Alice Proserpine has escaped the fairy tale world, the Hinterland, where she was created. Now, she lives in New York with her mother and other escapees. Now, though, something is killing ex-Stories and taking their body parts. Worse, all evidence points to Alice. Desperate to find out what is happening, Alice decides to investigate, and finds that the deaths may serve a larger purpose. Meanwhile, Ellery Finch slips out of the fading Hinterland into worlds he’d only dreamed of all while hoping to find a way back home.
I highly enjoyed this book and tore through it with great enthusiasm. In fact, I think I enjoyed it more than The Hazel Wood. It moves quickly and dives right into the action. I liked Alice trying to first navigate the two worlds by being with the others from the Hinterland and our world, and then rejecting the her Hinterland heritage and past. Of course, that would never work and the Hinterland comes to her with a vengeance.

I liked the new characters, especially Sophia. I loved her back story and wish we could have gotten more of her. Daphne was another interesting character, but she was quite scary. I especially liked all the children characters, because they were creepy, like all good fairy tale children should be. The Trio was amazing.

I do feel it was a little rushed, even at it’s length. I would have liked to see more of Finch’s journey and get more of him. There’s something he does that’s really interesting, but I wish there had been more of it. There wasn’t enough. I also would have liked to see more of Alice’s life before it all started falling apart. It would have helped to see more of her normalcy. Or, maybe she never really had any.

Despite all that, I really did enjoy the book. I thought it was a strong follow up to The Hazel Wood.

Yay for the Hinterland - Melissa Albert does not disappoint in this follow up to The Hazel Wood! Alice, Ellery, and the Hinterland once again leap from the page under Albert's careful supervision. She's deftly talented at her craft, creating unusual and beautiful prose (with plenty of bite) as she once more weaves sentences designed to enchant and ensnare you, completely submerging you within the borders of her vision.

Beware: beautiful smiles hold pretty sharp teeth in her realm - so be prepared for plenty of atmospheric lusciousness infused with a rich dark cadence and a bold dollop of grit on top:

This time the "ex-stories" are less fairy tale princesses and princes and more like their fictional Fae counterparts: slightly sociopathic. There's a mystery with a killer on the loose knocking off the ex-stories in NYC (where they've come after the Hinterland became unbound and destroyed itself), and it appears they are framing Alice as the doer of these evil deeds. Meanwhile Ellery is world-skipping and realizing maybe its not all its cracked up to be and begins to fight for a way back to Alice. Add to that some mysteries of this strange universe being revealed and others just hinted at, AND an epic showdown with one deeply disturbed villain and you're in for a perfect ride only Albert could create. Cannot wait to see where she takes this series....

Blends a little bit of Urban Fantasy with Fairy Tale Fantasy, perfect for fans of Holly Black.or YA and adult readers looking for an elevated writing style and sophisticated dark fairy tale.

Thank you Net Galley for the ARC of this book!

I couldn't remember the first book so I reread it before reading this one. I'm glad I did because it answered some of my problems with the first. Her mother stole a magical girl created in a story and never told the girl growing up. The mother knew that the girl was being chased but never told her who she really is. For an angry girl, Alice was never angry at her for doing this to her.

In this book, Alice is really starting to think about having left Hinterland must not mean she's normal. And can never be normal. She's being pulled in two places with the rest of the ex-stories and her mother. Then someone starts murdering the ex-stories and cutting off body parts. Alice has to find out what it all means.

Alice can't catch a break. People speak in riddles around her. Her mother demands her to forget who she really is. Her only friend is mean. The only person she truly wants is traveling different worlds.

It's a good book but there were times when I was emotionally exhausted.

This series is really interesting. The idea of creating your own fairy tales and using them together as the basis for a larger story is fairly epic. This author has an incredible imagination. This is the second installment in the series and I hope she keeps going. The story continues with the main characters from the first book. It's hard to describe this, both because it is so original and because it will lead to spoilers. Read this, but read the other one first, especially if you enjoy fairy tales. This is not a retelling. It is its own unique thing.

