Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood is a young adult fantasy novel that twines familiar tropes of fairy tales and fantasies–princesses, magical objects, challenges, quests, and magic into something entirely new, exciting, and deeply dangerous. It is a thrilling, inventive, and highly original fantasy that takes place in the here and now.

Alice and her mother, Ella, have lived their lives on the road, moving once or twice a year, sleeping in cars, borrowed houses, and cheap motels, seemingly trailed by bad luck that always seems to find them with terrible consequences for people and places around them. However, shortly after learning that Althea, Ella’s mother died, Ella got married to a wealthy man and now Alice is living in a fancy upscale apartment with a stepsister named Audrey who is the same age. Things should be looking up, but then one day she sees a man who she is certain is the same man who kidnapped her years ago, claiming he was taking her to see her grandmother.

Alice’s grandmother was a famous author who wrote “Tales from the Hinterland” an electrifyingly original collection of fairy tales, grim and reportorial stories of magical beings that are scary and horrifying. Something happened in the past that drove Ella to take Alice on the road, on the run from her mother, so that Alice has no memory of ever knowing her. She’s also never read her mother’s famous book, a book that is oddly impossible to find, even with e-bay.

However, things seem to be coming to a head with the reappearance of her abductor who seems to have aged not at all, with cryptic clues in the form of pages torn from her grandmother’s book, and with a new friendship with Ellery Finch, a classmate who has read Althea’s books.



I loved The Hazel Wood. From the first page, I was enthralled, at first by what seemed a coming-of-age story of a unique and self-aware young woman whose life experiences are different from most–a traveling life of a reader. More than the events that happened, she remembers the places she lived by the books she read. I can see that.

I like how the magical elements of the story were slowly revealed, what seems coincidence crystallizing into magical interference. We are not thrust into the fantasy immediately. Alice has lived an unusual life, but there’s no reason to see anything fantastical. Lots of kids have grown up with peripatetic parents who drag them from school to school, living as perpetual “new kids” in school. She self-protective, prickly, a bit stand-offish and it all makes sense, she’s spent a lifetime losing friends. She feels rage and even that makes sense. We assume there must be some reason her mother fled with her.

And then when Alice has no choice but to go to her grandmother’s home and enter that magical world, it’s so new and different. Yes, the tropes of fairy tales are there, bits of verse with clues, anthropomorphic beasts, talking trees, and scary things. But it’s also beautiful and inhabited by other humans who have found their way there. It’s scary, deadly, terrifying and lovely, friendly, and somehow familiar and those contradictions are not the least bit false.

The Hazel Wood is completely original, utterly captivating, and puts its characters in real jeopardy so readers will feel real anxiety over the fate of its characters. There are no guarantees in this book and you can sense that from the first approaches toward the Hazel Wood. That uncertainty, not knowing what might happen in the end, makes this much much more thrilling.

I received an Advance Readers Copy of The Hazel Wood from the publisher through NetGalley.

The Hazel Wood at Flatiron Books | Macmillan
Melissa Albert on Twitter

Seventeen-year-old protagonist Alice Proserpine has never stayed in one place for long. Most of her childhood memories involve being on the road, staying with one family friend or another until her mother Ella decided that they had to move on. Ella never spoke of why they had to live this way, but Alice always felt the sense that her mother was trying to run away from something. But run away from what? Alice has no idea, though she can guess from Ella’s tight-lippedness about her past that it might have something to do with the Hazel Wood, a magnificent home nestled somewhere in the woods of upstate New York. The estate belonged to Alice’s grandmother Althea Proserpine, an author who achieved cult celebrity with her book of fairy tales titled “Tales from the Hinterland”. It was probably no coincidence that no sooner had they received news of Althea’s death, Ella finally decided that they could settle down in the city and start a normal life. She even marries Harold, a wealthy businessman, so that Alice has to start going to school at an exclusive academy for rich kids, where she feels like a fish out of water.

