I am a big fan of historical fiction and I really enjoyed this novel. I found the plot very interesting and easy to follow. I enjoyed the characters and the drama.

There are very few books that I do not complete but this is one of them. I made it to 75% finished and could not make my mind go any further. It is about a house and the land around it. I thought that sounded interesting and unique. But somewhere along the way, I got lost. The author can write beautiful words describing the people and the house. I enjoyed the first part telling about the widower and his two daughters. Just not for me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy for my honest review.

'If these old walls,
If these old walls could speak
Of things that they remember well,
Stories and faces dearly held,
A couple in love
Livin' week to week,
Rooms full of laughter,
If these walls could speak.’
--If These Walls Could Speak by Amy Grant


This is a story of home and place, as well as of nature, both the nature that surrounds us, as well as human nature. A story that spans several centuries, but is focused on a place, and a home as time passes. Sharing the lives of the people who have taken refuge in this house that evolves over time.

It begins with a couple who are being hunted, and together they escape the colony after he had been declared ‘ungodly’. She had been, against her will, set to be married to a minister twice her age. As they left that night, the light from a comet guided their path.

They left the colony with little in terms of food, but they find sustenance in the gardens of others, a stolen chicken that will provide them with more. They continued on, trying to find a place in the world where they could be free of fear. In a bower they said their vows to one another, and so they were married. After a time, he declares they are safe now, the silence, the air and the wind have declared it so.

The next day, they reach a valley with a mountain above, a trail that leads to a pond, a clearing with seedlings peeking up from the soil. It is a sign to him that this place has accepted them, and will sustain them. On the day that follows, they reach the valley, and find a place with a brook that leads to a pond, a clearing, and seedlings already rising toward the sky. In that brief moment, he decides that this is where they will call home.

This story is less about these two people who make this place their home, it is more about the place we call home. A home, that over generations, will open its doors to those who are drawn to this place as time passes. The connection of these lives being the sharing of this home, a place and the love for it, as well as loss. Their individual stories may be unique, but their connection to this home bonds them through time.


Pub Date: 19 Sept 2023

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Random House, Random House

Daniel Mason's North Woods is a remarkable story about the legacy of the land we live on. It's an homage to the people and, maybe more so, the plants and animals that lived on it and died on it long before us.

The main character of this novel is not the people that live on the land but the land itself. The people and their tragic lives merely mark time, they are but chapters in a much larger story. The only characters large enough to witness the breadth of this story are the trees. The apples and chestnuts, oaks, beeches and birches. Some that outlive the humans and others that don't.

Mason's ability to shift perspective and zoom in and out on the timeline is ingenious. We traverse from the all encompassing to the minute in the span of a page. To take us from the human connections over the course of hundreds of years to the slow, gentle course of a spore caught on the wind -- and to do both poetically -- is without compare.

At once a ghost story, a time traveling tome and an ode to the ever changing forests of the North Eastern United States, North Woods completely captivated me in a way I did not expect. Every chapter had me searching for clues, creating links in my mind. Mason's descriptions of the land are second only to the descriptions of the horror humans inflicted upon the land and on one another.

This book reminded me of Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book in that it was a historical mystery, a mystery with answers embedded in the world Mason depicted. A mystery I felt in my bones.

I recommend reading this one just on the edge of the woods, giving the trees a moment to witness the brief chapter you inhabit, on the land where you live. I couldn't help but think of what may lay just beneath my feet. The history of the native people whose land was stolen from them. The relationships that flourished and faltered where I stand. The animals that stalked who are no longer. But mostly, it made me think of the mark I am leaving on the land. What will my chapter be in this space? And what will history say of me?

This is a story about a magical house. We are the readers, are fortunate in that we fulfill a fantasy of being able to live there for generations, and know about each family that inhabited the house. The language of this author is so exquisite. In some ways, it did read like a collection of short stories, that being said, a great book by a great author that I will continue to follow.

