Thank you Netgalley and DAW for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

In “They Fear Not Men in the Woods,” Gretchen McNeil takes us deep into the lush, eerie forests of rural Washington and doesn’t let us out without a few scratches—and maybe a body count. With a protagonist whose humor cuts through the horror like a dull pocketknife and a forest that might literally be out for revenge, this book is a wild, weird trek into a primal nightmare. A dark, witty, and atmospheric eco-horror novel that blends supernatural folklore with eco-terror and family trauma—like Midsommar with more moss, mayhem, and millennial sarcasm. When I saw that McNeil had written her first adult book after loving her YA books, I could not wait to read this story, and it definitely did not disappoint.

Seven years ago, Jen Monre fled Barrow, Washington, after the disappearance of her father—a forest ranger and tree preservationist with a fierce love for the wilderness and an equally fierce hatred for the logging companies consuming it. Now in her twenties and living far away from the woods and the fractured family she left behind, Jen is pulled back home when her father’s remains are suddenly discovered. Unconvinced by the official explanation and determined to uncover the truth, Jen joins a memorial camping trip organized by her well-meaning (and possibly clueless) ex-boyfriend. What starts as an emotional reunion and a reluctant walk down memory lane quickly spirals into a waking nightmare where the forest seems too alive, the trees may be watching—and something ancient, angry, and green is stirring beneath the moss.

McNeil absolutely nails the setting. The forest feels like a character in its own right—lush, breathing, watchful. You can practically feel the damp soil and hear the creak of ancient branches. The descriptions of nature are vivid and immersive, making the horror feel both surreal and rooted in the real world. Drawing from Finnish and Icelandic mythologies—particularly the huldrefolk—McNeil crafts a chilling take on the idea that nature isn’t just alive, but aware… and maybe a little pissed. There's a speculative edge to the horror, blending folklore with scientific curiosity (thanks to Jen’s background in botany), and it adds depth to what could’ve been just another slasher in the woods.

Once the blood starts flowing, it doesn’t stop. The kills are creative, gory, and deeply connected to the forest itself. You won’t find standard-issue horror deaths here—each one is disturbingly tied to the woods, giving the sense that the forest is punishing the group for intruding.

Jen is sharp-tongued, impulsive, and sometimes sounds more like a teen than a woman in her twenties, but her voice is unique and engaging. Her inner monologue brings levity to even the darkest moments, though it may not be for everyone—some readers might find her immaturity a bit grating. Still, her emotional journey, particularly her estranged relationship with her mother and her obsession with her father’s disappearance, grounds the horror in personal stakes.

The book takes a little too long to get going. The camping trip—the heart of the horror—doesn’t begin until nearly a third of the way through. You might get antsy waiting for the scares to kick in, though the forest scenes make the wait worth it.

While the climax is intense and rewarding, a few twists (especially regarding the mysterious character Sammy and the supernatural nature of the forest) are fairly easy to guess. That said, the story isn't about surprise so much as inevitability—like the slow, creeping crawl of roots under your feet.

Overall, “They Fear Not Men in the Woods” is a deliciously eerie tale for fans of nature fights back horror. It’s filled with heart, dark humor, and a growing sense that maybe the real monsters aren’t mythical—maybe they’re human. Or maybe they’re trees. Either way, Gretchen McNeil crafts a story where the wilderness doesn’t just defend itself—it devours.

🌲 Highlights: sentient forests, eco-horror, folklore, LGBTQ+ themes, mother-daughter tension, gruesome deaths
🩸 Content Warnings: gore, body horror, grief, logging industry violence (against trees and people)

This is an incredibly creepy novel which has hints of folk horror with an eco horror beat at it's heart. It's provocative, engaging, and terrifying.

Jen's father, a passionate park ranger who's dedicated his life to stop logging efforts, disappears on a survey never to be heard from again. Jen has followed in his footsteps and is as passionate about preserving old stands of trees from destruction.

When she receives the news that her father's remains were found, six years later, she reluctantly goes back to her small Washington state town. She doesn't believe he's dead though.

She eventually catches up with some high school friends who all work in some capacity for the logging company in the area. Jen wants answers but is getting nowhere. Her friends decide to hike for days, camping along the way, to the place she believes her father to be.

Deep in an uncharted forest, forces beyond comprehension begin to taunt them, turning violence and seemingly bloodthirsty. Lost, turned around, and with strange whispers and bizarre things happening, the group will have to fight for their lives against something impossible.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Rich evocative descriptions of the forest gave it a beautiful yet frightening atmosphere. Sammy is a character new to this group of friends and she seems connected to Jen is some strange way. The other characters are well rounded and believable.

