The writing style was wonderful but the main character was not someone that I wanted to spend time with, even in a fictional reader sense. I didn't enjoy this story.

Thanks so much to the publisher and to NetGalley for giving me access to this book.This book seemed like one I would love. The premise and setting are appealing to me. But I hated the main character. He is a self absorbed jerk. The issues with the character stopped my enjoyment of the book. I did not finish the book due to this issue.

I did not connect with the main character and subsequently the story, and DNF'd around 35% of the way through.

3.5 stars for this effort by Dale Bailey. I found myself getting immersed into the setting the author created in this book , i could see the trees , the old house and even the bar itself, this book had a sense of the ethereal in it so I enjoyed that part. But scenery a book does not make and I felt that while the story started strong it kept losing more and more complexity as it went forward and by the end it had lost any foundation that it had on the beginning . Great effort but felt flat towards the end .

I have always dreamed of living in an atmospheric cottage/manor in England, preferably the countryside with an ancient wood/forest around or beside it where I can imagine old mythological creatures abound like elves, satyrs, Gods, pixies, and who knows what else from the Celtic past.
The book starts off easily enough with an American and his wife moving to the Yorkshire home she has inherited hoping to rekindle all they have lost of the future they expected to have together.
They both see things that are impossible and are drawn to the primeval wood called The NIght Wood.
I loved the writing. It is so lyrical, poetic and descriptive that I could imagine myself wandering the rooms of the house or the paths of the Night Wood itself. It really set the tone and atmosphere for me. I didn't find it spooky in the sense of a haunting or typical "scary" story but more a slow sense of dread of the unknown especially an ancient unknown. I really like novels where the horror isn't obvious and it is more the style of writing and the words chosen that develop the ambience of the story.

I recieved an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I loved this book and will recommend it often to lovers of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels!

"In the Night Wood" is a surprisingly interesting story. Dale Bailey wove an amazing story with interesting characters. While I think it could have been a bit better, I found the way the story wrapped up to be satisfying.

What could be better than a dark Victorian book that has mythology and folk tales woven into the story.? The book at times could be a bit too dark and depressing but it was overall interesting to read. The characters had depth and the story was intricate. This book definitely calls for a re-read or two.

Yes, this book took me a long time to review and sadly it was because I could not get into it. The story and the characters just did not fit home to me. However, the writing was wonderful.

I loved this book. I liked the story within a story element to the mystery. It's a great, scary read.

I'm a sucker for fairy tales so this book was right up my alley. I'm glad to say that I loved it just as much as I hoped I would. It's very atmospheric and dripping in beautiful writing.

DNF at 6%

Dear In the Night Wood,

It's not you, it's me.

Best wishes,

Lindsi

Honestly, the writing style just wasn't my cup of tea. It was hard for me to follow the story, and I felt lost in the language. I have a feeling this book is really beautiful, and I'm simply not equipped to see it. I started this late one night, and decided to pick it up again the next day. However, when I started reading it again, I had absolutely no idea what had happened during the previous pages. I skimmed over several of them, but was completely lost. If this sounds like something you'd like, I suggest giving it a go. Hopefully it works better for you! I really liked the premise, so I'm bummed it didn't work out.

When one spends a great deal of time reading - particularly if they largely read books of a similar genre - one gains a level of innate understanding in regards to the way a book is laid out. Within a chapter or two, they can often determine what kind of book it is going to be - even if they know little or nothing about it prior to beginning. Every now and then, avid readers come across a story that, by and large, defies genre placement. That is how I felt about "In the Night Wood."



I came to this book with a certain expectation that this would be a fantasy story with literary undertones. I expected fae creatures and grand adventures. Instead, what I found was more of a slow-burning paranormal horror story. Chapter after chapter left me saddened and edgy - not because the story was bad, but because it was so good that I was utterly invested in the outcome of the characters.



Though the story follows Charles from the first page to the last, I truly felt that his wife was the central character. Not even the Horned King displaces her as the most pivotal part of the tale. Without her, nothing else would occur. It is her ancestral home, her legacy, her child, her pain, her deterioration, that is the basis for everything that occurs.



