Hi and welcome to my review of Whisperwood!

Well… This is going to be a very difficult review to write. The title and cover drew me to Whisperwood but it was the premise that made me click that request button. And the premise is 100% accurate. It is exactly what it says on the tin. Yet, somehow, Whisperwood didn’t quite work for me and I can’t put my finger on why.

Perhaps the writing style wasn’t quite for me? It took me rather long to get into the story, which is never a good sign. I didn’t give up because I’ve had it happen that a book doesn’t grab me from the start, that it kinda needs to grow on me, but does grab me later on and I end up loving it, but unfortunately, that was not the case with Whisperwood. Whenever a scene grabbed me, the next one kinda lost me again and I never became fully invested.

I’m not sure it makes sense, probably doesn’t, but I felt like it was simultaneously too slow and too rushed. For instance, setting the scene and the eerie atmosphere is of course important, especially with this kind of story, but it made for a rather slow pace at first. But then the protagonist becomes best friends with a couple of people basically overnight and then that bugged me because insta-friendship, much like insta-love, doesn’t work for me and I hardly ever find it convincing.

Look, Whisperwood is not a bad book, not at all. It’s atmospheric, has some great action scenes and the creatures (Whispers) are fantastic. Although it was clearly not engrossing enough for me personally to keep my attention throughout, I’m sure many people will thoroughly enjoy Whisperwood.

Whisperwood is out in hardcover, paperback and digital formats on 11 July.

Many thanks to Flame Tree Press and NetGalley for the digital proof. All opinions are my own.

Whisperwood is a town with many secrets. This is a dark fantasy well sprinkled with horror. Nobody can just wander into this town and no one ever leaves no matter how much they tried. After sundown the town is deserted or is It?. The main character Anna is running away after a traumatic ordeal and thinks that she will be safe in Whisperwood. She was shunned by her family and friends and accused of witchcraft. All she wants is a quiet life. Little does she realise that things in Whisperwood are more terrifying than she could ever imagine. Filled with otherworldly abhorrent creatures, plenty of action, great world building and strong characters the reader can choose to love or hate. This blending of fantasy and horror really works. Highly, highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Dark Fantasy flashing in the neon dark. creatures, whispering woods and cries. narrated beautifully and mood setting. It took me a little to get into the groove of it, but I liked it!

Been waiting for this book for quite awhile, and I had high hopes for it. It didn't disappoint! Highly recommend this!

Whisperwood is a fabulous book. The story is half-myth, half-unspoken truth wrapped in fairytale fantasy. Woodroe does a masterful job of reeling the reader in. You feel deeply invested in the painful optimism of a devastatingly scarred main character, Anna. The delightfully monstrous side characters are equally fascinating and, at times, larger-than-life. The reader gets to feel the same affection and mixed emotion about them as Anna does. The twisting, imaginative plot involving a meeting of disperse worlds and worldviews is beautiful and apropos to the times. I personally was so sad to leave Whisperwood and the characters within. I can’t wait for the next Woodroe novel to come out!

Alex Woodroe's Whisperwood is such a fresh take on the folk horror tale. I loved the world where this story takes place, with its eerie creatures and lovingly detailed characters. Anna has escaped her traumatic past and ended up in Whisperwood, where things are not what they seem at first. As Anna tries to make sense of this strange town and discover its secrets, she befriends a number of young people who are helping guard against creatures known as Whispers. It's here where Alex's prose really shines. You can feel the love for Romanian folklore throughout, and the encounters with the creatures are all well written, creepy, and thrilling. Anna is a wonderful, curious heroine and I enjoyed exploring Whisperwood through her eyes.
I can't wait to see what Alex writes next! This is a strong and promising debut and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I wanted to like this book as I was really drawn in by the premise and the cover but I just couldn’t get into it at all. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

Thank you NetGallery for providing me with a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Let's start with the good things, of which there are, unfortunately, very few:

The Setting.
The overall premise of this book is very intriguing -- a small town in the middle of nowhere that shares a border with a forest full of malevolent creatures? Count me in. I have always loved supernatural horror and loved stories about small desolate towns plagued with some sort of evil, there is just something so special about settings like that, and Whisperwood is a town that checks both those requirements.

Descriptions of the Whispers.
I found the Whispers (monsters) in this book rather imaginative and the descriptions of them have, though not always, helped me to picture them in detail. This is something that I always appreciate when it comes to creatures that are unique to the story and therefore the readers have no real point of reference when it comes to their looks. I especially enjoyed the Pricolici.

