling of the forest. There were some very flowery prose which I mostly enjoyed, but at times they did feel a bit forced and took me out of the story.
When it comes to the characters I enjoyed the different perspectives initially, but as the story went on I found the tone of the different characters kind of all melded together.
Overall, I did have a good time with this one. It was a quick and fun read.

This book made me go, "huh", several times. It was done very creatively, but I am not sure if the writing will be for everyone.

The Bleeding Woods offers an incredibly strong premise - FMC with mysterious powers since childhood and the potential for strong horror elements in a stranger invading our group of characters as they are lost in the Appalachian mountains; unfortunately, the writing style is perplexing with inconsistent pacing and character voices that hold the reader at arms length, making this a difficult book to become immersed in.

At first, it felt as if our three POVs - Clara, Grayson, and the Stranger - would have different voices, but they very quickly blended together in tone. In terms of the 'mystery' element, I was actually interested in what the Stranger had to say and how he was involved and although the sci-fi/horror elements were predictable, I enjoyed his POVs the most. Unfortunately, the writing elsewhere brought the story down too far.

While this one didn't work for me, I would still be interested in trying another of Amara's books in the future as I do feel that the premise had promise.

Thank you to 47North and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I really liked the first half of the book, kind of felt like the second half fell off a bit. Clara was definitely my favorite character. I absolutely hated Jade. lol

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this book. I was excited to start this book, because I love stories with an ominous feel to them that make you hold your breath until you start to uncover everything that's going on. It was exciting to see a story that blended horror and sci-fi in such a seamless manner. However there were a few things that kept pulling me out of the story.

This book is written in First-Person with incredibly flowery prose, which sometimes made certain passages sound incredibly awkward. It felt like the author wanted unique metaphors and thoughtful lines instead of making the characters seem more real/realistic
Example: “I glance down at my phone, pulling up a map-devoted application."
The overly flowery writing often pulled me out of the story when moments before I was gripped by the ominous feel of the book.

It felt like the flowery writing setlled a bit as we got further into the book, which made it easier for me to immerse myself in the story.

I have to add that the prose worked incredibly well within the scenes between Clara and Jasper, which I loved. It added the extra layer of Ominous that both characters had to begin with. Clara and Jasper were a delight to read from and their otherness had me wanting to read more to figure them out. Especially when we started getting a glimpse of Jasper's obsession.

We were often thrown back in time for new chapters from different perspectives which could be confusing and also quite repetitive as you basically get the same scene just from a different perspective. I didn’t think the few new information we got from the perspective switch were detrimental enough to explain why we had to read the same moment again. It just pulled me out of the story again and made the pacing of the story a bit clunky.

The second half, while it kept my interest in some parts, started to feel a bit repetitive and the twist made no sense to me, it came way out of left field and I felt it did not match the characterizations we got throughout the book.

Overall I loved the eerie setting of the forest, it was the perfect balance of spooky and atmospheric.

I'll be on the lookout for future books by this author.

Thank you NetGalley and 47North for the ARC! I am so stunned by this story. I did not expect to enjoy this nearly as much as I did, only because I haven’t read much horror. The writing was so lyrical and beautiful yet perfect for the genre in all of the right ways. I’ve never read a story like this before. The twists got me, the relationships and characters all meant something to me, and the ending was better than I expected. This is a true 5 stars.

I wanted to love The Bleeding Woods, I really did.

The Bleeding Woods has a lot of potential - an intriguing story, some solid characters, and Brittany Amara is clearly a talented writer. That said, there were moments when the descriptive language and some of the more unconventional metaphors pulled me out of the story a bit. I also found the pacing inconsistent - I think it would’ve benefitted quite a lot from being predominantly from Clara’s perspective. At times, the same scene was recounted twice in a handful of pages, from different perspectives.

I’m still looking forward to what Brittany Amara does next!

Thanks to 47North and NetGalley for the ARC

3.5 roundered up for goodreads

The bleeding woods is an ambitious debut horror novel with a fun take on familiar story beats.

