I really enjoyed reading this short horror book, set in the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. I had assumed that, as it's a creature feature, we'd be meeting the Jersey Devil, but this story was actually much cooler, creepier, bloodier and more inventive!
The story seems to be loosely based on the Lenape mythology of forest and tree spirits, with a bit of a cosmic horror twist. The characters were fine, but could have been developed a little more if the book was a bit longer.
Enjoyable and legitimately scary in places!
3.5 stars

Every time I read a Mary SanGiovanni book I remember how much I love them. I’m also reminded of how fun it is when she introduces something I’ve either never heard of or know very little about, generating enough interest in me that I decide I need to become an expert in whatever the something is.

In Inside the Asylum, this was tulpas. I’d never heard of them but by the end of the book I’d read everything I could find about them. Years later, they came up in some random TV episode. The person sitting next to me asked if I knew what that word was. Naturally, I proceeded to tell them all about tulpas, including some handy hints for how to make one if they were so inclined.

While I was trying to find my way out of the Savage Woods, I began reading about tree spirits. When I wasn’t busy trying to pronounce Kèkpëchehëlat.

This is my first Mary SanGiovanni read that isn’t a Kathy Ryan book (note to self: read the rest of Mary’s books!). I kept thinking that the subject matter was right up Kathy’s alley and loved that her research had a cameo, even though she didn’t.

Brothers Todd and Kenny decide Nilhollow is the perfect place for their camping trip. They don’t believe the “clichéd stuff about cursed grounds, unexplained hiker deaths and disappearances, lights in the sky, that sort of thing.”

They’re also dismissive about the reports of the missing people “turning up inside-out and hanging from trees”. What brothers Todd and Kenny don’t realise is that they’re first chapter characters and, as such, they’re almost certainly destined to stop breathing before the main characters show up.

“Something about Nilhollow was just … all wrong.”

Which brings me to Julia Russo, who’s trying to escape her abusive ex-boyfriend, Darren. Darren, who clearly doesn’t understand the purpose of a restraining order, decides to run Julia off the road. In the wrong part of the woods.

Officer Pete Grainger, a New Jersey state trooper, knows Julia’s situation well and has developed some not especially professional feelings for her. Of course, when he learns she’s in trouble, Grainge responds. So do a whole gaggle of law enforcement corpses in the making.

This book is an absolute splatterfest and I loved every squishy, crunchy, rending moment. I flew through it, cheering on the trees as they painted the woods red. I’m more convinced than ever that I need to read everything Mary SanGiovanni ever writes.

“You need to warn the others that whatever slept in these woods is awake now, and it wants blood.”

Content warnings include mention of death by suicide, domestic abuse, stalking and suicidal ideation.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Lyrical Underground, an imprint of Kensington Books, for the opportunity to read this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book. This was an excellent read.
Thoroughly recommended

DNF @54%
1.5

I really wanted to like this story about a creepy forest that comes to evil life. But I couldn’t. It started out ok, it was scary and shudder–worthy, even more so because I actually live in the woods. Yes. I do. *gasps* But then, it just…got stupid. And the writing is nothing to, well, write home about. So, I gave it the ol’ college try, but ultimately scrapped it at the 54% mark. Cool concept, execution fail.

Part horror, part mystery...this book will keep you guessing and feeling the mounting terror as you read. If you like the kind of classic horror where the enemy is not sen right away and the kind of novel that makes you believe real evil could exist, then this should be a perfect choice for you.

This book begins with a bit of an explanation about what is going on, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense until you get further into the novel and the pieces start fitting together. I liked the way the author approached telling her story, making you wonder with each event whether any of the characters had a chance at survival--or for that matter whether any one of us could survive in the face of such a dark and powerful entity.

There is plenty of edge of your seat excitement in this novel. It is true horror, where by the end of the book you feel chilled and afraid to turn out the light. I was impressed with this author's ability to hold my attention and recommend this for anyone who likes books that really terrify.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

In this scary story, evil lurks in the woods. Including wood spirits and an ancient evil, the woods turn against everybody who dares entering...with bloody consequences.

Creepy woods and lots of gore, B-movie style - the summary immediately caught my interest, but unfortunately I lost it almost immediately when I strated reading. The prologue, which explains the wood spirits and the reason why the Nilhollow area is doomed, was somewhat irritating - unspeakable spirit names which I constantly mixed up (was it the little ones or the great one she was talking about now?!) and had a hard time sorting out. Though I really wanted to find something likeable about the book (hey: savage creatures, gore, woods - it does sound great, doesn't it!), in the back of my head a small voice kept telling me that the whole setup was totally ridiculous.

The plot itself brought nothing new: people go into the woods, people die horrible bloody deaths, other people start a search party, more people die, some people survive. While the story was routinely written, I never felt close to it or its characters, but remained indifferent, sometimes even bored. What bothers me most is that I can't find any great flaw explaining my dislike, I guess I just missed some WOW effect that would have made this one special. It just didn't work for me.

