North Woods is a book of interrelated stories about a New England house, its inhabitants, and the passage of time. There are eccentric characters, ghosts, flora and fauna, insects and animals all tied together through this house and the surrounding property told over the course of centuries.

What worked for me:
* I love a book where the house is a character in the story and the house is the main character of this story.
* The ending took a surprising, full circle turn that I thought was very well done.

What didn’t work for me:
* Despite the house being the thread that weaves everything together, the book had a haphazard feel at times. It is told chronologically, but I would’ve liked a stronger basis in time (more description regarding each time period perhaps) or more character development to ground the story a bit more.
* Books with interconnected stories always risk the outcome of some chapters being more interesting than others. I found certain sections much more compelling than others.

What both worked and didn’t work:
* The writing about nature was gorgeous but appeared to be at the expense of character development in many of the chapters.
* Various chapters felt like they were written by different people, which is a tribute to this author and his ability to write, but also made for a lack of cohesiveness in my opinion.

Maybe this was just literary fiction that was a bit over my head? I don’t know. Ultimately I’m glad I read it, but it’s landing in the ‘I appreciate it more than I liked it’ category.

3⭐️ Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader copy. North Woods released September 19th.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Daniel Mason's 'North Woods.'

What an absolutely fascinating and engrossing way to structure a novel. The central 'character' is the house and land in rural Massachusetts and around that anchor point in space and time revolves multiple characters and multiple stories that stretch from Puritan and pre-Revolutionary times into the near/mid-future.

Some of the people who inherit or assume guardianship of the house and land are connected through blood or happenstance and others are not connected in any way except through the yellow house and the forests and some of a myriad of physical items that survive the centuries.

There's a very strong thread of botany running through this novel. The second (white) owner of the land settles on it because of the presence of a particular strain of apple (having been wounded by an apple-juice stained bayonet, you could say it was in his blood). From there we learn about the destruction of the forests by man - for planting and leisure - and by nature when we witness the destruction of the great chestnut and elm forests by spores and mites (and we get to witness that from the point of view of the spores and the mites).

I suppose, inevitably, as the story moves forward through the 20th century, to the present day the reader can relate more closely with the characters and the arrival of a mother and son - Robert - into the tale is relatably tragic.

There is also a very clear vein of the supernatural in the novel and it sits very comfortably, it's not (generally) a frightening supernatural but a watching and a positive one as the novel concludes.

I really enjoyed this and will now go back through the author's catalogue to enjoy what I'd previously missed.

This book is getting loads of buzz, so the question is- does it warrant the accolades? In short, I'm going with yes. This book has a little of everything. Woodcuts. The woods themselves. Western Massachusetts (home to my parents, not far from my own home in Southern NH). It has romance, murder, mental health issues, LGBTQ representation, mysticism, and of course it's the story of what is essentially one house through time. I loved the structure of the book once I realized what was going on, and the characters were all unique and well-individuated. And if you don't love one of the stories, just hang in there! Another will come and add another note to the symphony of this calendar year of the forest.

I'm not sure all the stories worked perfectly for me, but the sisters and the last few stories are by far the best. I adored this. I think it will definitely win prizes. And more importantly, it's quite funny and charming in spots, addressing just about every issue you can imagine along the way. This book has gravitas, or at least some serious cajones. Five stars.

4.25⭐️

I struggled with rating this novel. The prose is absolutely beautiful and more than once moved me to tears. But there’s an unevenness in the interconnected stories, some of which are far more moving and engaging than the others. At times I felt quite removed from some of them, even as I continued to admire Mason’s use of language. But then, just as suddenly, something would draw me right back in.

I plan to read this a second time in the coming months and may update my rating and review then. In the meantime, I suspect it will continue to marinate. For now, I’ll quote a passage that really spoke to me:

<i> How bittersweet your departure. Trust this will find you safe at home after your journey. We cannot decide what mood we find ourselves in. Whether to bask in the lingering glow of your presence, or to mourn your departure. ….. Such joy that your sweet company makes, does leave a shadow in its wake. To think that you were here but a week- it felt both a minute and a lifetime. Your are like no one else I know, have ever met. My sole consolation, and it is a great one, is the realization of my life’s fortune in your friendship- for it IS fortune. To think of all that had to happen so that we might meet, and all that might have happened to prevent it. …. Yes! I’d found- I knew!- my life’s friend. </i>