This, unfortunately, is where the good things about this bookend for me. I was very excited to read it when I requested an ARC, and I think that this is where the problems started -- it was promoted to me as "a must-read for fans of The Witcher", which is my favourite book series of all time, but there is absolutely nothing that resembles Sapkowski's world in this book. Many other books involve monsters from a different world, and The Witcher is not a good example to use in the promotion of Whisperwood. I hope the promotional team changes that, as I'm sure, I'm not the only one who will eventually feel misled. If anything, this book feels much closer to "For the Wolf" by Hannah Whitten, and I'm pretty sure that the author drew at the very least some inspiration from it.

Now, let's look at the cons of this book a little more closely:

Pacing.
This is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, flaws of this book. It just feels incredibly rushed and underworked. Everything happens way too fast, literally throughout a couple of days, and because of that, the story feels both overwhelming and empty, not to mention that people don't become the best of friends in about three hours. The pacing of this story, unfortunately, bothered me the entire time I was reading it, and because everything happened so quickly, I felt no attachement to any of the characters in this story.

Writing.
From the first chapter, I have found the writing style very dry and rushed. There are little to no descriptions in this story (other than the Whispers), and it's mostly built in an "I did this, and then I did then and also this other thing" manner, which only added to the problems with the pacing. There's also a lot of dialogue in this book, but it rarely comes with descriptions of the character's expressions, tone of voice or gestures.

Relationships.
As I have mentioned before, everything just happens way too fast. Anna meets the main cast of characters on her second (I believe) day, and 24 hours later, they are best friends. She even mentions that she might be falling for one of the other characters when they have spent a grand total of three to four hours together. This kept pulling me out of the story due to how unrealistic it is, and the reader doesn't have any time to make up their mind about one character or the next.

The main character just knows everything.
And once again, the pacing is making all other aspects of the story much worse than they could have been. Anna comes to Whisperwood knowing nothing, talks to a couple of people reads books for one night, and suddenly, she knows more than the people that have lived in the town all their lives. I understand that the plot needs to move somehow but if the author had only decided to make her stay last for at least a few weeks, it would've solved so many problems.

Main character's past and conflict.
This, to me, was probably the most useless part of the story. We are told from the beginning that Anna was deemed a witch by her ex husband or partner, and that he's tortured her, but why? her entire family turned away from her but why? Because he told them? That's one shitty family if you ask me. This plotline is only needed so that the author can justify Anna being a Walker, which requires dying and them coming back to life, but there are so, so many other ways to achieve that without the weird witch-hunting trials subplot. It irked me throughout the entire book.

The plot twist.
Finally, I had a huge problem with the plot twist. And the reason is very simple -- it's not hinted upon, not teased, it is said out loud by one of the characters and then confirmed a couple of chapters later. I feel like the author had more than enough freedom to drop hints about it before the actual reveal, and I'm severely disappointed that they didn't.

Overall, I in all honesty think this book isn't ready to be published yet. There is so much room for improvement, and what I've read feels like the first or maybe the second draft. I wish the author all the best in their career, and if they're reading this, I hope that they are not upset with my review, I've tried my best to lay out my thoughts in a constructive manner.

Once again, thank you to NetGallery, the publisher, and the author. These thoughts are completely my own and uninfluenced.

Thank you to netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review. The following opinions are my own.

I just want to say that the premise and cover really drew me to this book. Although it was a very slow start and I wasn't very intrigued with the dense writing style. I really wanted to like it. But I found it hard to. What did draw my attention were the whispers. I definitely wanted to know more about them!

Tapping out at 50%.
Things I liked - I was very curious about Whisperwood and what was going on, but even at 50% there's not much going on. The setting was ominous and I wanted to root for our MC.

Things I didn't like - 100% on me, but I didn't realize how much of this was a period piece and I reaaaallly struggle with old-timey dialogue which this contains in large amounts. And, as I said, with so much promise, I just wasn't hooked in.

The writing is solid and there's great potential here, just not the book for this reader.

This was a bit slow going for me, and while the premise was instantly intriguing, it took me ages to read through the novel. I couldn't fully connect with the main character or the world (though I understand that, at least when it comes to the world, that disconnection is fully intentional). I always felt at a remove.

*3.5 rounded down for GoodReads rating system*
Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

"Whisperwood" by Alex Woodroe was a pleasant surprise. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the wood and the land. It helped to really build up this otherworldly and eerie tone to the whole Whisperwood. I thought it was such an interesting way to look at faery creatures and their domains. The main character was nice too because she wasn't THE ONE, she was just as lost as everyone else but I loved how determined she was to help. Her background was also pretty interesting.

I did find myself struggling a little bit with some of the dialogue. Sometimes I felt like characters would speak too modernly and then it would go back to the book's setting which seemed to be vaguely 17th century (not sure but there are mentions of the witch trials). I wasn't expecting straight middle English or anything but it just felt kind of anachronistic with all of the pagan traditions. Not a HUGE deal breaker, just something that bothered me.