I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

I read the Hazel wood and have been looking forward to reading the next book in this series. It didn’t disappoint. It is full of adventure and mystery as Alice learns more about herself and her story. She is haunted by her past, but she not only has to face it. She has to defeat it before everything she knows and loves is destroyed.

Series Info/Source: 2nd (and final) book in the Hazel Wood series. Received eGalley from NetGalley.

Characters (3/5): I wasn’t a huge fan of the characters. Alice is trying to live in the real world now, but her magical personality from the Hinterland keeps rearing its ugly head. I didn’t really enjoy Alice, she came off as very confused and fairly passive. Meanwhile Finch is off in the Hinterland. As the Hinterland collapses, he ends up journeying to other worlds. Finch comes across as fairly selfish, his need to explore overrides all other needs.

Story (3/5): The story was okay but felt kind of disorganized and disjointed. At times it’s a bit hard to understand what’s going on here. Basically there are a few mysteries that are being combined. Hinterlanders are being found murdered and the Hinterland itself is starting to disappear. The story goes back and forth between Alice and Finch; Alice gets involved in the mystery of the murdered Hinterlanders, while Finch is drawn into the disappearance of the Hinterland. This book does seem to wrap up the story pretty well, so I doubt we’ll see more books set in this world.

Setting (4/5): While Alice’s portion of the story takes place in the relatively boring modern world, Finch’s story was much more intriguing. I enjoyed the setting changes as Finch travels from world to world.

Writing Style (4/5): Although Albert’s writing style can be a bit ambiguous and hard to follow at times, she does a beautiful job with imagery. Her writing always comes across as very poetic. The whole story has a darkly beautiful tone to it that I really enjoyed.

Summary (3.5/5): Overall I had mixed feelings about this book (I felt similar about The Hazel Wood). Some things about Albert’s writing style are very unique and beautiful and her stories are very creative. Unfortunately, I also felt the story was a bit hard to follow and disorganized. I also never really engaged well with the characters. I probably won’t read any more of Albert’s books in the future.

It’s baffling to me that Melissa Albert’s outstanding The Hazel Wood didn’t garner more attention. I’m sure I’ll be baffled again if The Night Country also hums a bit under the radar upon its release.

Albert’s writing is exceptionally transporting, at once wispy and weighty. I’m also hard pressed to come up with anyone who does fantasy atmosphere better. Albert’s dark, dreamy OtherWorlds and her gritty, disarming New York are equally well-drawn and captivating, and Alice—already a fascinating heroine—becomes even more so in the second installment of the series.

The story in The Night Country is one of a slightly different flavor that of The Hazel Wood, yet they seem to fit together seamlessly to flesh out the tale of Alice and Ellery, of Ex-stories good and evil, of New York and that mysterious beyond that Albert so beautifully crafts into something filled with both sweet promise and bone-chilling menace.

Can’t wait for more.

** 4.5 stars **

There are sequels that fall short of the first book; that make you wish that you hadn't continue to follow along with the series, left you with mediocre feelings or wondering why you bothered to read the book in the first place because it was more of a place holder than anything. Well folks, I believe this book is NOT one of those. I actually think it may be better than the first. It gets into the darker aspect of the fairy tales that the first book was lacking.

The growth and complexity of Alice's as she interactions with this darker world really shows that teen angst vibe. She is an awkward teen girl who doesn't know her feelings about herself, the world, or others. The are moments when her self-esteem really pushes her difficult situations and she shines through it. But there are still those other times that as a reader, I forget and want to yell "Ugh, why?!?"

I am a little sad that there isn't as much about everyone's favorite, Finch in this book. He played such a minor role in the last book, but seemed to impact her so much. I had hoped he would play a more significant part. I won't run it for you. I'll let you decide.

Overall, it is a great addition to the series. I hope we more of Finch in the future.

