I did enjoy the ending of this one but getting there was so long! The pacing felt way too slow for me!

Thank you net galley!

Vibes: The woods. 1990’s. Suicide woods. Halloween. Backstabbing. Diaries.

My review:
If you’re looking for a book with creepy vibes, Kristopher Triana brings that with his newest story. Going back and forth between past and present, I put the pieces together one page at a time (that’s all you’re allotted here with the amount of action that transpires). Some information you could’ve guessed, while others leave you wondering what in the heck is even going on. It’s like when you’re walking on a sidewalk, and someone is coming towards you on the same side of the sidewalk, so you switch sides and they do too, and then they switch back suddenly so you can pass - it’s that type of story. You think you know, but do you really?

While I didn’t relate to any of the characters or feel a personal connection to any of them, I was just waiting for the mayhem to jumpscare me….and it does. Because I didn’t feel that connection to the characters, I bumped an otherwise 5 star review down a peg. Kristopher knows how to write and I have the upmost faith in his writing he will keep that up.

Don’t go out in the woods alone.

I liked this one. The woods are always a creepy place for me so it automatically had that factor going for it. Sometimes dual timelines get either tedious or monotonous but in this case, it worked.

I think it was meant to be more fast-paced, but it was kind of slow for me. I think it would make for a great movie, but the ending would need to be fixed. I wasn’t crazy about how it ended.

That Night in the Woods tells the story of a group of childhood friends who return to their hometown to mourn the passing of their friend Steve after sharing a traumatic night in the woods together on Halloween more than 20 years ago.

This is the first book I’ve read by Triana and while I loved the writing style and the setting and creepy vibes, it was only a 3 star read for me.

The story started off very slow but I got really invested once the introduction to every main character was finished. (Btw, I didn’t care for any of the characters which is never a good sign).
The eerie atmosphere in the first half of the book was fantastic. And the writing was very good.
But the POV‘s alternated without warning which was kind of confusing.

Right in the middle the story started to drag a little bit.

The ending didn’t make sense at all and left me feeling disappointed and frustrated. This could have been a 4 star read if it hadn’t been for that ending.

It definitely is a great read for Halloween. It‘s unsettling, disturbing and gruesome and I wouldn’t want to spend Halloween in the woods after reading it.

I wanted to love this and I really enjoyed parts of the story but ultimately too many things just didn’t work for me.

I love Kristopher Triana books but this one fell a bit flat for me. I couldn’t focus on it properly and wasn’t as intrigued and immersed as usual. A bit disappointing, especially compared to his other books.

This wasn't a bad read, though not necessarily as creepy or scary as I had hoped.

It reminded me a bit of The Ritual. Four friends get together to remember an old friend. Together they revisit dark secrets, past trauma, and work to solve something that happened between them all years ago.

It's an okay read, it starts kind of slowly, but soon picks up. And it's kind of interesting to discover exactly what this thing was that happened all those years ago.

I hadn't read anything by Triana before, but I'd heard so many good things about #GoneToSeeTheRiverMan that I was excited to jump into this one. I love it when terrible things happen in majestic woods.

But this was kind of a struggle.

It felt like most of the book was an explanation of the story. I never got lost in the words because we were constantly pulled out of it to be told something irrelevant.

I also found the...for lack of a better word, gender politics off-putting. Perhaps there was meant to be a message in the way the women were all very concerned with their appearances and the men were fully caught in lust and toxic masculinity, but I missed it.

And then there's my mystery pet peeve. The Scooby Doo style of reveals where you, the reader, never really has enough information to figure anything out. Knowledge is given to you too late, in info-dumps or exposition via dialogue between characters who don't need to be telling each other these things.

YMMV. Maybe this just wasn't for me. I'm still going to read more Triana. The story here was good and I've heard some of the issues I had are uncharacteristic for his writing.

🍂🍂
2/5 sweater weather breezes smelling of doom and bad omens.

Thank you NetGalley and Cemetery Dance Publications for this book!

Let me just say...I could have never guessed where this book was going to go...AT ALL.

It took me a good while to get through this book; I was uninterested for a good part of it, but I knew there was something not being said or reveled and that had me going back to read this book. I am the type of reader that likes action or something right off the bat. But I honestly really wanted to get some horror reads in for the month of October and this book didn't disappoint.

50%-60% of the way through I was hooked. This book a turn I was not expecting! I will not give any spoilers but man oh man was this twisted. And I mean that in the best way. I expect horror/mystery books to be this way. I love twisted, gory, suspense and absolutely psychotic horror movies.

Give this book a shot. Once you get to that place where everything starts to click you'll be hooked and wanting to finish it.

I am so grateful to have read this book!!

It was fast paced, creepy (borderline disturbing), and I couldn't get enough!

I'm not the biggest horror lover but I couldn't put this one down!

The writing style was great and I would definitely read other books by this author!

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to review. The thoughts and opinions are my own. Jennifer gets a call from scott who is her first love he convinces her to come back to their home town to catch up. She's wary at first because their friend steven recently passed. After she gets there she realizes she is not the only person scott invited. This book follows two timelines now and when they were teenagers. I thought many times I knew where this book was going. No I didnt see it coming. It's like the blair witch project on steroids. i enjoyed every minute of it!