North Woods is a magnum opus if ever there was one. Daniel Mason is a masterful storyteller and a magnificent prose stylist. His glorious descriptions of nature are breathtaking. I don't remember the last time I read a book brimming with such extraordinary characters and emotion.
North Woods is the story of a house in the woods of Massachusetts and the plot of land surrounding it. The tale begins with two lovers escaping a strangling Puritan colony and carries the reader through centuries of various inhabitants of the house, both human and animal.
The numerous characters in the book are each highly distinctive and intriguing personalities. The form of narrative changes with each new individual, lending each a style perfect for its identity. Nature is a character in its own right, and Mason's descriptive genius forces the reader to look at it in a wholly new manner. As the people populating the house change, nature remains strong yet also transforms. There are surprising links between storylines of differing times. The book's tone is fiercely plangent, although Mason has a humorous style to his writing.
The book has pleasant diversions interspersed - illustrations, line drawings, and folk songs. One short chapter describes the existence and mating of a beetle.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of this astonishing book.

From the start beautiful depictions of nature — (open fields, the forest, mossy stones, birds, fish in the river, hidden ponds, rustling meadows, the woods) — in all its literary form — was serving as a backdrop to the stories we would experience —creating the mood hinting at a deeper meaning — slowly the characters’ emotional development comes alive.

“Barefoot they ran through the forest, and in the sheltered sappy bowers, when they thought they were alone, he drew splinters from her feet. They were young, and they could run for hours, and June had blessed them with her berries, her untended farmer’s carts. They paused to eat, to sleep, to steal, to roll, and the rustling meadows of goldenrod. In hidden ponds, he lifted her, dripping from the water, set her on the mossy stone, and kissed the river streaming from her tresses and her legs”.

Starting from the seventh century (spanning four hundred years) - to our present day - we get a glimpse on how history, nature, and language are deeply connected to our lives…. even exploring how mental health and our natural world affect one another.
Many different people have all lived in one house in the woods in western Massachusetts.

Characters and non-characters (apples from an apple tree, bears, goats, beetles, birds, spiders, squirrels, worms, eggs, porcupine, slugs, etc.), come and go — lovers - a con man - a painter - a soldier- twins - children -

As the various inhabitants come face-to-face with their surroundings they begin to awaken and become conscious of the mysterious past -

“North Woods” is gorgeously written-intelligent with a unique structure. Daniel Mason is an incredible literary writer. (novelist and physician).
This was the first book I read by him: an assistant professor at Stanford University in the department of psychiatry.

I was left with pondering thoughts—
I mean it’s centered around ‘one’ house ….. (some parts more interesting to me than others) —
But —
it got me thinking and remembering—
about our own house — it’s over a hundred years old (we’ve renovated a couple of times).
I tapped into memories of Paul’s Uncle Louie making his raviolis in the basement —
—then the ‘first night’ Paul and I moved in over forty years ago. We set up a waterbed, filling the water, then left to grab some dinner.
When we returned we found a flood of water everywhere…..
oh the ‘horrors-of-a-mess’ when we we’re already so exhausted from move-in day.

Our daughters will inherit our house….(the house where they had their own beginnings)…..
history continues…
I suppose it’s safe to say memories are what turn a house into a home….
with the cycle of life, death, and the future.

This is a wonderfully creative literary novel. Kudos to author Daniel Mason.

Most literary novels concentrate on characters and their growth. But not this one. Instead, it focuses on a large piece of property in the North Woods of Western Massachusetts (and its various owners/residents) during the Colonial and Revolutionary War eras and various times during the 19th and 20th centuries. While each chapter is loosely tied to the previous one, every chapter is told in a different style. Mr. Mason employs a variety of persona, voices, devices, and points of view -- and even some lively poetry -- to tell the property’s story. Characters include a couple forsaking colonial life to live on their own, a man obsessed with apples, a woman “taken” by Indians, two twins devoted to and at war with each other, a spiritualist specializing in seances, a poet, a painter, a schizophrenic and his mother, and an amateur historian and his metal detector.

The novel is, by turns, pastoral, romantic, erotic, historic, scientific, witty, sardonic, mysterious, and yes, in places, just a little bit Stephen-King-scary. Readers will learn about apples and beatles and catamounts and elm trees and chestnuts and pollination and the North Woods and true crime and prison societies and amateur historian “detectoring.” Employing incredible amounts of variety, Mr. Mason has given readers a literary tour de force. I enjoyed it so much that I may just read it again.

My thanks to NetGalley, author Daniel Mason, and publisher Random House for providing me with an electronic ARC. The foregoing is my honest, independent opinion.