***I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review. ***

At the end of The Hazel Wood, Alice Crewe had escaped the bonds of her story, sacrificed much, and was able to look at a brave new future for herself. Melissa Albert’s follow up, The Night Country, shows us what happens in the fallout. When Alice broke out of her story, the rest of the world of Stories started to unravel. Now, the Hinterland is gone and the ex-Stories are now refugees in New York. Most of them are not happy about this. Without their stories to guide them, what do they all do with themselves now?

Alice is, understandably, in a bit of a funk at the beginning of The Night Country. While she has a job and a home with her mother, Alice misses Ellery Finch and the magic of life in the Hinterland. I think she might have eventually gotten out of this funk if it hadn’t been for the sinister Daphne and the murders. Daphne, an ex-Story, warns Alice away from her informal Hinterland support group. Then, months later, Daphne tells Alice that someone is killing ex-Stories with ice. Alice used to be known as Alice-Three-Times, who killed her murderous husband with a frozen kiss. Who else could the murderer be?

While Alice tries to clear her name and figure out who is hunting the Hinterland refugees, a clearly-not-dead Ellery Finch is trying to find his way back to Alice through a series of other worlds. I was enchanted by the places that Ellery visits; I really wanted to know more about the stories he brushes against. Albert has an astonishing and beautiful imagination and I just wanted more of it. But I understand that The Night Country had other things it had to accomplish other than being a tour of worlds and stories. (That said, I need more of these worlds, please, Ms. Albert!)

Once all of the plots get traction—Alice wrestling with a serial murderer and her own conflicted nature, Ellery trying to get home, who the hell is Daphne and what does he want—The Night Country starts to race. I couldn’t put the book down for the last third or so because of all the harrowing twists and turns. This is a fantastic sequel to The Hazel Wood. I would absolutely recommend this book to fans of The Chronicles of Narnia, the Wayward Children series, and other books in which characters tumble into a new, dangerous world and have to decide where (and who) home is.

No need to talk about the elephant in the room. It is so obvious that I didn’t enjoy the first book and I didn’t foresee my request would be accepted but one morning I checked my library and here we go I got this sequel and I firstly admit, WHAT AN ARTISTIC, AMAZING COVER reflects book’s darkness approach to the fairytales.

And you know what! I surprisingly enjoyed this one more. I still went back and forth between 3 and 4 stars but 3.5 rounded up again to 4. And another interesting fact during my read: I honestly wanted this book a little bit longer. Of course instead of getting lost at the horrifying labyrinth of Hazel Wood, focusing on dark fairytales was great move of the author.

CONS
I still have problems about Alice’s complex, unbalanced, weird character development and her indecisive relationship with Finch. (Actually at this book their relationship named to something but I don’t know if I like this definition or hate it.)

PROS
The author’s remarkable evil genius capacity to see the dark side of the stories and twist the entire fairy tales we’d been told when were children, are fantastic and too much creepy way of unique story-telling.

OVERALL
This is not my favorite series. I still have trouble for the direction of the story and progression of the characters’ stories. But I enjoyed the writing and the author’s creativity and braveness to bring out more darkness and wilder elements into equation and form a satisfying retelling of well-known fairy tales universe. And of course this book is sooo sooo and sooo much better than the first one. So this half cup of my Chardonnay and I know the author has full capacity pour more wine to my cup to fill it completely.

Thanks to NetGalley and Flatiron Books to share this surprisingly dark and interesting ARC COPY with me in exchange my honest review.

Alice's nightmares continue in The Night Country, the Once Upon a Time meets Doctor Sleep meets The Magician's Nephew sequel to The Hazel Wood. While The Hazel Wood was a gothic fairytale, The Night Country is a macabre thriller. A tale within a tale, like The Hazel Wood, The Night Country picks up its pace in the second half, but is even more mesmerizing and intoxicating!