Her deterioration is as insidious as the evil nature of the Horned King himself, yet the reader feels it poignantly. Only Charles seems oblivious to the slow, steady extraction of his wife's very life force. At times, I found myself tugging on my own hair in exasperation at this man's density. For not only does he miss what is happening in his own home, he does so because he allows himself to be completely entranced by another woman and child who could have been his in another life. In short, I did not find Charles Hayden to be a sympathetic character in the slightest. Yet I did not want him to suffer, either.



When the entire story finally comes to a head, I felt completely unprepared. Dale Bailey's writing is so exquisite, all the loose ends become neatly tied up in ways that read as being so natural. My favorite books are like this - no questions left over, just that happy, over-full feeling of having consumed something truly great. That unwillingness to move just yet, though there is nothing left to do, no real reason to stay at the table - or, in this case, to keep holding the book. Yet that is what you do, to savor it, to mentally review it.



"In the Night Wood" strikes me as a literary fine wine. I shall return to this story many a time in the future, I think, to enjoy it once again.

A solid and engaging read about how secrets can outlive us and take on a life of their own. Perfect for people who love ghost stories, dark secrets, and spooky woods.

3.5/5 stars.

I had such a difficult time ordering my thoughts for this one. Here we have a beautifully interwoven tapestry of fairy tale and real life, and so, so much potential. The book just didn't fully realise that potential, in my view.

First, the positives:

Bailey did an incredible job writing the sections of the book that act ad excerpts from the fairy tale at the centre of the story, also called In the Night Wood, that I kind of feel like he should be writing those, instead. He has a gift for mimicking the style of classic Victorian fairy tales that really, in the end, kept my attention in this book. This, coupled with the air of mystery (which I'm semi-addicted to), set the tone for a book that is supposed to linger in your thoughts for days and even weeks after reading.

But.

It just didn't happen for me. For instance, there are some intense themes of grief and loneliness in the book that could have been explored in more intricate and intimate detail. The characters tended to fall flat at moments where I as the reader was yearning to delve into their deepest recesses to share in the powerful emotions the writer only ended up glancing off of. Only this level of character deep-diving would have made the realistic aspects of the book stack up to the magical/fairy tale parts that were written and thought out so well.

Part of this lies in the main character, Charles, being so difficult to connect with, and the other part can be ascribed to what I think is too few pages for a story that has a much deeper and wider scope than it feels like even the author realised.

All of this being said, I can imagine many reasons why the author chose to opt for a shorter book with less character dissection than I would have liked - it might be that a shorter book and superficially emotional characters are more in line with the Victorian fairy tales the book is paying homage to (I'm spit-balling here), but in the end, it just could have been so much more.

I will, however, be keeping an eye out for any new books by Dale Bailey in the future - I might even look up some of his older books.

ARC from Netgalley

A tense somewhat supernatural thriller with twists turns and a great level of mood that gets you drawn into the story as if it is itself a primeval forest. It surrounds the stories in the darker aspect of the British form of an ancient God Cernunnos, usually named Herne that has been combined with the Green Man. This is an excellent read though it paints a darker picture of the Fae form of an ancient Deity while also dragging you in to desire, regret, addictions, love, loss and betrayal. Would highly recommend.

The book was a dark low-fantasy which might've done better.

The plot and the characters were promising . But the writing kinda slipped away. The writing was hard to follow and complicated i guess.

Low - fantasy audience don't get this much complicated writings usually cz they aren't a regular presence in famous low fantasy books.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for granting me an opportunity to read and review this review copy.

I love a good gothic novel and this one has a great gothic atmosphere. It really builds up that spooky feeling. Unfortunately, the plot never caught up with the atmosphere. This one had great potential but just never followed through for me.

I have quite a few problems with this book, which is unfortunate because the premise sounded pretty good. It tells the story of Charles and Erin who move to North Yorkshire from the USA following a tragedy and their subsequent entrenchment in the legend of the Night Wood. Firstly, this is a story that had potential, but the execution was not great. There were some very passages that were very exposition heavy and a lot of the dialogue was very stilted. Also, I felt that the narrative just hit a lot of obvious Gothic story beats, without trying anything new or original. My main issue, however, was the treatment of the women in this book. There is a lot of gaslighting, which was unpleasant and the female characters just left me with an unpleasant taste at the way they were depicted. It seemed that they only existed as counterpoints to our protagonist and were not fleshed out or given motivations of their own. All in all, I was just disappointed with this book.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Great build up and dark discussion of grief and loss and folklore. Really love the writing of this author.