The setting of The Woods All Black is rural Kentucky in 1929, over a decade after The Great War. With the soldiers back home from the trenches, male and female gender roles have been firmly re-established. Scientists and doctors have embraced the study and advancement of eugenics, founding programs that encourage only the “fittest” to reproduce.

Lee Mandelo has strategically chosen this as the setting for his two protagonists, both viewed as women by society, but who identify as men. Before joining the Frontier Nursing Service, Leslie treated soldiers on the front lines of the war. Stevie is eighteen, wears pants, and spends his time harvesting tobacco and exploring the woods. Labeled an “abomination” by the town’s preacher, Stevie is being pressed into marriage as the solution to his unnatural choices.

The first half of the book is a suspenseful slow burn. Spar Creek’s residents are hostile and something is lurking in the woods. Leslie knows he isn’t safe, but stays out of concern for Stevie.

The second half is a wild ride, as tensions come to a boil with a steamy paranormal climax of revenge. The ending is not for the faint of heart or those with weak stomachs. Mandelo holds nothing back.

Thank you to @tordotcom and @netgalley for granting me this eARC.

TW: rape (off page), graphic violence, religious zealotry, transphobia

The Woods All Black is a claustrophobic tale of transphobia in rural Appalachia in the 1920s where a trans man, Leslie, our main character travels as a frontier nurser to deliver vaccines and other various medical care, but is quickly froze out by the town.

While there the town’s church delivers sermons on “jezebel women” and about the “roles that women should play”. Check the trigger warnings because he’s constantly misgendered! He’s labeled as a miscreant and unholy, and is cast out before he is even given a chance.

The claustrophobic element comes to play when Leslie is basically threatened to stay within the confines of the cabin he’s staying at, and at night sees a mysterious figure lurking about the shadows.

The silver lining is he meets another Trans man Stevie Mattingly and they develop a relationship where Leslie is able to educate and give language to Stevie’s gender expression.

I loved the romance element in this so much. It’s giving shadow daddy quite literally.

In 1920s Appalachia, Les enters the small town of Spar Creek to inoculate the town against whooping cough, small pox, and typhoid. He’ll take a census of the population, check in on any mothers-to-be or women in need of help, and in general do the good work the Frontier Nursing Service sent him to do. The only problem is that Spar Creek is so much worse off than Les might have expected. The people of the town have been firmly gathered up by the minister, Ames Holladay, whose narrow-minded hatred spreads like an infection. Holladay takes one look at Les and figures out very quickly that Les doesn’t belong.

For Les, being a nurse is his way of doing good. Of making some sense of the world. He cares for children and protects them from sickness, helps mothers through childbirth, brings life into the world rather than holding the hands of young, dying men as they leave it. A survivor of the Great War, Les has seen so much in this world, experienced so much, and knows well enough that he’s going to have to play by the rules if he wants to get his task done in Spar Creek.

So Les smiles when they call him Miss Bruin. He wears skirts to church. He keeps his mouth shut and his smile serene and lets himself be treated like a woman. And maybe things would have been … acceptable, maybe he could have gotten his task done and left in a timely manner if it weren’t for Stevie Mattingly, a young man whose pain Les knows all too well. Whose rage, whose fear, and whose teeth bared in defiance could be Les’ own.

When something horrible happens to Stevie, Les isn’t able to help. And when Stevie comes to Les asking to do something about the child forced upon him, Les isn’t able to help. But he wants to, oh how he wants to. And when Stevie comes to him with words of vengeance, Les says yes.

This is a dark romance — emphasis on the dark — and comes with strong trigger warnings for religious homophobia, mob violence, gun violence, rape, victim blaming, pregnancy because of rape, murder, attempted murder, abortion, homophobia, death in childbirth, and the shunning and casual cruelty of a small town turning against one of their own. It’s also a story of two kindred souls finding one another, aware of the pain they share between them, and turning fear and loneliness into love. But, again, it’s a dark book and will not be for everyone.

I very much enjoyed the author’s spare and eloquent writing:

Sleep had escaped to frolic with the night wildlife. […] The cabin ceiling fluttered with the furry bodies of moths.

…

Fire, lightning, the bell toll or the red string: every metaphor for connection he’d ever read, all the dead-end fantasies he’d crafted for himself, paled in comparison to the simple rightness he felt holding his boy’s hand. After the war ended, he’d tried to shape himself into a softer person. He’d tried to model his novels, his mentors, to make room for a good love, but the relationships he’d attempted and how he’d attempted them were never going to fit his truth.

Les sees the world through a critical eye, but a loving one. For all the indifference of the townsfolk, Les doesn’t hate them for their smallness, for their narrow mindedness. He understands it and accepts it — and them. He smiles at their pettiness, allows their judgement, accepts their looks and sly comments and not-so-sly cruelties. Because they’re afraid of the unknown, afraid of change, and yelling and screaming at them won’t change their minds … and will certainly not encourage them to accept the vaccinations.

As an “invert” — a man in the body of a woman, who lives as a man (when he’s able) — Les has always walked that fine line between sir and madam. His walk, the way he moves, the way he approaches and deals with other men give him away; it’s hard to duck his head and play the role of a woman, even though here, he has to. Les is full of compromise, and goodness. He means well, willing to forgive and overlook when possible, to try to understand the people around him. He’s the sort of character that would make an excellent paladin, slaying demons and saving the helpless … and meting out justice where needed.

Les was a combat nurse in the Great War and has seen more than enough of blood and violence. And when violence was enacted on him, he did not hesitate to spill blood on his own. It’s why, when Stevie comes for vengeance, for justice, that Les goes along with it. Not out of fear for the townsfolk, but fear for Stevie, for a young man who might get in over his head, too eager to fight when escaping might be the better part of valor.