Thank you Daniel Mason, Random House Publishing Group, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to review!
Rating (on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent)
Quality of writing: 5
Pace: 3
Plot development: 4
Characters: 4
Enjoyability: 4
Ease of Reading: 4

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

This book started out slow for me by I loved the premise and after a break, started again. I love an epic tale and as a realtor, I loved the story of a house from the POV of different occupants

What an interesting book!! Rather than a person, this book tells the many tales of a house and the people who came and went (actually, stayed is the better word).
Each chapter is written in another person’s voice, and you get to know their character mostly by how they narrate. I particularly enjoyed that detail. From the natives to the twins to the English Lit professor to the thirty-something, you roll through all the iterations of this humble (and then not so humble and back again) house. It’s just very well done.
A very interesting and creative idea and the writing style was quite readable.

This book is achingly beautiful and unique. North Woods focuses on the people who have lived in a house in western Massachusetts over the span of 300 years or so, beginning with a pair of young Puritan lovers. Over time the house shelters an apple orchardist and his daughters, a painter and his family, a runaway slave, a schizophrenic son, a movie star, and more. And, of course, the ghosts of some of those who have gone before. In the course of its occupancies, the house bears witness to the foibles and follies of the humans who live there alongside their interaction with the flora and fauna of rural New England which surrounds them. It is a book about the passing of time, the solving of mysteries and the succession of species. It is a book about life, death and rebirth. It reminds us of both our fragility and our resilience. It reminds the reader of the importance of being a guardian to the place that we call home, and how acutely our lives are entwined with the natural world that supports us. Mason weaves a deft and magical tale.

WOW! this book is so good, it defies description. The central theme is a house and the families who live in it and the stories that live through it. Twelve families, twelve months, twelve stories that span history beginning with a Puritan couple. Each family will come to love their home and community for differing reasons, but the stories themselves will cast the reader into the woods alongside them. Daniel Mason is an accomplished author but for me, this book is the best in his library of titles.

This is a book like none other. It's about a house in western Massachusetts built within the woods. The woods is the common element and the characters come and go as the story spans several hundred years. The stories vary from both funny, fascinating and macabre. The individual story lines are captivating and addictive. The writing is lush and the woods are described in great detail as seen through each characters eyes. You can feel the breeze, taste the apples. The story is told with narrative, poems, almanac entries and illustrations. Not all story lines are tied up nicely before moving on. I am stunned by the beauty of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this advanced readers' copy.

𝙏𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙝, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙝𝙞𝙢 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙩 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙖 𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙙𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙮, 𝙤𝙧 𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙧, 𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙖𝙙𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨.

The novel begins with lovers chased from the village by its people, running fast through forest, valleys, fern groves, and bogs using even bear caves so as not to be discovered. Soon hidden from England from the Colony, it is nature who shelters them. Because they are young, they thrive and feed on the earth’s bounty as they seek their future in the north woods. She is with the one they called ungodly, and he beside the beauty who flees a widower she does not love. This is their origin story, and those who come after are filled with and troubled by love, obsession, wonder, jealousy, ‘madness’, loneliness, wild creatures and haunts.

We soon meet widower Charles Osgood and his wonder, the apples, that set off his fight against the label of lunatic. As he takes his incurable self to the forest, he finds a home for his twin daughters Mary and Alice and for his passion, his apples, to grow. Mary and Alice’s tale is a different sort of love, one wrapped up in loyalty, jealousy, and resentment. One is always the fairest, and the other in shadow. Is it true of all sisters? Mary is clever, but it is Alice who the world takes note of. Nothing will ever define their days better than their father’s apples, nor will anything separate them. Until one begins to dream of something new, something more. The sisters moved me, it’s such a bitter fruit to swallow, what happens but I understand the threats that appear and the pain that is born. There are tragedies, secrets, tears, darkness, insects that destroy, rough winters, horrifying medical cures and many deaths. Time and people alter north woods, is it always a wheel of progress? It is a place to revere, a home that heals, a world unto itself but it can also be a grave, it can suffocate. Some secrets go quietly into the ground.