This book creeps under your skin as the mystery of her father, what he discovered, and what lurks in the dense dark forest all combines to give a chilling visceral terrifying vibe. It's also extremely well written and Jen is a character who you'll love to read about. I loved this one and I highly recommend it.

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.

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’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

Oohhh yes, women in a creepy woods hunting men? Yes please!! This was so atmospheric and gothic. The characters were so real and I felt badly for all of them.

I didn’t know what to expect when I first began reading but I was immediately lured in and hooked. I read this within a day because I just couldn’t put it down. It had it all: spooky woods, horror tropes, “good for her”. If you liked Midsommar you’ll love this.

Jen Monroe grew up in the woods. Her father, a forest ranger, went missing when she was seventeen. He was passionate about conservation and the forest she looked over. She never believed he was dead, just living out there happily away from his wife. She left her hometown for college and started to follow in her father's footsteps. That is, until she gets a call to say her father's remains have been found, and the memorial is in a few days, just enough time for her to rush back home and see for herself that he is dead and gone. Once home and surrounded by some of her old friends, it is suggested they go into the woods her father loved the most, so she can say goodbye. But things are not so straightforward, as they head deeper into the forest, on a trail none of them have ever walked before, into the old groves. But all is not what it seems, from the flora and fauna, or the people she is with.

This is one of those books that (for me) was a slow grower. It took me a few chapters to get accustomed to the first-person writing style, but once I did, I found myself engrossed. I could hardly put it down until I finished it, and then I was sad as there was no more. This was such a great read, and it seemed to have been written by someone who genuinely loves the woods, as McNeil's descriptions evoke the feeling of being there. But the good and the bad.

So far, this book is my favourite book I’ve read this year. As an outdoorsy person who loves horror, I really felt like this was the perfect story for me. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, including the MC, but I really didn’t mind because I enjoyed the story. The way the MC reacts to certain events was…cold. I will say, I certainly don’t look at trees the same way anymore when I’m hiking! The only thing that drove me up the wall a bit was there’s a lot of “white people bad” rhetoric when SEEMINGLY every character and the author are white. I found that repetitive and a bit off-putting but I still love the book as a whole.

Well, what an adrenaline rush of a book this was! Even though I was already confident that I would enjoy "They Fear Not Men in the Woods" because I've read some of McNeil's previous books, and loved them, my expectations were met and exceeded. Fans of forest or botanical horror, which sounds niche (and admittedly is so) but is nonetheless a growing subgenre within horror, will love this one.

Something that I cannot go without in horror novels is the slow building of dread, in one way or another. There are many different ways to write horror, and some stories work out wonderfully by relying on explicit gore and macabre entrail festivals, but I as a reader don't particularly enjoy being doused in carnage and blood because it doesn't do anything for me. Although I respect both writers and readers of such horror stories, I'm more of a creepy vibes gal, and that's the reason why I enjoyed "They Fear Not Men in the Woods" so much. Even though this story starts far away from the actual forest, nature was present from the get-go thanks to Jen's ferocious love of the same wilderness that might or might not have swallowed his father whole. There was a ruthless side to her knowledge of the forest and nature that made me like her a lot more than I would have otherwise, and was what hooked me from the start.

In this sense, I also really enjoyed the characters despite not necessarily liking them. The book follows a seven-person expedition into the depths of the Washington wilderness surrounding a small town where nothing ever happens, after all, and I was very pleased to find exactly what I expected in the character department. I love to see intrincate webs of lies and deceit mixed with post-teen drama, and this book provided exactly that through Miranda, Todd, Chaz, Benny, Ellis, and Dmitri. It was also really interesting to notice the parallels here and there with the real case of the Yuba County Five, which the author mentions at the beginning of the book.

Regarding the plot, I did enjoy myself as the characters navigated the forest in Jen's quest for truth. Since this is a horror story, I don't think that the plot can be separated from the writing, and what made this book work for me was most definitely the wildly atmospheric writing. McNeil's prose was eerie, unsettling and abrasive, which fit with who Jen is as a character, and I got shivers here and there as the gang ventured deeper into the woods and got further and further away from home.