As with Dan Torrance in Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, Alice's cannot stop her haunting past from following her, until she turns around and fights it back. She learns more about herself and comes into her own as she grows older and can make more of her own choices, and getting to learn more about her in turn was a treat. Although she is separated from old favourites like her savage stepsister and dear Ellery Finch, a new endearing character, Sophia is by her side. Thankfully, Ellery's journey is included in the story, which is honestly the bright spot.

Beyond the escapism the story provides, The Night Country continues The Hazel Wood's debate about belonging and origin, wrapped up with one timely word: refugee.

Like The Hazel Wood, The Night Country is a stunningly imaginative and creative novel that will hook readers.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book!

I absolutely loved the first book in the series, but this was sadly not my favorite. I ended up DNFing about halfway through because I found the character development to be inconsistent, and didn't feel as though there was a compelling through line. I also found the writing to be less sharp and more verging into purple prose here than in book 1.

The Hazel Wood was one of my favorite books last year and The Night Country was an amazing follow-up! It was filled with the same kind of twists and turns as the first, constantly leaving you in a state of needing to read more.

"There's no shortage of spilled blood in fairy tales."
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"The Night Country" is a dark tale woven through with threads of magic, mystery, and horror. When Ellery Finch rescued Alice-Three-Times, or as she is known in our world, Alice Proserpine, from her imprisonment in her own fairy tale, Alice escaped the Hinterland but left Ellery behind to explore new worlds. Alice has found it difficult, to say the least, to readjust to life as a human after the horrors she experienced at the hands of the Hinterland. But Alice has started something unstoppable with her escape: the dangerous and sometimes sociopathic Stories of the Hinterland are escaping, and something terrible is happening in their world and ours. The sequel to "The Hazel Grove," "The Night Country" is just as dark and somehow bloodier, with plenty of twists and turns. Melissa Albert expertly skirted the boundaries between fantasy and horror in "The Hazel Wood," one of my favorite books of 2018, and in "The Night Country," she does the same, weaving horror into a dark dive into fairy tales which honors the gritty history of the Brothers Grimm and the like. Fans of the TV series "Grimm" and twisted takes on classic tropes will love Albert's work.

I think this is kind of a lack-luster sequel to the entertaining first book in the series. While the idea was intriguing, I felt that the writing was all over the place.. Sometimes it was hard to follow. I had to go back and re-read passages, but then still didn't understand the flow. I'm not giving up on this author, and if you're a fan of the first book, then maybe you'd enjoy this.. But I felt it was lacking.

I enjoyed reading the Hazel wood and the world that the author created. However oh, I wasn't in love with the ending. This book was everything I was missing in the Hazel wood. And while I do not want to give away too much of the book, I will let you know that we do see Finch again

It is not easy for the stories who ran away from the hinterland to make a life here in our world. Alice constantly struggles between feeling other, missing her friend, and staying loyal to her mother. When some of the stories start dying, Alice must try to find out what is happening to her compatriots wow protecting her mother.

Meanwhile, Finch has his own adventures traveling through different worlds. We also get to see what happens when he leaves Alice and when he leaves the hinterland.

I was very pleased not only with the events in the novel but also the ending. I would not mind if there was a third book!

I received an electronic ARC from Flatiron Books through NetGalley.
This sequel picks up a couple of years after the first book, The Hazel Wood, ends. Alice is eighteen and struggling to figure out who she is and who she wants to be. She's caught between the "real world" on Earth and the Story world she came from. That summer, former Hinterland people are being murdered by someone with Alice's powers. As the story unfolds, readers see hints and glimpses of the murderer and the mission they are on. Ellery returns partway through the book to provide the counterpoint to the action happening on Earth. He saves those he can in the Hinterlands and journeys to many worlds with a newly met character, Iolanthe. They reunite near the end and stop the Spinner's ultimate plan.
Albert continues to develop her worlds with spins and twists along with strong characters. They may or may not be likeable but they are true to the characteristics she's set.
This book could wrap the tale or further tales could be spun from the ending scenes.

