Wow, I want to start with how beautiful the writing was in this book. I could picture things so clearly and feel what the characters were feeling. Next, the execution of this book is so unique. Instead of following a person or a family we are following a house and its surroundings. For centuries. This was truly incredible.

A page turner. Well paced and thoughtful.
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

The North Woods by Daniel Mason is an all-encompassing story about a house in the "north woods" of Western Massachusetts, and all of its inhabitants throughout the centuries.

The descriptive language, the characters, and the ways in which the author would hint at the period of time are all key elements of the story that I enjoyed! I was able to visualize each description of the scenery, every animal in the woods, and heard each sound described.

All characters were all three-dimensional, and I especially enjoyed how the author focused on particular characters in the story, while briefly introducing others. Separation and determination of time period throughout the book were important since the book covered so much ground. Interludes and ballads were used sporadically to determine change in time period, which I had never seen before in a book.

I will definitely be recommending North Woods by Daniel Mason to fellow readers!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an advanced e-copy of North Woods by Daniel Mason.

Over centuries and generations, the stories of those who inhabit a single house in rural New England. Beginning with a young couple in love running from a Puritan colony, building a small one room cottage from stone. Then a retired (French & Indian War) British officer and widower purchases the land, adds to the house, and moves his twin daughters there to build an apple orchard. Each successive owner/resident has a story that is told. Part ghost story and part haunted house story, Mason writes in varying styles and uses varying writing devices, yet the book is not disjointed - it just works.

A beautifully written novel about a house and those that live and love inside.

Each of the 12 stories have elements of nature, each of the 12 stories contain glorious prose. Daniel Mason is clearly a rare talent and this book HAS to be on many of the best of lists for 2023.

I want to be in that house. I want to live in that world. I want read more Daniel Mason.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

North Woods is a sweeping, multigenerational story about a forest in New York state that lends its footprint to a home. That home will expand and house a myriad who occupy it both happily and in torment, corporally and as specters.

A young couple fleeing the strictures of Puritan life will first settle the land. Their cabin is later occupied by two women who survive different Indigenous raiding parties through the mercy of one warrior. Men will later come upon them, one offers an apple with ill intent, and from that moment a chain of destinies are set beginning with Major Charles Osgood. A dream compels him to abandon the martial life after a close call in battle to become an apple grower. His quest is for the perfect apple, a sublime one. He finds it on this remote tract of land where the apple seed, buried through tragedy, has become a tree. Osgood will expand the cabin into a home that will serve as the setting for future generations.

This story is a testament to nature and the smallest of her creatures, a love story to the earth and a reprimand to the ravages of humankind.

This novel will be released on September 19, 2023.

Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

North Woods by Daniel Mason is a highly recommended imaginative historical fiction, but with a different point of reference.

This is a novel about all the lives that lived in a single house in the woods of New England. The novel consists of twelve stories that tie into the seasons and months of the year, all set around the land and house, beginning with two young Puritan lovers who escaped from their colony. Residents also include in part, an English soldier who wants an apple orchard, twin sisters, a landscape painter, the wealthy Farnsworths, and subsequently their daughter and her schizophrenic son, Robert, and a true crime writer.

This is also the story of the land, animals, insects, spores, etc., and the changes experienced over the years. Finally, it is a ghost story, where the former inhabitants may still be haunting the area. Included within the narrative at different points are also folk ballads, letters, diary entries, real estate listing, and accounts of nature's changes, seeds, blights and insects coming to the land. Taken in totality, it all culminates in a tale of how all things in a specific environments are interconnected over time.

The quality of the writing is simply gorgeous and undeniably compelling. The writing will pull you in and keep you reading, however, as with any collection of interconnected stories, not all stories will be as compelling as others throughout the whole novel. The structure and decision to tell a story in this manner, over decades and through different characters on one piece of land, is interesting yet also challenging. I was not especially interested in all the characters and ghosts, however I kept reading for the little gems within the writing.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Random House via NetGalley.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, BookBrowse, X, Edelweiss, and Amazon.

This book was like nothing I was expecting.
It is well written but it just wasn’t to my liking.
Thanks to the publisher for the early copy

3.5 stars rounded down to 3.

I am a huge fan of multi-generational books, so I was excited to be able to read North Woods which gives the multi-generational plot line a bit of a twist where the house and surrounding property are the main characters in the story. Spanning from colonial times to modern day, Mason’s book covers the lives and deaths that occur on the property with brief glimpses into the lives of the inhabitants.

Although beautifully written with gorgeous descriptions of nature, ultimately I had a difficult time connecting the characters that lived in the house as our time with them was incredibly brief. I did, however love the surprise supernatural aspect that permeated throughout the story. I felt that the ghosts could have, ironically, been more fleshed out and their ability to interact with the living better explained. The interludes, as well, were interesting, yet felt disconnected from the overall story.

For anyone who loves literary fiction, nature writings, or wants to dip their toes into magical realism/supernatural elements, I would recommend this one. If you are looking for a multi-generational story closer to Roots or Homegoing that focuses more on family, I feel like this one will fall flat for you.