I always enjoy a good horror where everyone drops like flies. This wasn't as good as a previous one I've read by this author but still entertaining. The tree spirits theme is a nice change from most scary novels. This is imaginative and I liked the concept of it all. You certainly don't want to be in these woods either day or night. If you like to be scared, then this fits the bill nicely.

The woods are alive! "The trees told me. They are whispering about it. I can hear them still..."

I rather enjoyed this novel. It was a fast paced entertaining horror novel. It's imaginative, suspenseful, and best of all, gory! That's right folks, it's packed with lots of descriptive scenes with blood and guts, so if you're not a fan of the gore, then keep moving.

This novel definitely has that cheesy horror movie quality about it, but I think what makes it work is the writing. I was very impressed with Mary Sangiovnni's writing. Her character development was typical, she fills you in on a character as they're introduced within a chapter. There are two main characters within the novel, and that's Julia and Pete. The secondary characters are only introduced to really just be killed off. I think what I really enjoyed was the imaginative descriptive writing. As I said, the plot is reminiscent of a cheesy horror movie, but the way things are depicted is what kept me intrigued.

"She passed a man on the right who was naked except for a loincloth of leaves and moss. Large patches of hair had been roughly and unevenly shaved off, leaving nicks and cuts that bled a little. What was left was a washed-out blond, like straw, but heavily dusted with dirt. At first Julia thought he was kneeling in the grass, but as she got closer, she saw he had no legs below the knees. His arms were a tangled, broken mess bound to his back by vines, all forming arabesque shapes she was sure even the contortionist couldn't make. His eye sockets had been hollowed out, and sprigs with budding leaves grew from the blood-ringed holes. That bothered Julia more than his maimed body, more than the black feathers and tiny bones stuffed into his mouth or the blood that ran down his chin onto his bare chest."

We all think about the scary woods at night because someone could be lurking in there to get us, but no one truly imagines that the woods themselves are going to swallow you up. I'm definitely going to be thinking twice about that scary tree lurking in the shadows. No more of "Oh, it's just a tree."

I want to thank NetGalley, Kensington Books and Mary SanGiovanni for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for my review. I really enjoyed it!

Would you go to a haunted woods? In a woods called Nilhollow, it is well know that once you go in, one seldom comes out. What happens to them? Some believe the Native American legends and others believe that it is haunted. The rangers of the forest seem to believe there are tree spirits and powerful forest gods. Julia is lost in the forest trying to escape her ex-boyfriend who beats her when he doesn't like something she did. Julia is saved from him by the forest until finally he finds her. He wants to kill her. Meanwhile the local sheriff contacts someone who is knowledgeable about the "occult." He gathers all the men he can to do a search for Julia in Nilhollow. Will Julia be found in time? Will everyone be lost in Nilhollow? What is Nilhollow? Is it evil?

I enjoyed the story. The author has written an excellent horror novel. I couldn't stop reading it as I wanted to know what would happen next. It surprised me that I got into the story as I did because it didn't seem like it would be a novel that was horror when I read the description. I must have had other things on my mind. If you lik a good horror story, read it!

I quite enjoyed this horror story regarding an evil chasm in the woods that seems to lead to the very depths of hell.
It was well written and eerie, with plenty of blood and gore, slightly far fetched but it is fiction after all.
The characters were OK, I never overly warmed to them but it's a fair story that worth a read.

While this book had plenty of gore in it, it was missing what makes a horror novel great to me: edge of your seat suspense. Sadly, I skimmed the last half of this and still didn't feel like I missed much.

“The Nilhollow Chasm”

All the stories I've read in the past about the New Jersey Pine Barrens area were centered on the legendary Jersey Devil. This story is different. This story is about a small sub-section of the Pine Barrens called Nilhollow. It has a Bermuda Triangle mystique about it. Hikers, campers, rangers, all sorts of people have gone into Nilhollow in the past and have never come out.

It is a story of a living aware forest:

"The lesser, the elemental spirits of the trees, were restless because even in sleep, Kèkpëchehëlat, the ancient one who had gone insane, was restless."

I enjoyed this tale for what I think it is - a creature feature blood and guts cautionary story. The author does a great job of creating a dark, menacing atmosphere in the living forest of Nilhollow.

Some of the characters are likeable but most are not. I enjoyed this fast-paced horror romp. I have another book by this author CHILLS that I bought a while back and will try to move it closer to the top of my To Be Read pile because I like her writing style.

I received this book from Kensington Books through Net Galley in exchange for my unbiased review.

SAVAGE WOODS, by Mary SanGiovanni, is a horror novel that combines elements of Folklore and "Elementals" in a forest setting. The Nilhollow area in Pine Barrens is a part of the forest that locals--and even those new to the area--instinctively shun. A source of countless rumors among the people in town, some regarded the area as nothing more than an urban legend, whereas others could only articulate that something about it was simply....wrong.