The only person closest to a friend is Ellery Finch, a somewhat geeky and awkward boy whose father is one of the richest people in New York City. Finch also happens to be an Althea Proserpine superfan, and has been fascinated with Alice ever since he found out that the author was her grandmother. Alice, however, is nettled to have to admit that she knows next to nothing about Althea, nor has she even ever read “Tales from the Hinterland”, for Ella had always forbidden her to seek out her grandmother or her work. Still, Alice had tried, and none of her efforts had ever borne fruit. Althea’s book has become very rare and hard to find, and it appears only a small circle of mega-enthusiasts know all the stories. Then one day, Alice comes home from school to find that her mother has been stolen away, and the only clue she left behind was a message: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.” Getting a sick feeling that this has everything to do with her grandmother and her fairy tales, Alice turns to Finch, the only person she can think of who might be able to help her rescue Ella.

If my usual blurb seems a bit more detailed than normal, it’s because The Hazel Wood is a novel filled with so much breathtaking allusion and tantalizing prose that it’s almost overwhelming to consider the amount of setup packed into the first few chapters. Although the fantasy aspect doesn’t come into play for quite a while, even from the start I could feel the aura of mystery and magic wrapped around everything despite the ordinary urban setting.

I was also pulled into the story right away, captivated by the power of Alice’s personality and voice. Granted, she’s not always the most pleasant person to be around, being prone to some truly disconcerting moments of anger as well as snide remarks. But given her itinerant upbringing and the darkness that is later revealed in her life, it makes perfect sense. She also has a dry sense of humor that I found strangely endearing, as well as those rare moments where we got to catch a glimpse of her true self through the cracks in her armor. Belying Alice’s fierce independence is in fact a frightened young girl whose nightmare scenario has just come to pass. Her mother has always been a constant presence in her life, and now she is gone. It is little wonder then that Alice ends up latching onto Finch, who became my favorite character the moment he came into the picture. I’ve always had this soft spot for the geeky type of guys in YA who might not be conventionally attractive but are nonetheless charming and cute in their own way.

As time goes on, the book starts going through a transformation, becoming darker and stranger until at the end, readers are faced full on with the magical fairy tale-like elements of the story. Ironically, I actually found myself less enamored of The Hazel Wood at this point, because the plot loses a lot of its uniqueness and instead plunges into territory that has been covered before in a plethora of other YA novels and re-imaginings with fairy tale themes or settings. Without doing into spoilers, I also did not like how the book ended. One could say this was a fitting way to wrap things up given the overall tone of the story, and, if I’m being completely honest, on some level I can even understand why the author decided to do it this way. Still, I was left pretty feeling pretty cheated and unsatisfied. It seemed a shame that we started things roaring but ended them on a whimper.

However, I am encouraged by the fact that a follow-up is already in the works. Rarely have I been this happy to find out that a book I’ve just finished is going to be part of a series. While I think The Hazel Wood will work perfectly fine as a standalone, if ever a book needed a sequel, it’s this one. Hopefully, the next chapter of Alice’s journey will reveal more answers and dispel the unsettled feelings I got from the ending. Above all, I’m also looking forward to reading more of Melissa Albert’s gorgeous writing. The Hazel Wood may have a few flaws, but overall it is an impressive debut.

"The Hinterland didn't tell nice tales. "

"This story had no allegiance to anything. It was winding and creepy and not even that bloody. There were no heroes, no wedding. No message."

I read a couple books in 2017 published by Flatiron books and absolutely loved them! You can read my review of Caraval and Girls Made of Snow and Glass if you'd like. So when I saw THE HAZEL WOOD show up on NetGalley, I knew I had to request a copy. I devoured this book in just a matter of days. I couldn't put it down. I took every spare moment I could to read just bit more, even if it was a page here or there. After finishing it, I basically insisted that all my friends pre-order immediately. THE HAZEL WOOD has already hit my top 10 reads of 2018 and the year has only just begun!

Some words I would use to describe THE HAZEL WOOD are: dark, mysterious, intriguing, captivating.

"If you've spent your whole life running, how do you learn to stand still?"

THE HAZEL WOOD is the story of Alice, the granddaughter of Althea a famous author of a collection of dark faerie tales. Alice and her mother have been on the run for as long as she can remember. Always followed by bad luck and trouble, they're constantly on the move. When her mother is mysteriously taken from her she finds an unlikely ally in a classmate, Ellery, a classmate who is obsessed with the world her grandmother created and is willing to do whatever it takes to help Alice find her mother and solve the mystery of her disappearance. Alice's mother left one message: to stay away!