Thank you to NetGalley, Daniel Mason, and Random House for an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

Just finished reading 'North Woods' by Daniel Mason, and it's a unique gem in the literary world. At first, it took me a bit to get into the flow, but soon, I was captivated by its originality.

🌿 The main characters here aren't people, but rather a house and the ever-changing landscape that surrounds it. Mason's writing brings these elements to life in a way that makes them feel like living, breathing characters.

🌲 The real star of the show, though, is Mother Nature herself. Her presence looms large, and Mason's vivid descriptions capture her essence beautifully. The landscape becomes a character in its own right, constantly shifting and surprising.

🔄 Unexpected twists and turns kept me eagerly turning pages, and I found myself immersed in a world where nature and human emotions collide.

🌟 Overall, I'd rate 'North Woods' 4/5 stars. If you appreciate original storytelling and want to be transported into a world where the environment takes center stage, this one's for you. It's a reminder of the power and unpredictability of the natural world. Highly recommended

3.75. Rounding up as prose is incredible yet novel is just plain weird. The premise was interesting: american history as told through a house and it’s property, from settlement of the colonies to the present and even the future. I did like how the writing style changed with each narrator, often times writing in the language of the times. Some stories interesting, some so so. Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for a candid and unbiased review.

I ended up really loving this book, but I had a hard time with some of the initial chapters. It is not an easy book but the pay off and ending is very worth sticking with it.

North Woods follows many of the inhabitants of a house in Massachusetts over several hundred years. Parts of it are dark, parts are sweet, and parts were somewhat confusing -- but all in all I really enjoyed the characters and descriptions of the house and the many changes it went through.

I felt very engaged in the second half of the book and was racing to find out how it would all come together. I really enjoyed some of the characters and could easily have read entire books about them. I also loved seeing the connections between the stories.

This was the first book I've read by Daniel Mason and I am definitely interested in checking out more. His writing is very engaging and lovely -- and I was very impressed by all the different writing styles he included within this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

When I first started this book, I couldn't get into it, and after the first few sections I skipped to the end to read the more modern parts. Then I went to write the review and thought I should try the middle section one more time. When I started reading, I was drawn in and couldn't stop. When I caught up to where I had been, I went back to the beginning and started again. This book is not a typical read, but it is so interesting and fascinating. The author is obviously so expert. I'm so glad I agve this book another chance, read it, you will not be disappointed!

This book is the story of a house and surrounding woods in Massachusetts. It begins with two young people escaping a Puritan colony and continues through the centuries. It is almost like a series of short stories or novellas bound together by a setting. These stories tell of the inhabitants of the house that come and go over time. Both nature and the house are constant presences, though the house undergoes substantial alterations. It also contains poems, folk songs, newspaper articles, and even a few drawings. These are interspersed throughout the narrative. It took me a while to get a feeling for this structure. Just as I felt engrossed in the story of one set of characters, it changed to another set, but this is obviously the author’s intent. Once I got used to it, I quite enjoyed it. The prose is wonderful, as are the lush descriptions of the nature world. Several of the stories are so engrossing that I could read an entire book expanding upon them. I plan to seek out other works by this author.

What an incredibly cool concept! I love the idea behind this and learning about all the different people who lived in the house. Thank you for the opportunity!

I received an advance reading copy (arc) of this book from NetGalley.com in return for a fair review. This is not normally the type of book I like to read, but the locality and the time frame intrigued me and I am so glad it did. While the exact area remains vague and the time periods kind of roll into each other (as time periods do, I suppose), the house in the North Woods began with two young lovers fleeing a colony of strict Puritans. The land went on to be home to a runaway slave, an English soldier who sought to create an apple orchard, his twin daughters who were sometimes at odds, an artist who painted the landscape, etc. Each inhabitant had a personal story that weaved in and out of the prior and future residents. The story started off quite slow (hence the four stars) and I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but as I continued reading, I found myself living in a world that shone bright with nature and fascinating people, one after the other. I highly recommend this book and encourage readers to keep going once you start. It is well worth the time and effort. This unique tale will stay with you long after you read the last page.

I absolutely loved this book. Daniel Mason has such a way of describing events, people and places that is so beautiful. This story of a particular area in the woods of Western Massachusetts and the people that choose to call it home is so interesting. From a young couple that leaves their Puritan community to modern day, Mason tells a story writing in the voice of each age. Not only are the characters extremely interesting, but the description of the flora and fauna and how it works its way through the story of the woods and the yellow house is a page turner.