". . . this place in the woods where they say the land started to go bad. Makes people see things, hear things. Makes people do things, too . . . "

The writing style was very impressive, in general, and the action scenes very vivid. While I enjoyed the "idea" of the story, the execution seemed to lean a little too much towards "fantasy" for my taste, much of the time. I felt that there was a lot of dialogue spent on explanations, that could have been better "implied", or simply garnered through the beings in the forest.

Another problem I had was getting to know most of the characters. While a couple of them stood out, the rest just seemed to be thrown in for the sake of moving the plot along. There were also those that all too conveniently knew the background of the forest, that allegedly went back so far that "nobody really remembered" the exact details.

Overall, a great idea, that somehow didn't translate as well as I felt it could have.

I had a hard time getting into this one. Even with all the blood flying, I just found the story, the characters, and the TREES (especially the trees) far too generic and, at times, laughable. Not in a good way, either.
I've heard lots of good things about the author, so I will try another of her works, but probably not anytime soon.

Gotta give SAVAGE WOODS 2 stars.
Not for me.

The woods are alive. At least that's what Mary SanGiovanni would like you to believe in her latest offering, Savage Woods. The Nilhollow section of New Jersey's Pine Barrens has had its history of weird happenings. People tend to go missing here. Think of it as New Jersey's answer to the Bermuda Triangle. This has dated back tens of thousands of years. The Native Americans knew this and avoided this area like the plague. But what causes it? SanGiovanni attempts to explain it by introducing us to a chasm in Nilhollow that is allowing the bad mojo to escape it and pollute the wood spirits like a plague. This causes the woods to constantly shift and trap anyone who enters and then the wood spirits form these little tree creatures to off their victims. If you suddenly went "Huh?", you're not alone. Savage Woods has a few good ideas surrounded by an absolute mess and that's the most frustrating part for me. SanGiovanni can write. I've read so-called authors who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. She is not one of them. Unfortunately, the two stories of hers that I've read, she tries to take amazingly unrealistic material and breathe life into them. Instead, we get a laughable plot, uninteresting characters and pacing that makes a snail look like a top-fuel dragster. The possessed trees and vines in the Evil Dead. Now that was scary. Not so here. The tree creatures come off as hokie. Native American folklore can make for a great storyline, much like Brian Moreland did in The Devil's Woods and Dead of Winter. Again, not so here. She does throw in quite a bit of the red stuff, but you're beyond caring at this point and that makes the characters nothing more than cannon fodder. I simply found myself yawning through the whole thing eagerly anticipating the ending to come and put me out of my misery.

2 Killer Oaks out of 5

* this ARC was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


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Great read! What savage woods indeed. I really enjoyed reading this page turner. It held my attention throughout with plenty of action. Of course I loved the scary parts.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview Savage Woods by Mary SanGiovanni.
This book will have you scared as you drive down the NJ turnpike looking for the infamous Pine Barrens.
Nilhollow is nestled in the Pine Barrens area of NJ. There is much fokelore about this area including missing persons, crazed rants from those who had been there, and mysterious happenings. Most people avoid this location, but not everyone.
The story begins when two brothers are out camping in Nilhollow and one returns and the other is - well swallowed up in Nilhollow. A young policeman, Pete Grainger, captures one brother and listens to his tale about this "camping trip".. And as he watches this man in a cell, he notices some strange occurances and before you know it, this man is dead.
A young woman, Julia, is in a bad relationship with Darren. Darren chases her down the road and to escape him, Julia runs from her car into Nilhollow. Darren follows carrying an ax; he's gonna get revenge. What happens next will have the hairs on the back of your neck stand. You may rethink ever going to New Jersey's Pine Barrens again.
RECOMMEND. This is scary.

The Pine Barrens have always been surrounded in mystery and folklore, and SanGiovanni has created a new folklore within an already rich locale. Firstly, a subset of the Barrens is chosen, a fictitious Nilhollow, that has some very powerful Native American juju attached to it. Soon the trees are imbued with a supernatural power and are literally tearing people apart. The violence and gore are on point if that is what you are looking for, and the story is well constructed. The characterization is well developed and one can get a sense of these people as they face their fate in the Savage woods. Very entertaining and thrilling.

Savage Woods was ok...I don't much go for the fantasy, but there were some good descriptions and information given. While the blurb drew me in with the promise of some terror and horror, which I took for an edge of your seat type read, there are some descriptive scenes but nothing that kept me turning each page wanting to see what happened. It was so well laid out that it left little for a reader to get invested in.

This novel starts off a little typical of the average thriller, but then segues into a dark and dream-like atmosphere. Ancient legends, angry spirits, and ordinary humans collide in a gory denouement. While I enjoyed the book, I'm not sure if it's one I'll re-read. Nothing in it makes me want to return to this story. However, I will look for other books by this author.