"He liked to say names, I noticed. First or last or both at once. Maybe in real life it was meant to be friendly, but names were dangerous in a fairy tale."

I adored the writing in this book. I found myself immediately immersed in this world and its characters. I wanted to know more of the story and what would happen next. Melissa Albert did a superb job of creating a unique story. One that I didn't feel had already been told in a hundred different ways. It was dark and twisted with mystery and intrigue. I would classify THE HAZEL WOOD as magical realism. A story set in the modern world that includes fantasy or supernatural elements. I went into this book knowing that it was a standalone and finished reading it wishing I could have more, yet also feeling completely satisfied. I think this book was a ground breaking debut novel from Melissa Albert and I will be continuing to (demand) encourage EVERYONE I KNOW to read it!

"...the only way out is through. Through the woods, through the story, through the pain."

Not long after I finished reading THE HAZEL WOOD, I saw that Melissa Albert had signed a new contract with Flatiron books for 2 more titles set in this same world! Oh my goodness you guys, THE EXCITEMENT IS REAL!!!! I am over the moon excited to see we will be getting a collection of short stories called TALES FROM THE HINTERLAND and a second that will be a follow-up novel. I know what I hope this story is about, but only time will tell.

"Something in his face made me remember not everything was about me. Maybe Finch wasn't trying to be the sidekick in my story. Maybe he was trying to start one of his own."

**SOME SPOILERS AHEAD**
I was excited to read this book. A story about stories? Gorgeous cover? Check and check. I'm there. I have to give it credit for keeping me reading. But now that I am finished, I feel this vague sense of dissatisfaction with it. For one thing, the main character is really hard to like, and we never get to know other characters well enough to care about them either. I also had a really hard time buying the plot. There are a lot of things going on that make no sense. I mean, really. Characters who show up and conveniently give our protagonist important junk (and really, it's junk) that coincidentally and inexplicably will help later in the book. Why does the junk work? We don't ever really find out. How is a certain character able to meet our protagonist in the "real" world, even though he is trapped elsewhere? Never explained. Things just seem to "happen" in this book, without the main character really doing any serious work to accomplish her goal.

Finally, I am not quite sure what audience is right for this book. It's aimed at YA, but it's the darkest and creepiest YA I've ever read. It's not just bump in the night stuff or gory horror--we've got references to a leering teacher, vague but mature sexual references, and at one point, characters hand one of the main protagonists a knife and exhort her to "Kill yourself." Spoiler: she defies the command, and her purpose in the book is clearly to fight for the right to live her life the way she wants to, but still…. I actually gasped aloud reading that page. I'm not even sure where I would put this in my library, frankly. I've got 12 year-olds borrowing from our YA section, and there is no innocence in this book, IMO. I really enjoy books that twist fairytales or play with folklore, and I do like my fair share of dark and creepy books. But this book just did not make it for me. In my personal opinion, I felt that Seanan McGuire's excellently eerie Wayward Children series was a more enjoyable sinister twist on fairytales. Other ideas: Hunted by Meagan Spooner, or even the wonderful Thursday Next series from Jasper Fforde. (less)

The Hazel Wood was one of my top anticipated reads of 2018, and is perhaps one of my five fave reads so far. The writing is fluid and flows smoothly. It went really fast for me which takes a lot because it’s hard for me to focus on reading after work. This book sucked me in with its first person narration and personable MC. It’s amazingly well done. The world in this book is fantastically developed, it has depth, and the characters are well rounded. I love how witty the MC is and how real she seems. How down to earth.

I found the story deliciously dark and is that which would make the Grimm brothers smile with pride.

I also liked the parallels to The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman. Not sure if the “fictional world from cult classic book turns out to be real” premise was intentional, but this was a point in its favor as I am a fan of The Magicians.

I loved the look at mother-daughter relationships and family relationships in this book and how our MC is willing to do what it takes to rescue her mom. There’s some old scars here that really add depth and a sense of realism to the story.

I highly recommend this book. Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC and the chance to live in this world.