A man who retrieves enslaved people, for a high price, is on the hunt when strange forces surprise him, perfect justice for a man with ‘law’ on his side. A poet and artist share beautiful, moving intimate letters that are a risk to their reputation and happiness. A woman who tends to an aging man comes to love him deeply, selfishly. There is even a séance but is it real, is it trickery? The deepest love of all that nearly ripped out my heart is the tale of Robert S. and his mother Lilian. I was choking on Lilian’s fear for her son and the struggle in Robert’s mind, beautifully represented. The ending of his life was moving, what he sent to his sister, what he hoped she would finally understand.

A lust inspiring fireside, an amorous beetle, a plague, prison pen pals, beastly attacks, a True Crime column… this book is something special. I didn’t think I would be as enchanted as I was. Lilian made me an emotional mess, how can there be horror and eerie encounters and beautiful forms of love in one novel? I am still pondering what is left of it all? What will be left of us, our people, our earth? Time takes.

Yes, read it. What a divine read!

Published September 19, 2023

Random House

I loved the concept of this book and it had some gorgeous nature writing. Agree with other reviewers that it's really worth it to soldier through until the last couple stories - I love when a thing comes together. I wish I could say I was completely enthralled throughout... I was not. Some plotlines were more engaging/to my liking than others. But, I love the concept of the house as the centerpiece and that kept me going.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.

One of the best books I've read in a long time. Writing was great, plot was unique and engaging, I loved the continuity of the stories, and how they all tied together at the conclusion. I was pleased to know that they were all "at peace" in the end.

To call these linked stories would do this sweeping novel injustice. The stories are rooted to the ground, overgrowing one another to create a marvelous forest -- a wondrous palimpsest. The novel's fertile ground is a single house in the woods of Western Massachusetts, inhabited by first one soul then another and another. All iterations feature richly drawn characters -- Puritan lovers gone wild, an English soldier utterly infatuated with apples, his spinster twin daughters torn by passion and envy. Further inhabitants -- humans, as well as a mountain lion on the prowl and a ravenous beetle -- claim proceeding chapters. This novel looks at history and the cycles of nature, asking where do we fit in, what are our roles -- during and after our lives? What are our passions, what do we do with them, and how do these actions affect this place we inhabit? I was totally enthralled, beginning to end. Highly recommend.

[Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

A rare 5 stars!

North Woods by Daniel Mason is a treasure. A treasure of how we as people fit into the natural world. Not all these tales of the inhabitants of this house in rural north Massachusetts are happy ones, in fact very few are, but they speak to the heartache and challenges of living… of loving and loss, disappointments and personal obsessions. That really spoke to me.

The writing in each era is different, allowing the stories to unfold at different paces and with a different emotional impact. I found myself brought to tears more than once, which rarely happens for me.

And I can’t end this review without saying that the descriptions of the natural world on this small plot of land were a wonder. I can’t wait until the next time I spend time in nature with these lush descriptions forefront in my mind.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys literary fiction and descriptions of the natural world we live in. I’ll be recommending it to my book group as soon as it is available.

Many thanks to Random House Books and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for this honest, unbiased review.

The stories of many lives, connected by a small cabin in the woods.

At the beginning of North Woods, the reader meets two young people who are in love and have run away from the Puritan colony where they lived. They make a life in a small, isolated cabin in the woods of Western Massachusetts. Years pass, and others (not all of them human) stumble upon the cabin and use it as perhaps as a refuge, or a place to start a new life. With language appropriate to the times in each which character lives, and the connection to the natural world in all its beauty as well as the ties to those who have come before, this is a well-crafted tale with fully developed characters, with joy and tragedy, beauty and ugliness. I found that I enjoyed it best by reading bits at a time, sipping rather than gulping, but others may prefer to fully immerse themselves in the saga. I enjoyed the beautiful use of language, and meeting such a mixed bag of quirky, not always likeable but assuredly interesting characters. The pace is not swift, and in many ways it is like a series of short stories with a central point of intersect. Readers of authors like Elizabeth Strout and William Trevor might want to give this book a try, Many thanks to NetGalley and Random. House Publishing Group for allowing me access to this novel full of passion and life.

What a magical story!! We are along for the ride in following all of the people and families that reside in this special house in the remote North Woods, however long they may have been there.

I particularly enjoyed when we were following the residents in the more historical time periods- the Osgoods being my favorite. The setting was perfect and the Mary and Alice story was my favorite.

I like how the writing style evolved with the time period as well, there was never any disconnect about the time period we were in. Mason was able to really set the scene each time with the writing style alone.