I wish I’d paid a bit more attention to the blurb when I requested this title. I can see why it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist because it is rich in literary devices and was filled with beautiful language. The story, however, was lacking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about beautiful language. But there must be a satisfying story to go along with it. I knew it was about a house and those who inhabited it throughout the years but expected to learn more about those inhabitants. Yet their stories felt incomplete. In the beginning they didn’t even have names. And, just when the story of the current occupants got interesting, we moved to the next. We circled back once or twice, but again were left hanging. Unfortunately I was bored during much of the novel. For me this work only deserved two stars. Those who devour “literary stories” will disagree. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What a fabulous and unusual book! I have never read a book structured in this way...the characters are well developed but temporary, as the location is the main character. Many different humans pass through and inhabit one section of the MA woods, impacting and being influenced by their immediate environment. All are tied together by the setting in a marvelous way. Mason describes the flora and fauna so well that you truly feel transported to that locale. I was sad when it was over!

Received free from Net Galley in exchange for an hones review. Thank you.
I have been back and forth with my ratings regarding this book from a 3 to 4 stars.
The reason? It just does not flow. While the story goes from Puritans to present day, some of the stories are uneven and bogged down to the point I had to skim. I did like the earlier stories of the farm and the growing of apples, but the poems and songs and the longer chapters just did not hold my interest.
The chapters were well written, at least the ones that help my attention. Maybe editing would help.
The fact it was done well is the reason for 4 stars

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is unique and beautifully written - though stylistically it varies from chapter to chapter. It's about a house and the land surrounding it and each set of characters inhabiting it over time. It reads more like a series of short stories, although there are definitely themes and actions that link them together over time. In the end though, I can't say I was truly engaged with the book. Several chapters drew me in but this was short lived.

This inventive and epic tale sweeps across generations, each chapter adding another layer to the evolving human and natural landscape. The vivid descriptions drew me in, and I loved the touches of magical realism.

I was in awe of this book. It's not a horror story or a psychological thriller--just a quiet ghost story about a house in New England and its inhabitants, real and spectral. It's complex, nuanced, and hauntingly beautiful, and probably something I'll read again and recommend to others. I read this on my Kindle, but I am looking forward to the hardcover release.

What a creative book! It's essentially a fly-on-the-wall (or given the time line, more of a tree-in-the-forest) point of view of a house in Massachusetts. Full of mystery, memories, love, and loss. I never knew what to expect when a new chapter began.

I love stories about how a particular geographic location changes over time. North Woods, however, just did not do it for me. Additionally, the abstracts I read did not hint at the LGBTQ+ sexual content which is a complete negative for me. I would never have picked up the book had I known. North Woods joins the 0.01% of books I put down unfinished.

“north woods” is about a house, standing for centuries, that many generations have lived in. each chapter delves into one (or more) of the inhabitants’ stories starting from the very beginning. it is a novel, but feels more like a short story collection.

the prose is beautiful, detailed, and rich. mason has taken inspiration from the classic victorian novel and experiments with different methods of delivery and form. some chapters are far more interesting than others, and if you hadn’t read the blurb explaining what the book was about, you’d be lost and bored out of your mind. it is very well written, it just feels rather slow.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

Sometimes a book is so gorgeously written it makes you glad to be alive just to read it. The North Woods is that kind of book. Set in the forest of western Massachusetts, it is the story of one plot of land from Colonial America to the present day. Told in a polyphony of voices, The North Woods is a haunted and often hilarious tale. This is historical fiction as it is meant to be.

Thanks once again to NetGalley for this advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.
This one is hard to describe and do it justice. Set over the course of hundreds of years, the main character of this story is a plot of land in western Massachusetts. The inhabitants over time live in the house, work the land, harvest from the trees and soil and leave it to their followers, or do they? Expertly crafted, this book changes writing styles throughout, weaving the stories together but distinctly. The book was surprising and strangely comforting.
I enjoyed it! A solid 4*

This book is the story of one house/piece of land and it’s inhabitants over many years. It was a little hard to get into a first. The writing is rich and beautiful, but also thick and complex. The structure also varies and although it’s a novel, it reads a bit like a short story collection. Overall, a solid book, with fantastic writing and imagery, but not a lot of character or plot development.