That said, I really enjoyed this one. I kind of wished there was more gore if I'm being honest. The few scenes of blood spray were exciting and those were the scenes I wanted more of. I kind of didn't really care about the village people and got bored pretty quickly with them. They weren't poorly written or anything, I just felt the gory and scary scenes were more interesting and fun to read.

All in all, I'd recommend this!

I don't normally read fantasy but the blurb sounded interesting and I thought I'd give it a go.

Unfortunately it wasn't really for me. The writing itself is good but for some reason I could not get lost in this fantasy. The story itself is very descriptive of the land and it sounded beautiful but eerie. It is a dark fantasy and I think that people who enjoy this genre will really enjoy this.

Thank you to Alex Woodroe, Flametree Press, and Netgalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
I loved this book. In some ways it reminded me of the House of Hollow just because of the spooky, fairytale vibes. Once I had read a certain amount, I could not put it down. It was really fast paced and I loved every aspect of it. I really liked the main character, Anna, she had a very intriguing backstory which contributed to her ability to be a Walker. It was the little details like this that I thought were wonderful. I will definitely be buying a physical copy of this when it is released.
Part of me almost wishes the Author had made this into a trilogy rather than one book. There were some elements that moved a bit quickly for me such as the relationships between characters. I do feel like there was so much information that it could have been a duology or longer (although I am biased because I want to read more about this world). I think the world building would have been served well by having more books.
All in all, a top fantasy/horror novel that I definitely recommend.

Whisperwood by Alex Woodroe is equal parts enchanting and addictively scary. Mixing Romanian folklore and her naturally charming writing voice, Woodroe creates a fascinating world and weaves questions throughout its fabric to keep us hooked, curious, and ready for anything. She deftly takes the narrative from bright fun to dark danger then braids them together so we experience both as the story builds to its climax.
What a joy this book is!
Highly recommended.

Whisperwood by Alex Woodroe.

An entertaining and intriguing dark adult fable. This story introduces several interesting concepts, explores them in a creative fashion and is written using a unique style.

The story, which is a bundle of mysteries of sorts, concerns a protagonist on the run from an event and, as if often the case, themselves. They make their way to a town that shouldn't be, which is convenient for them, and endeavor to discover the whys and hows without becoming... deceased in the process. This is not a happy tale for wee tots. As our protagonist learns more about their locale, they too discover more about themselves.

Apologies for being vague. I don't want to give anything away. The less you know, the better. I disdain the majority of reviews I've experienced, which seem to believe that a review is nothing more than a spoiler-ridden abstract (or a blow-by-blow unofficial Cliff's Notes walkthrough).

Whisperwood is an enjoyable romp. Well, romp may not be the most appropriate word to use. That typed, I look forward to unspooling the next yarn Alex Woodroe elects to spin.

Overall rating: 3.5 stars

#NetGalley

Wow! I can’t believe this was a debut novel.

It was fairly creepy, and really fascinating. The characters were Ok, Anna felt a bit static, and not as passionate as you’d expect about her journey. A majority of other characters weren’t as well developed as they could be.

The steam of the story kind of ran out towards the end, maybe a shorter story would’ve been more effective.

I’d like to see more folk horror from this writer in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, & Flame Tree Press for a copy.

From killer opening line to spectacular finish, Whisperwood is a fantastic read through and through. Every page is filled with enough atmosphere that you’ll swear you can smell the trees and glimpse the Whispers just out of sight. I loved all of Anna, her painful past, her search for a place to belong, and above all, her desire to do right and believe in the best of humanity despite having seen the worst of it.

Whisperwood is a beautiful, layered story that’ll break your heart in the gentlest way. Perfect for those who, like me, adore folklore, forest settings, and stories that aren’t afraid to shine a light on the dark while caring for its readers. Highly, highly recommend picking up a copy when it’s out (July 11, FlameTree Press)!

Thank you to FlameTree for a free advanced review copy through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Whisperwood is a rollicking read for those who love a female-centered story with things that go bump in the night (or maybe the daytime). Anna is escaping from a terrible past (which is revealed in due time) and willing to stay in a town at the edge of a dark wood - a town with a bad reputation. As the trader who drops her off tells her, it's a place where people disappear. Soon she's enmeshed in the town's weird rituals and following spooky clues to try to figure out just what lives in the woods and why the townspeople keep spitting on themselves for luck. There's some clunky writing here and it does run a bit long but it's a good basic fantasy read. Don't get too attached to any of the characters though - they may not be around in the next chapter!

Escaping an abusive past, Anna flees to a town named Whisperwood--only to learn it's plagued by otherworldly monsters and she can't leave.

This was an interesting little read--sitting somewhere between folk tale and otherworldly horror. I loved the variety of supernatural beings and enjoyed how the plot wove in and out between worlds.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!