I once worked for an outfit called the Canadian Institute of Historical Microreproductions (who later changed their name to the less wordy Canadiana.org, before getting absorbed into another institution in 2018 or thereabouts.) One of the things I did, and one of the things that I’m most proud of, is that I worked on an educational website for high school history classes called Canada in the Making. Throughout my writing and editing of content for that site, I was given access to a database of historical records that had been scanned from old microfilm into digital files. Some of my finds were quite startling to me — I would uncover journals hundreds of years old with moth-eaten pages that were rendered unreadable in some cases. But I also found intact documents going back to Canada’s earliest settlements in the early 1600s that were pristine and probably fascinating to read (Canada was first settled by the French, whose language I have not learned). Reading Pulitzer Prize-finalist Daniel Mason’s North Woods was a little like discovering those artifacts. That’s because part of the book presents a series of fictitious historical documents going back to about 1760. Mason is a writer of quality of the sort that you might be mistaken that these documents, which help tell the history of a house and property located in western Massachusetts, are real. The rest of the book is a series of interconnected short stories told in chapters featuring various inhabitants of the land and the home. Suffice it to say, North Woods is the kind of book that you’ve probably never read before. It is a masterpiece in that it teaches you how to read it. But you might need a little help.

Normally, when I encounter a book that is strange and unusual, I advise potential readers reading these reviews to stop eyeballing Medium and just read the darn novel without knowing anything about it to preserve a sense of adventure, I suppose. However, with North Woods, I would advise the opposite. It pays to have this book spoiled for you because it starts out being a fairly difficult read. The first part of the book, set in the eighteenth century and starting with the French and Indian War, is written in the style of documents of the era, so it can be a little hard to understand Old English if you’re not used to it. While the novel does get easier to read as it goes on, knowing what it’s about can help you make heads or tails of it a little better. Thus, I would encourage would-be readers to read as many reviews as they can of this book before starting. Spoil the book if you must. Otherwise, you might get a little frustrated by it and not be sure how it makes sense at the outset. Now, I consider myself — and I don’t want to sound like I’m conceited here — to be of above-average intelligence. I’m not a genius, but let’s say I graduated from a very tough undergraduate university program with high honours. Even I had trouble with this book at the beginning. So going to other online reviews and seeing what this book is all about may be helpful. North Woods is the sort of novel that you can’t spoil anyway as each character is introduced only for a short period — a chapter or two at most.

So, you’re probably wondering about the contents of the book — beyond alternating between regular exposition and archival documents, which range from everything from pamphlets to song lyrics of the day. North Woods is essentially the biography of a house or a piece of property, kind of like what Phil Jenkins did in non-fiction with An Acre of Time, which is the history of a parcel of land in downtown Ottawa, Canada. Inhabitants include a solider named Charles Osgoode who has a fetish for a type of apple that grows well on the plot’s soil, his daughters Alice and Mary — who have a sibling rivalry so intense it leads to murder, a mountain lion who makes the house its home when it is briefly abandoned, a woman whose son has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and frequently disappears from home, and a visiting true crime columnist who has been tipped off on a very grisly murder that has happened on the property. Now, having given you that synopsis, I would like to say that this is a book that is probably going to take a run at some major literary awards because it is so unique in structure. As well, Mason easily gives each of his characters a distinct voice — they all have different cadences from one another. That’s the true success of this read: you’ll never stop believing that any of this novel could have been real or at the very least seem authentic. (The only jarring note on this front happens when Mason refers to Canada at times when the country was still known as British North America.) North Woods is a clever novel as much as it is an initially baffling one — but it ultimately winds up being a great read. It’s not for the readerly faint of heart, and some may be lost in this book. But if you’re up for a challenge and like to flex your brain a bit when you read, you’ll find North Woods to be propulsive and thrilling. It gets better and more understandable as it ties its loose ends together and moves from the antiquated world into the modern world of the 21st century.

In the end, North Woods is a fascinating piece of alternate history, if you can consider this book as existing within that genre. (It is literary fiction first and foremost, though.) I was quite taken by this book. Even though some of this is deadly serious, I found parts to be rather humourous — which broadens the scope of the writing. I also thought this read was interesting in that it is a retelling of the Garden of Eden story, complete with a Cain and Abel-type allusion at one point. This is the story about the fall of mankind and how history has a habit of repeating itself through wars and bloody conflicts. Mason has done something rather remarkable: craft a narrative that will have you guessing as to the authenticity of the narrative. For that reason, North Woods comes highly recommended by me. It certainly takes me back to the days I was working on that educational website and spending my idyllic days poring over documents that teenagers could learn from. This is worthy of more than a look. This is an experience.

I loved this book. The creative use of a dwelling as a protagonist, the fascinating cast of characters, and how he artfully intertwined the cycles of the natural world had me spellbound from the start. What a gifted writer and a seemingly fascinating man. I spent most summers of my youth in the woods of New Hampshire and Mason transported me back there throughout this story. He weaves a exquisite tale and I very much enjoyed reading this book. I will miss his storytelling, as I move onto my next read. I give this book a full five stars

In a recent interview, Angie Kim remarked that linked stories comprised her favorite style, and singled out this magnificent novel as one example. To be successful, a set of linked stories needs a connecting theme, and here we have a house in the woods of Western Massachusetts, first started by a young Pilgrim couple fleeing the elders strictures, and carrying down through the centuries. Daniel Mason obviously has a deep love of his subject, focussing on the forces of nature (sexy beetles? insistent seeds?) and the daring to include layer upon layer of ghostly presence. This is one of those books I wish I could press into everyone's hand and shout, "READ THIS."