In wasn’t sure what to expect as I’ve never been a fairy tale type of person, but you really don’t have to be with this book. The hinterland stories are really dark and creepy and have more in common with Brothers Grimm stories than traditional fairy tales. It was fast paced and I couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter.

OH MY GOODNESS. I requested to review this based SOLEY on the fact that it was all over my feed and my goodness am I thankful I did. This was an absolutely breathtaking read.



The world that you dive into while reading this is truly a fairytale. It is a novel unlike any novel that I have ever read. What would you say if you found out fairytales were real? What if you found out that you life is not at all what you have been taught to think?

When Alice begins to hunt down her Mother and all paths lead back to The Hazel Wood, things take a turn for the tale. The Fairy Tale kind.

UGH. This book is full of spoilers and I am trying REALLY hard to to yell about them.

Seamless storytelling and multi faced characters that  you completely become enamored with. This is a story about adventure and finding the truth. Fighting for freedom.

I can't wait for the next book. Heck, I can't wait to reread this book in preparation for the next novel.

HUGE GIANT stars for The Hazel Wood.

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert was a superb debut! The story was full of mystery and wonder. It was impossible not to be captivated from the first page. It reminded me of paranormal/slightly fairytale-ish books I read and loved back when they were all the rage. I’m happy to see these sorts of stories coming back.

The first quarter of the book was somewhat creepy and the entire book was darker than I was expecting. I loved those aspects! Melissa Albert’s writing was really striking. I would not have assumed this was debut at all. The Hinterland and fairy-tales within real life were so creative. I also really enjoyed the stories within a story. I was really intrigued by Alice’s grandmother and her cult following.

Alice was a strong main character. I liked that she never batted an eye at all the strange happenings. She was so determined to find her mother. I admired that a lot as I would feel the same way. I was a tiny bit disappointed at the amount of romance in this one. I was just expecting more, I guess. I suppose that’s fine since I never really connected with the male lead anyway.

The best thing about The Hazel Wood for me was definitely the Hinterland/fairy tale aspects. I loved getting the little snippets of some of the tales and then seeing them appear in Alice’s life. I do feel like the search for the Hinterland and answers was more interesting than actually getting there. The story kind of dropped off for me there. I still enjoyed it but not as much as the first quarter of the book.

The Hazel Wood was a dark and twisty debut. I was captivated throughout! If you’re a fan of fairy tales or miss those dark paranormal YA reads of several years ago definitely pick this one up!

I loved this book! I love fairytale adaptations, and this one was very twisted and original.

The writing was amazing. Alice had a unique and mature voice. I really enjoyed her narrative. Some of the fairytales from Alice’s grandmother’s book were also in the story. They were super creepy. I had to stop reading it one night and switch to a lighter book so I didn’t have nightmares. But the stories were so good!

The concept of the fairytales coming to life was so creepy. This story reminded me of the Percy Jackson series in that way. Percy learned his family secrets, which brought him into the world of Greek mythology, just as Alice learns her family history in the world of her grandmother’s fairytales.

I really hope a book of Alice’s grandmother’s fairytales is published. It would be awesome to read them all. The physical book was described in the story, so it could be a beautiful book as well.

I loved this story! I recommend it for fans of fairytale adaptations.

The main character, Alice, has a famous author for a Grandmother. She has a cult following and a rare, hard to find book called The Hinterland. It is a book of fairy tales, sort of. Alice, however, has never met her. She and her mother move from place to place running from their bad luck. Alice's world and her Grandmother's world collide in this unique tale. The plot is unusual and fanciful creating a story that is hard to put down.

Melissa Albert's The Hazel Wood turned out to be everything I've been hoping for lately in recent YA fantasy. Dark fairy tales, believable characters, and all of those twists and turns to keep you glued to the page. This is a fairy tale about a mother-daughter bond and the strange, wild lengths one goes for family and truth. The major issue I had with this, though, was the pacing. The first half is a little slower-paced, allowing for us as the reader to get to know Alice and the world in which she leaves and the world she was told to avoid, but the last half had so much going on in it that I felt a lack of development for the Hinterlands. Knowing now that this is the first in a series, I'm hoping we get to see more of the Hinterlands in later stories because I wanted to know more! This is going to be perfect if true-to-the-source dark fairy tales are your thing and for those who enjoy a well-crafted YA fantasy.