As we get closer and closer to present day we see more how time has changed the land and the house - be it due to blight or disease of the trees, or mold in the house or trees falling on the roof. I thought this also served as a good, gentle indicator of time passing.

I feared that once we left a certain set of residents that we would be done with them forever, but the author manages to weave their stories and experiences into the more modern times as well, which was very well done.

This is historical fiction how I like it best, and an excellent release in the genre!

I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this novel sounded right up my alley, but the writing was a bit too flowery for my tastes.

I’m a bit stunned after finishing North Woods. I hope I can’t accurately express my experience with this book… because it really was a full experience.

Full disclosure: this book is outside my usual book picks. I’m not a fan of gore or horror and maybe wouldn’t have picked it up if I had read that it was about a haunted house. My expectations were of a sweeping historical epic about the life of a home in rural western Massachusetts. While in many ways it was just that, the grim stories were so unsettling and unexpected, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I bring this up because it’s what I would want to know when considering this book.

North Woods is indeed creepy and gory, but it’s also beautiful and tender. As a sensitive person, I have always felt keyed into the history of a home, the way people and time can layer upon itself in the same space. It’s fascinating and a worthy main character! The relationships, trauma, memories - all of it - settle into the floorboards to tell a full story over time. Daniel Mason is obviously a brilliant author and offered us a gift in this book.

As far as pacing, I felt like there were parts that rambled and lacked a cohesive thread but it all tied up well in the last few chapter, which were just stunning. I maybe have never experienced such a satisfying conclusion as I did in the last few pages of North Woods. Definitely worth getting through the unexpected creepiness to be gifted such a beautiful ending!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy.

Last night during a thunderstorm, I finished Daniel Mason’s North Woods, without question the most stunning, memorable novel I’ve read in the past several years, and I have read many excellent ones. Reading took me longer than expected, not because it was tedious reading—quite the opposite, in fact. Mason tells the stories of residents who inhabited a remote Massachusetts home, one after another, over several centuries.

Fleeing a young woman’s unwanted marriage to a Puritan minister twice her age, a pair of lovers build the original hut in the forest where their Puritan pursuers won’t find them. Following these unnamed young lovers, an elderly woman devotes herself to caring for an ailing young mother and baby dropped off by Indian captors. Charles Osgood, a veteran of the early years of the French and Indian War, creates an apple orchard from a single apple tree found growing near the hut. After he resumes his military career twenty years later during the Revolutionary War, his spinster daughters take over the orchard, living there alone. More residents follow, including landscape painter W. H Teale, an escaped slave named Esther and her baby, the Farnsworths, who dream of converting the home to a money-making hunting lodge, their daughter Lillian and her two children, Lillian’s grown son Robert, and still others. Not only the residents change, but also the house changes, experiencing periods of expansion and renovation, periods of decay.

Repeatedly, I found myself thinking Mason could not top the section I had just completed. Each time he told the story of a new individual or family, he proved me wrong. Short segments turned into longer segments. Visitors came to the home, some with fraudulent or evil intent, some with secret lives, some with research purposes. Slowly these stories of fascinating lives, lived over centuries, began to intersect in unexpected ways.

Amid the traditional narrative threads, Mason intersperses less traditional methods of storytelling, such as a captivity narrative scribbled in margins, notes for a future book, ballads, proverbs and sayings, a series of letters from one friend to another, a psychiatrist’s case notes on a schizophrenic patient, and a column from True Crime.

This is a story of individuals, couples, and families, of dangers, successes, obsessions, varying passions, personal jealousies, items lost and found, and amateur and professional research pursuits. It is a story of the natural world and the supernatural. As the title hints, North Woods is more than the story of the people who live on the land. It is also the story of the land, itself, and the changes it undergoes for the better or worse, whether wrought by nature or by mankind.

Captivating as North Woods is, readers who prefer fast, easy reads may want to skip this one. On the other hand, anyone who savors beautiful writing and who loves complex, meticulously planned, multifaceted novels should buy a copy immediately or join the local library’s wait list. Mason gifts us with much to love. As for me, as soon as I closed my completed ebook, I wanted to open it again. I have used an Audible credit to listen as I follow along with the text. Daniel Mason’s North Woods merits a second reading. It is that good!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advance reader copy of Daniel Mason’s highly recommended latest.