Not just that, though! I also quite liked that Jen was a flawed character from the get-go. Having grown up in a rather dysfunctional household with a negligent mother who suffers from alcoholism and a loving but often absent father, she was bound to have sharp edges all over, and it was interesting to have a main character who did and said questionable things that are to be expected from young adults who are trying to figure things out. While there might be other readers for whom it isn't as enjoyable to have a main character who doesn't see any issue with being involved with a married man, which is completely valid, I personally enjoyed finding out more about who Jen was and what made her become so callous and cynical as to have an affair with someone whose marital status she is well aware of. There were some bitter comments about certain things that society deems "feminine", such as French manicures or put-together outfits, that definitely made Jen feel a lot more solid and real for me, since they were opinions that many young women who struggle with their identity say or think at one point or another. While she might not be the most likeable person in town, Jen was definitely an interesting main character that I enjoyed following around.

Regarding what ends up happening in the forest, all I can say is GOOD FOR THEM. Social commentary through storytelling is an art I am growing very fond of, and I feel like this book did a great job regarding the catastrophic consequences of exploiting natural resources for personal economic gain without any consideration of what that means for the environment or the intrinsic value of ancient forests and biomes.

All in all, quite a satisfying read for me! Loved it!

***

SUMMARY: Young Jen Monroe's father disappeared in the woods six years ago, and despite what everyone else keeps trying to tell her, Jen knows that he's still out there. So when a friend from her hometown hits her up to say that they have found Hank Monroe's remains, and identified them using dental records, Jen refuses to believe that there isn't any foul play involved. Why now, ten years later? Why in quite an easily found spot that she, as well as volunteer rescue teams, searched when he first went missing? Why is there no body? Why won't anyone talk to her about how they found Hank's remains, and why does she have a bad feeling about what her ex-boyfriend, heir to the town's logging company, might know about her father's disappearance? Armed with the unwavering belief that something must've happened to her father, and joined by six other young adults from Barrow, Jenn decides to venture into the forest that Hank Monroe vanished into all those years ago to find out what really happened to him.

An eerie, eco‑horror thriller set in the Pacific Northwest, this novel follows Jen Monroe’s return to the woods after her father’s remains are found—only to discover the forest may be alive and vengeful. With sharp, atmospheric prose and visceral, folklore‑tinged terror, McNeil delivers a compelling blend of mystery, trauma, and supernatural dread. Perfect for fans of Midsommar and folk horror, this deeply unsettling journey into an unforgiving wilderness is vivid, haunting, and impossible to leave behind.

Jen Monroe works for the Forest Service, following in her father's footsteps. They had a special bond, right up until he disappeared in a forest of very old growth trees several years ago. She returns home to Washington when she gets word that they have finally found her father's body. Or did they? She decides she needs to go up into the remote old growth area to try to find him, or get some closure if he really is dead. Surprisingly, all of her old friends from the small logging town want to go along for the ride, which is actually a very challenging hike that some of them were not prepared for. There is drama and deception as they all have an agenda of some sort, and this is where the horror begins. I loved this book! It was a way cool blend of horror and magical folklore. The characters were complex and there was all kinds of backstory with the loggers and lovers. I like reading books that are set in my backyard in the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.

I had such a great time reading this book, it was thrilling and I had to know what was going to happen next!

Thanks to Netgalley and DAW for the pre-release copy of They Fear Not Men in the Woods by Gretchen McNeil. Below is my honest review.

Having only ever read Gretchen McNeil's young adult book Ten, I've been meaning to pick up more of her works, so when I saw she had an adult horror debut coming out, I had to click Request. And I'm really glad that I did.

I want this one to be made into a movie. Or maybe a limited series for one of the streamers. (hint hint, Amazon).

The tension built in this one in a perfectly paced way. Just enough slow burn at the beginning to set the stage, but not so much that it felt like it was dragging. Then when they get out there into the woods, the proverbial you-know-what hits the proverbial fan HARD and it hits it FAST. One by one, the party shrinks, and they begin to realize that the woods might be a much more dangerous place than they ever thought possible, and that they might not make it out alive.

Highly recommended for horror fans. Five stars.

I'm a big fan of Gretchen McNeil and her adult horror didn't disappoint. The sense of place in the Lost Groves and in Barrow, the small PNW town where Jen returns to get to the bottom of her forest ranger father's disappearance, are beautifully realized. When the horror element snaps into place, it SNAPS. Overall, this has complicated relationships, dark humor, and a propulsive thriller pace that doesn't relent once the trees start crowding the characters. The addition of the wood nymphs is FANTASTIC and even though I'm NOT a forest girlie, I found myself wanting to shuffle off my human form and joining them in the Lost Groves.