Lovers of dark fairy tales (think Labyrinth) & unsettling investigations (ala Night Film) will find much to love in The Hazel Wood Melissa Albert's YA debut which is creating so much buzz that even the inhabitants of The Hinterland must have taken notice!
When Alice's mother disappears, she discovers that her estranged grandmothers infamous book of twisted fairy tales might have connections to a dark world that is slipping into our reality.
Love the concept, the cover, and the ending. Wishes I loved the middle of the book more, but I completely understand why EVERYONE I know is raving about this book.
I have to admit I'm super excited that The Hazel Wood will live on- this world needs more exploration.

The Hazel Wood is a creepy, slippery, read-with-the-lights-on book. The plot is fluid and twisty and travels in unexpected directions. Some readers will find the elusive, dreamy writing frustrating, but it adds to the Hinterland atmosphere.

This book is not what I expected. At. All.

It is darker. It is stranger.

If you like contemporary fantasies and darker fairy tales—this is for you. I’ll be thinking about it for weeks.

I’m not sure how much I liked Alice and I honestly can’t guess where the second book will go, but I’ll read whatever Albert writes next. This book was interesting and unique.

And have you seen a copy in person?? It’s gorgeous.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy.

I have been not so patiently waiting to read this book, psyched by all the positive reviews that I’ve seen. Having completed it, it was totally awesome but not so great.

The first part of the book was so deliciously suspenseful. I was too spooked to read on but just couldn’t put it down. But then Alice started getting to me. She was really kind of a “B” and was really mean to Finch.... who she also had a crush on? That made no sense at all (yet it actually does after you learn more about her). What bothered me most was that the two settings made the book reads like two separate stories. Both were compelling, but neither quite complete. I definitely wanted more about the Hollow wood/ Hazel wood.

The most interesting thing was the stories from the hazel wood book. We got a taste of two of them recounted by Finch. I’m dying to read them and I hope the author writes them all in the next book.

Hinterland reminds me an awful lot of Wonderland. Readers will find similar characters, moments, and nods to Wonderland. The story is full of metaphors and hidden meanings. The story starts off slow and seems to drag on before picking up halfway through. Stick with it. It does get better. The fairytales within the book were dark and fantastic. There is one person of color in the book that the main character continually calls unattractive. He tries to explain the issues of racial profiling, but is ignored. This is not okay for a book published so recently to have a negative attitude about people of color.

This book was absolutely fantastic!
I can't wait to get a hard cover copy in my upcoming subscription book box.

I loved the story behind it, the characters were so well done. Can't wait to read more!

3.5/5 Stars

Finding fairy tales fascinating made Melissa Albert's The Hazel Wood immediately pop up on my radar. Who wouldn't be pulled in with the promise of creepy stories and quests? While Alice's adventure provides an interesting arc with ominous threats at every turn, plenty of tension, and the magic of storytelling, there was a disconnect between book and reader that I just couldn't get over.

The most impressive part of this book was the absolutely gripping atmospheric setting Albert created. It was this strange mix of real and imaginary that left even the most regular NYC moments utterly uncomfortable. In the best possible way of course. Darkness seemed to seep through the world and the magic of the stories needed no explanation.

Alice is standoffish, angry, and a loner. The only person she's ever been close with is her mother and she has a hard time trusting people. Alice treats those around her with disdain and only lets her guard down when she's in need of something. Ellery Finch though was slightly more endearing with a dreadful past and willingness to help. He made a great foil for Alice.

It's clear Albert can write, penning an incredibly detailed and weird narrative that seeped into my bones. Unfortunately I did have a hard time fulling immersing myself in this tale. It was slow to start and some of the transitions felt disjointed. I never truly connected with the characters, leaving me an outsider looking in. I just wanted more from it all.

Overall The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert turned out to be a delightfully disturbing debut. It reflected on the power that words and stories hold in our lives as well as delved into magic in a unique way. For me though the characters felt incredibly flat which hindered my reading experience considerably. I'd recommend this one to fans of fairy tales that don't shy away from the gritty darkness.

