Thrilling, captivating, bleak. Chilling atmosphere that draws you in. It's as Gothic as del Toro's Crimson Peak--a style that, if you're forgiving enough, can get away with being a little heavy-handed, with the Gothic mansion, fairy tale, and all the requisite misery. It's neither groundbreaking for this style, nor is it forced. If you're on board with that, you'll enjoy the slow-burning, haunting tale, which is certainly masterfully crafted.

A grieving couple move from America to a remote estate in England to escape the lingering reminders of a recent tragedy and to study the life of a long dead reclusive writer who published one very strange fairy tale inspired novel. To no one's surprise, creepy things then begin to happen. In the Night Wood is a fairy tale inspired dark mystery that foists upon the reader a foreboding feeling of unease as the author dangles unsettling clues along the way to a not entirely surprising, but satisfying, conclusion. This book is a quick and intriguing read and would be great for fans of atmospheric horror, fairy tale retellings, and mysteries. Older fans of The Hazel Wood who want a good read-alike will find much to enjoy here.

However, a few things prevented me from giving this novel a higher rating. First, the book is a bit slow on action and for the majority of the work is more of a character driven story. Yet, the two main characters, Charles and Erin, are not particularly likable, reducing any tension surrounding their eventual fates. Additionally, some of the suspenseful scenes started to feel a bit repetitive as they mostly had similar imagery and a lack of real danger for our protagonists. Finally, after the climax, the book just ends - there is no denouement, which I think could have improved the work. As the focus of the book is our main characters, learning their fates would have provided a better sense of closure to the story.

I just could not get in to this book. It's pretty dark and depressing and just was not what I was in the mood for. I may revisit it in the future and give it another try, but after about 75 pages it was a DNF for me. I think I was imagining something more like The Hazel Wood, and this was definitely not the same sort of story.

Into the night Woods is a novel by Dale Bailey which is the first book of his that I have ever read. To start off I am not sure if this book knows what kind of book it is. The style of the book is very similar to a Victorian Gothic horror however there are hints of fantasy and thriller mixed into this book.
I found myself very confused about what type of book I was reading and I think part of that made this book hard to enjoy. The writing style of the author however is very beautiful and the book itself I feel is well written. My major issue with this book would have been the pacing, it starts very slow for me and then more than three-quarters of the way through the book is going at such a rapid pace the ending comes upon you and you're almost caught off guard. I feel like if this book it had a more fluid pacing it might have read a little better for me considering I was at a quarter of the way through and almost made this a “DNF”, but I force myself to keep reading, and in the middle I found myself loving the book, and then by the end I was frustrated.
Again, I feel the writing style was beautiful the language itself is very nice it's very reminiscent of that Victorian Gothic feel that I think this book was really trying to go for. With the Gothic mansion, the foreboding woods, and the mystery that is trying to be set forth in this story, however, there is so much emphasis on the family drama between Charles and Erin the main characters of the story that I feel kind of the mystery and the nuance that might have happened in this novel was lost. There is a lot of emotion in this book, and the pages drip with the feelings from these two main characters. Which I enjoyed, I feel Charles was a solid character, with developed motives and emotions. Erin on the other hand is not as developed, we spend very little time with her which I think the author missed an opportunity with. There could have been some more time spent with Erin and what she was going through in relation to not only the story but to her character.
Overall the book is well written and the characters and the scenery and the world that the book takes place in are strong but there were still areas of opportunity overall not only with the pacing of the story and the flow of the book overall but with character development and the ending. I would recommend to somebody who enjoys Gothic horror or thrillers. In the end just not what I was expecting.

Bailey checks all the boxes in this supernatural, psychological thriller of a book - couple whose marriage is in trouble, dead child, mysterious English manor house, spooky forest, intimidating & creepy manor staff, past tragedy...and more. Charles, Erin & Lissa are the seemingly perfect family whose life is turned upside down by a truly horrible accident. The psychological strain of that experience coupled with the gothic-horror experience of Hollow House makes for a top-notch, nail-biting, check-under-the-bed thrilling novel. For fans of English folklore, horror, and suspense. Recommended.

This book is mostly about sorrow. It's dripping from the page. The main characters are parents who lost their daughter in an accident. The family is falling to pieces with this weight. The mother inherits an English estate that is filled with stories of people disappearing. When the couple starts seeing creatures, you're not sure how much is their grieving minds and how much is real. My only problem with the book is that the ending is a little abrupt and there were times when I was tired of the father.

As a fan of Dale Bailey's short fiction, I was more than a little excited for the opportunity to read an ARC of his newest book, In the Night Wood. This is the first full-length novel I've read by Mr. Bailey, and my expectations were high. In the Night Wood is a slow-burning, atmospheric horror story that plays off of pagan mythology and classic haunted house tropes. In it, an American couple, grieving the tragic loss of their young daughter, inherits a strange manor house in England, as well as a family secret that threatens to destroy them both. Despite the shadowy figures and creepy obsessions threaded throughout the novel, it is their grief and their marriage, tenuously held together by obligation and inertia, that serve as the true heart of the book.

The Good:
-Dale Bailey is a master of character work. He makes you feel a deep empathy with his characters, even when they behave badly. This novel is no exception. The grief and guilt experienced by the characters in this book are palpable.
-Despite heavy use of tropes bordering on the cliché, Bailey manages to spin these familiar ideas and settings into something new and startlingly real. His use of the darker sides of pagan imagery provides credibility to the Faustian pact that serves as the lynchpin of the story, while his depiction of the wife's drug-fueled obsession lends an air of much-needed urgency to the narrative.

The Bad:
-Overall, I felt this novel lacked the punch of Bailey's short fiction. The exposition was dragged out a bit long for my taste, especially in regards to the husband's past sins - though his guilt over his past actions is what drives most of the story, those actions are insinuated in the vaguest terms until just before the book's climax. By then, the "reveal" felt a bit underwhelming.
-I felt the character of the wife was perhaps a bit underused. Personally, I found her to be a more interesting character than the husband - I think seeing more of her experiences during the story, and getting a more in-depth look at her internal struggle, would have served the story well.

I enjoyed this story a lot, it reminded me of old ghost stories from the Victorian era. Reading it kind of made me feel haunted in a sense, the dark woods, researching old papers, characters with tragedies and troubles. It's a solid haunting type story.

Posted on February 26, 2018 by cayocosta72
In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Ever since he was a child and stumbled upon a strange and frightening fairy tale in his family library, Charles Hayden has been fascinated by In the Night Wood and its elusive author. In college, he meets and falls in love with a woman who is Hollow’s many times removed relative. Years later, the couple has married and suffered the incalculable loss of their young daughter when they get word that they have inherited Hollow’s crumbling estate in England. Hoping for a fresh start, the couple heads to England, only to be reminded again and again of what they have lost. And local children have gone missing, all bearing a resemblance to Charles’s dead child. Is the wood surrounding the estate really haunted? Or is something else happening to the local children? This Gothic story is written is some of the most beautiful language I have ever read. I would often pause just to savor a sentence or a phrase. Highly recommended for both its beauty and its menace