We have a seemingly human girl who a monster desires and kills her love ones to obtain. Only Clara is no mere girl and there’s more at stake then her love life and well, her life.

Jasper is an interesting monster. What does he want? Are his desires what he presents them to be ? Or is he manipulating Clara?

Unfortunately the side characters fall a bit flat, and the plots last 25% didn’t intrigue me as much as the first 75% I didn’t love the plot twist for our second male lead but it wasn’t the worst.

Perfect for fans of Nosferatu 2024, the mummy 1994, and fans of C.G. Drews

Review: The Bleeding Woods by Brittany Amara
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Okay. So. The Bleeding Woods is weird and creepy and poetic and a lot, in a good way and occasionally in a “wait what’s happening again?” kind of way. It’s giving Appalachian nightmare meets psychic horror meets slow-burn sister trauma with a splash of romance-that-might-be-a-curse.

The vibes? Immaculate. The forest is alive (literally maybe?), the trees are whispering, there’s blood in the leaves, and you can just feel the wrongness soaking through everything. Clara’s powers are barely under control, her sister Jade hates her, and then there’s this spooky, obsessive stranger who shows up and is like, “I’d kill for you.” And honestly? Same, but also—sir?

Brittany Amara’s writing is lush. Like, “haunting, lyrical fever dream” lush. Sometimes that worked so well I had to stop and reread a line like “yes, devour me, cursed prose.” But other times I was like… help. Where are we. What year is it. Who is talking. The tone shifts between characters weren’t always super distinct, and the modern setting kind of got lost in all the flowery language.

I wanted to be fully obsessed, but I kept getting tripped up by how long it took to get to the good horror meat of it all. The early chapters felt more like a vibes check than plot setup, and the pacing struggled a bit for me.

BUT. When it works? It really works. The sister dynamics are sharp and raw, the creepy mystery unfolds in delicious little breadcrumbs, and the horror leans into the gothic and strange in a way that feels different from a lot of what’s out there right now.

Would I recommend it? Yeah—especially if you like books that are a little off-kilter, a little poetic, a little unhinged. Just go in ready to surrender to the forest.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC! All opinions are my own.

This was incredibly captivating. I was rushing through pages hoping to find the next bit of information quicker to unravel the story. I knew there was going to be a plot twist at the end but I couldn’t figure out what was going to happen!

The different points of view in this story were unique to each character, the tone they used really helped seperate the chapters and added depth to the story.

The intermingling of the creature, the created and the human was so interesting to read. I loved that there was no real concept of time and place only the setting which helped create the ambiguity of whether this could be happening in your town right now.

The science verse nature debate is not by any means a new concept but this book really created a story that will stand out among its genre.

I especially loved the authors throwbacks to other works of horror and science fiction. The little Easter eggs made me so happy when I uncovered them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. This is my honest opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read this book! I'm usually not a quitter, but I DNF'd this book at about the 11% mark and feel awful about it. I didn't even get 50 pages in. Based on the description, I wanted so badly to love it, but it just wasn't hooking me. The story starts so far back from the promise of the description and does nothing to attach us to the characters or world. The first chapter would work as a prologue, and then opening the story in the spooky forest with tension between the sisters (as Clara frets about her true nature and lack of medication, of course) would make for a more impactful beginning. We could easily learn about the characters within the forest without the "daily life" portion.

The writing style is modern, yet the word choice or poetic description often feels antiquated and I'm not sure when the book takes place or where.
"No one in this world is good, not really. People pretend to be more than they are, but human nature cannot be changed. We're selfish survivalists caught in a system built to kill us on an orb of misery spinning through a void."
"I am awoken by the sound of my cell phone. It barks, a beast of digital flesh and pixelated bone."
"He befriended me before the world was a stage and I stepped onto it in character."
"Jade's expression darkens, but through the storm clouds, there is a pocket of drizzle."
"She makes her displeasure known in every way at her disposal, but I will not be swayed."
Powerful poetry, but not great when overused in prose that's supposed to be about modern young adults. If this was only a trait of Clara's, who isn't exactly human or knows how to be human, then it makes her POV more compelling and stands out. Unfortunately, Clara and Grayson both read like this, and I'm sure Jade's and Joey's POVs would be the same.