4 1/2 stars. Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was SO excited for this sequel to The Hazel Wood, which was one of my absolute favorite books of 2018. This did not disappoint. Given that The Hazel Wood felt like it easily could've been a standalone novel, I was impressed with how fluidly this second book picked up the loose threads from the first in a way that actually enhanced the mythos of the Hinterland and the other worlds. If I have any complaint at all, it's that Alice's portion of the story was a little slower and less interesting until about the last quarter of the book—less romping around magical worlds, more of a murder mystery with some magic thrown in. But since we see a lot of Finch going on otherworldly adventures, I didn't feel like this took away from my enjoyment of the book.

Also, Melissa Albert spins some of the most beautiful sentences I've ever read in YA. Seriously, her descriptions are to die for. I can't wait to read Tales from the Hinterland—she was born for creepy, bloody, gory, pitch-dark fairytales.

~Review will be posted on my blog http://pastmidnight.home.blog on January 6, 2020, closer to publication date~

**2.5 Stars**

Thank you to Flat Iron Books and NetGalley for giving me a chance to read this eARC.

I rated the first book in this series The Hazel Wood, 3 1/2 stars because though the story goes off on an Alice in Wonderland like mind bend, I was still immersed in the mystery that was the Hinterland and The Hazel Wood. It keep me reading and wanting to find out what was going on.

Alice has escaped the Hinterland, choosing to go back to New York City and live her life as before. You would think things go back to normal but someone is murdering her ex-Story friends in New York City, but who? This story is a murder mystery with more dark fairy tales to tell.

What I Liked:

*I will say this about the series in general, both books have amazing book covers so yay to the artist! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

*Sophia Snow is a new character in this book and I liked her a lot. I also liked learning about her fairy tale, even though it doesn’t come until later in the book. She was Alice’s only friend now that Finch chose to stay in the Hinterland.

*The murder mystery kept me interested in this story. It gave me the creepy feeling I had like in the first book, especially the scene on the subway! I liked how the murders was something bigger than just some serial killer on the loose, I liked that twist in the story.

*Ellery Finch’s letters were sweet! Maybe because I love Jane Austen but I thought it was quite romantic. As for their relationship, I can’t say there was much to grow on with them being separated and only having the one-sided letters but in the end they are finally in the same world.

*This world of The Hazel Wood series is so unique, I love how it’s different and the fairy tales are so dark and scary. I adore that it’s a world of stories and books coming to life, that books are a door…that just got me thinking, yes, yes, YES. I get that so much. I think the concept of the Spinner making and remaking these worlds is so interesting.

Things That Made Me Go Hmmm:

*Triggers: violence, blood, murder scenes

*I wanted to know more about what happened with Ellery Finch and he shows up later in the book. So much later that I thought, he wasn’t going to be in this book at all! By the time we see what he’s been up to, I’ve lost interest. Finch comes back strong in the ending, but by then, I just wanted to finish.

*The middle of this story lost me. I was disinterested. 😒 I put it down so many times and picked it up, just to get a few pages in but it didn’t grab me. I’m amazed I finished.

*The mysteriousness of the first book is gone in this one. The reason I kept reading the first book was because I wanted to know what the Hazel Wood was and if it was real. The Night Country didn’t captivate me like the Hazel Wood did.

*I wanted more dark fairy tale stories!

Final Thoughts:

If you loved The Hazel Wood, you will love The Night Country because there is so much more than just the Hinterlands. The darkness is still there as it seems to always surround Alice, and though I enjoyed the first part of the book, I lost interest in the middle but managed to finish the book.

I don’t know if I just needed to be in the mood to read it, but I thought reading The Hazel Wood just recently would have continued my interest in the sequel. That wasn’t the case, but that’s okay, I find this world to be unique, fascinating and dark and I may not love the series, but I like it just enough.

I gave this a shot because I did like the Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert but I just wasn't a big fan of this one.