Alice has spent most of her life on the road with her mom, Ella, whom she (Alice) calls Ella, which I think is weird, since most people refer to their mom as “mom.” And Alice does call Ella “mom” in dialog but in her narration she always refers to her as Ella, not “mom.” Anyway, Alice and Ella have spent a long time drifting from place to place, always avoiding the bad luck that seems to follow them no matter where they go. After the death of Ella’s mother, Althea, a reclusive author of a famous almost-impossible-to-find collection of fairy tales, Alice and Ella end up settling in New York City.

Then shit starts to get weird.

Weird in that Ella is kidnapped. By people from the world Althea wrote about in her book. Because – surprise! – Everything in Grandma’s book is actually real and it’s bleeding over into our world.

Determined to save her mom, Alice teams up with Ellery Finch, a classmate who has actually read Althea’s book. Together, they search for Althea’s mysteriously estate, The Hazel Wood, hoping to find answers and, hopefully, Ella.

You wouldn’t think it would be possible for shit to get weirder than that, but it does. And it’s awesome. There are a few quirks in the writing that weirded me out (like Alice always referring to Ella as Ella, or how at one point Alice insists that you’d have to be “dumber than Persephone to drink anything in fairyland” even though she drank from a fairyland creek like, five minutes prior…) but in all, The Hazel Wood is a fun, dark YA fairy tale read, definitely worth blowing off that homework that costs you thousands of dollars for the chance to do it.

It looks like The Hazel Wood is going to be the first in a series, which…come on why does everything have to be a series nowadays? Don’t make me wait for another book and then make me take time to read another book, I’ve got too much homework right now…

Uhm, I mean, The Hazel Wood does work great as standalone read, but if you’re good with the wait, then you’ll have future books to look forward to.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone in the mood for a dark, twisted, trope-busting fairy tale.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Non-YA fans, people who want only light-fun-happy fairy tales, people who want only standalone books.

This book was not what I expected...and yet it kind of was. Visually, it was very pleasing. The cover is gorgeous. The imagery was almost magical. But I never got lost in the story the way I wanted to. It felt intense and nonsensical, the way you'd expect an Alice retelling to feel, but the connection wasn't there. I had an ARC of this novel, but I kept putting it off until I was really in the mood for it. My bestie read it and absolutely adored it. And yet I continued to put it off. I briefly, briefly glanced at some reviews on GR just to gauge others' reactions, and I think that's what finally made me decide to wait for the audio. Because yes, there were those gushing over this book, but there were also just some mediocre receptions. And from the beginning, I'd feared I would be one of the latter, with lukewarm feelings toward this story...which is indeed how I feel. Even with the audiobook being narrated by Rebecca Soler.

THE HAZEL WOOD embraces the darker aspects of fairy tales. Alice Proserpine lives in the shadow of her grandmother’s novel Tales of the Hinterland, an adult take on fairy tales that created a cult following. Alice and her mother have spent their lives constantly moving, trying to stay one step ahead of the bad luck that seems to follow them. When her grandmother dies, Alice and her mother think they’re finally able to settle down.

When strange things start happening, Alice turns to Ellery Finch, a classmate who knows more about Alice’s grandmother than Alice does. Ellery was someone I expected to dislike or tire of quickly. He smart, rich, and has an obvious infatuation Alice. However, Ellery remained down to earth and completely sweet. He isn’t the ‘sad little rich boy’ trope. He acknowledges his own wealth and faults, just as he tries to get Alice to acknowledge her own privilege when her anger gets the better of her.

The book also shies away from romance. I loved that even though both of the characters liked each other, they remained cautious. It’s life or death stakes, there’s not a lot of time for canoodling. The ending of the novel is likely to be controversial; it’s unsatisfying, and answers are purposefully withheld. Alice never learns all the details of what happened and why. However, this was a type of ‘unsatisfying’ that worked perfectly. The whole novel is Alice searching for meaning, for explanations. To deny her this fits with the reality of the situation.

Although I loved the novel, I’m a little disappointed to see that it’ll be a series. The book stands on it’s own so strongly, I can’t imagine where else the plot can go. THE HAZEL WOOD is a gorgeous, fast-paced and creepy novel. Read this is you want more Grimm in your life.