I wanted to know more about the darker nature of Clara and whatever her scientist parents were involved in. I wanted to get to the spooky forest to see if Amara skipped city details for the the atmosphere of the sublime. I wanted to start unraveling the mystery! But reading through the shifting perspectives of "daily life" that all read the same was a slog.

The Bleeding Woods es una novela oscura, intensa y profundamente envolvente que mezcla el horror psicológico con la ciencia ficción y el drama familiar.



Clara, vive con la carga de haber matado a sus padres cuando tenía apenas catorce años. Desde entonces, depende de unas misteriosas pastillas para mantenerse “estable”, pero a medida que avanza la historia, el lector se ve atrapado en una duda constante: ¿Clara está enferma o realmente está ocurriendo algo más oscuro, retorcido y sobrenatural?

A lo largo del libro, seguimos su intento por mantener la cordura mientras desentierra secretos familiares que la conducen a un experimento oculto en los límites del Bosque de Blackstone, un lugar con historia propia, donde la ciencia y la ética colapsaron hace décadas. La introducción del personaje JS-7R, una criatura creada por humanos con poderes inquietantes, lleva la historia a un nivel aún más oscuro y simbólico.

Lo que más me gustó fue esa sensación de incertidumbre permanente. Nunca se sabe si todo lo que ocurre es producto de una mente fragmentada o de una verdad espeluznante que está por revelarse. Clara no es una narradora confiable, pero es magnética, y su fragilidad emocional está escrita con tanta precisión que uno no puede evitar empatizar con ella, incluso en sus momentos más oscuros.

Además, el plot twist del final me sorprendió completamente. No lo vi venir, y cuando ocurre o más bien, se revela cierta información, cobraron sentido muchas cosas.


Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest

I’m so devastated. I wanted to like this book so badly but I just couldn’t.

Clara was by far my favorite perspective to read from. She’s mentally all over the place, and it made her chapters so fun and captivating. I never knew what she was going to do and say next.

Grayson was my second favorite. His obsession with Clara helped fuel so many unhinged thoughts while still having a very calm, serene facade.

That is where my like for this book ends.

I found myself confused, wanting more, having to go back and reread, and sitting to think for a moment to make sure I understood everything correctly.

Jasper’s pov took me so far out of the book. The constant use of super complex words separated me from it so thoroughly.

Thank you to NetGalley and 47North for an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

The Bleeding Woods by Brittany Amara was an intense and absorbing read that I found myself flying through. It’s rare to come across a book that blends so many elements—fantasy, horror, thriller, and even a hint of romance—and does it so seamlessly. This book pulled me in from the very beginning with its haunting atmosphere and unique premise, and it never let go.

One of the things I appreciated most was how unpredictable the story was. The twists and turns were genuinely surprising, and just when I thought I had things figured out, the plot would take another unexpected direction. The tension builds steadily throughout, keeping you on edge while still offering moments of emotional depth and connection between the characters.

The setting was richly imagined, eerie and strange in all the best ways. It felt like stepping into a nightmare forest that was somehow beautiful and terrifying all at once. The writing definitely helped bring that mood to life, though I will say that at times the style or writing made things feel a bit jumbled.

Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. This isn’t your typical horror novel, and I really appreciated how bold and different it felt. Brittany Amara has a unique voice and a talent for weaving genre elements together in a way that feels fresh and compelling. If you're looking for a dark, twisty, genre-blending story that keeps you guessing and leaves a lasting impression, The Bleeding Woods is definitely worth picking up.

It’s rare to find a book that weaves horror, fantasy, and emotional complexity so seamlessly. It’s chilling, tragic, and achingly human, with a romance that’s as beautiful as it is terrifying. I’m completely captivated.