I DNFed at 75% which is longer than I wanted to give it, but I was curious about something and once I had my answer I was done. The premise in the beginning was promising. A group of childhood friends all middle-aged and going through various crises get back together to celebrate the life of a friend that had passed but also tackle a traumatic event that had happened to them. I don't need every horror I read to scare the bejeezus out of me, but I at least need to be unsettled or disturbed by whatever is supposed to be scary. I was more bored than anything else. The promising premise quickly falls apart in part two when the woods themselves are not nearly as terrifying as I thought they would be.

This is the first time I have ever read anything by this author and I am very thankful to have read this book as an ARC.

With that being said, I give this book 2.5 stars.
I am a lover of all things horror and while I thought this book had a lot of potential, it just fell a little flat for me.
I don't think this book stands out among the rest in originality and from someone who reads a bit of horror, this will end up being forgotten pretty quickly.
I always love a good *friend-group goes through trauma and if forced to separate then come back together to face more trauma* but the details in this story made it feel like it was dragging on and on.

If you are still new to horror and want a familiar plot, this book would be good.

I have never read anything by this author before but I do enjoy a good horror book every now and again, unfortunately, whilst this showed a lot of promise, it didn't hit the mark for me.

An old friend passes away and a group of his friends are invited to honour him by getting together in the town they grew up in. Slowly, we learn that something horrendous happened to them during a camp out on Halloween when they were teenagers which led them to drift apart.

The characters are really well developed however, herein lies one of the problems; there is just too much information about their lives which makes the story drag on. It picks up (mostly) when we start to find out what happened in those woods all those years ago but then it goes downhill again and becomes something quite unbelievable even for a horror book and I found myself flicking the pages to get to the eventual outcome which, unfortunately, was a bit of an anti-climax.

It's a shame really because it had all the makings of a really good horror/supernatural book but there was just too much talking about the characters, their lives and how they felt about each other rather than focussing on the horror in the woods.

My thanks must go to the author, Cemetery Dance Publications and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of The Night in the Woods.

I’d say this is like one of those cheesy, direct to video horror movies. It’s fast-paced, fairly entertaining, and creepy enough to be passable. If you think too much about it, it’s implausible, though. Also a bit gross (not in terms of gore but the whole plot surrounds what’s essentially sexual abuse).

I can’t say it was bad. It was what I was looking for in terms of a good, creepy, fast read. Did it change my life? No. Did I read it fast and find myself interested? Yes. Solid at what it sets out to do.

Thanks for the ARC to the publisher and NetGalley.

I've long known about Triana as I am a big fan of the extreme horror genre. This title is more "tame" then his other works but that by no means is a bad thing! The writing voice is very good. You find yourself loving/and or hating every character which is always a sign of great writing for me. The character work and growth was very well done and even with so many characters not a single one was left in the dust. Will be checking out more of this authors work now

His book was really good. Anytime a book contains the story of a cult, you know it is going to get wild. This book was no exception. I enjoyed the story being told from all the different characters perspectives. I was really thinking Scott had gathered the friends for a heartwarming reunion. Slowly cracks began to appear in Scott’s story. The story he told to get all of them back in Redford began to unravel as Scott insisted on doing the information sharing in a very controlled way. As each member questions Scott’s motivations, his demeanor changes even more. What started out as a friendly reunion among childhood friends begins to unravel.

That Night In The Woods
Kristopher Triana
Genre: Horror
Read If You Like: The Cabin At The End Of The World, It

Highschool friends reunite after the loss of one of their own, only to have to face all the things they decided to leave behind in the woods that night.

"Don't be afraid."

Atmospheric and beautifully disturbing

Holy crap when I picked this up i had no idea I would fly through it as fast as I did. But dannmmm this book went above and beyond all my expectations.

The way Triana writes horror, I'm just obsessed. I absolutely loved the character development AND the buildup to that gorey and shocking ending. It was everything. This was my first from Triana and it defenitly will not be my last

AND I can't forget to mention the Halloween and nostalgic vibes, OH MAN I ate that ish up. A perfect read for spooky season.

*Meant to shock and disgust

Thank you to @netgalley
@kristopher_triana and @cemeterydancepub for the arc in exchange for my honost thoughts and opinions

3.75
I really enjoyed this book. I know Kristopher Triana is best known for extreme horror but with this novel he focused more on relationships and human conditions. There was still a fair share of blood and gore, but I really grew to care about some of the characters and cared about their fates. I can't wait to read more from this author.

I’m new to the world of Triana. I just recently read his most popular title (I think) Gone to See the River Man, and I dug that, so I was excited to read his most recent release- That Night in the Woods. And I thought it was kind of fun! Its a pretty standard format- a group of friends experience a horrifying night in the woods together as teens and after the death of one of the group they all come back to their hometown and have to venture into the woods once more. But the only thing basic is the set up. There a lot of fun twists and subversions of tropes in this creepy small town horror story. I really enjoyed myself. It’s a fairly quick read, and there’s some great action sequences with really strong suspense. Don’t take it too seriously and it’s a fun scary time in the woods.

My review will. be posted on my Instagram @boozehoundbookclub in October

3.5 stars. This is the second book I've read by Triana and definitely enjoyed it! I love books involving friend groups, particularly ones that go back and forth in time. I liked that this story did not reveal itself too early and it went in a direction I wasn't expecting (in a good way!).