Stevie is also a man in the body of a woman in a small town where what he is not accepted. When he’s raped by a man in a ‘courting,’ it’s seen as nothing more than what he deserves, and a sign that the young man in question is interested in making an honest woman out of Stevie. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been so public about it. Stevie grew up here; these are his neighbors, people he went to school with, those he works with in the tobacco fields, and with whom he goes to church. And because some preacher talks about hell and damnation, they have allowed him to be hurt. And Stevie is having none of it.

And I’ll be honest, I was there for it. Call it judgement, call it justice, call it revenge, I was there every step of the way, eager to see how Les and Stevie took the town to task. When Les finally stopped smiling at people and let them see his anger, his contempt, his true opinion of the casual indifference these people gave to someone who had been harmed was beautifully done. And then the book took a turn.

There’s a great deal here about religion and folklore, with Holladay mentioning demons and sin and the monsters in the hills, and Stevie himself who vanishes into the woods to make an offering to whatever is out there — old god, spirit, angel or demon — and all of that was groundwork for turning this into a paranormal story. Personally, I think it needed a bit more time to set up; it felt like such tonal whiplash. For me, it felt like a stumble in what was otherwise a fluid story.

Other than that, I enjoyed everything about this book. The atmosphere, the character work, the setting, and especially the moment when Les finally made Holladay shut up. If you enjoy dark stories of revenge and justice — and remember to mind the trigger warnings — this book is definitely something you might enjoy. If you like good characters bringing the hand of retribution to bigots, of seeing someone get tired of playing polite turn around and give someone a piece of their mind, and of two kindred spirits finding one another and igniting a bonfire of a glorious reckoning on someone who roundly deserves it, consider reading this book.

This book is historical horror with LGBT protagonist, in the early 1900's Appalachia. Now, I don't know how true to history and culture the Appalachian setting was. However I deeply enjoyed the queer horror of the novel switching between a cryptid monster in the woods to the conservative and traditional preacher.
I find myself searching for all of Lee Mandelo's other works on another tab as I write this.

I wanted to love this book so much. Horror? Appalachia ? Historical fiction? Representation ? Everything is there. For a novella, this dragged so much. It took me two weeks to try and get through it and it makes me so sad. Nothing of importance really happened. It's slightly mysterious. I kept waiting for something to happen. Unfortunately, this wasn't the story for me. The pace wasn't to my liking for a novella and I found it overall anticlimactic.

Lee Mandelo really said this one’s for the monsterfuckers. The Woods All Black is a captivating gothic Christian-fundie horror novella. We follow Leslie, a war-hardened nurse, who’s been sent by the Frontier Nursing Service to this back-water Appalachian town of Spar Creek. There, he’s immediately faced with hostile suspicion by this isolated community, drummed to a fervor by the local pastor. And given the setting, something unnerving is lurking at the edges of the woods, evoked beautifully by Lee’s immaculate prose. Without giving much away, there are beasts prowling in the dark, Leslie slowly discovers whether they are friend or foe (see first sentence). Lee’s development of Leslie’s character, a trans man existing in a particularly hostile environment in the 1920s, is fascinatingly portrayed and the historical elements were interesting to learn about. As someone who grew up adjacent to Christian fundamentalists, Mandelo absolutely nails the horrific atmosphere even just one religiously-fervent pastor can wield, to an unnerving degree. I found myself struggling to read at times because of how uncomfortably accurate the zealotry was portrayed and had to stop and restart multiple times. Unfortunately, it means this book hits just a little too close to ever be a favorite, but regardless it is spectacularly written. Overall, I rate this book a 4.5/5.

The Woods All Black review
THE WOODS ALL BLACK
Lee Mandelo
Release: today! (3/19)

TWAB is the perfect mix of spooky, religious extremism, frontier, small town vibes, with a splash of a lil’ freaky deaky toward the end. It’s described as a historical Appalachian revenge-romance. I really feel like this story sells itself and I don’t need to say anything else to convince you to add it to your TBR, but also, I was in a major slump (salute emoji) when I picked this novella up and it scooped me right out. I really liked Mandelo’s writing style, I have a couple quotes I’m obsessed with, the way he puts together words? I love it.

“While it’s true that he’d rather muck a stall with his bare hands than enter a house of god, strategic maneuvers to assimilate were another matter.”

I mean, just so good haha.

Highly recommend picking up this lil’ novella that is small but mighty on your next bookstore trip!

Thank you to netgalley and Tor Publishing Co. for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

Leslie Bruin is a trans nurse assigned to work at Spar Creek, a small Appalachian mining town. However, when he arrives, the townsfolk are closed off and secretive, and he can't help but feel a strange presence watching him from the woods.

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo paints an unsettling historical horror that explores queerness, religious trauma, and survival.

First off, this is a wonderfully atmospheric read. You can practically feel the mugginess of a late Kentucky summer and really get a sense of the late 20s time period.

However, there were several aspects I didn’t enjoy as much. For starters, this book is a slow burn. For about 40% of the novella, Leslie isn’t receiving tasks from the townsfolk and instead spends his time passively waiting and listening to town gossip. I wish he could have tried to assist with helping around (and get turned away) or investigate the town’s mystery or at least something!

Moreover, we’re told hints that the land Spar Creek sits on is strange through dialogue, but what did all those hints amount to? We never actual get an explanation of the town’s origins asides from the people there needing to keep altars for whatever reason, and I really wish we could’ve gotten more backstory and that it had leaned stronger into folk horror territory.

Yes, Leslie and Stevie’s character arcs feel satisfying and well done and I've got to give kudos for the raw monster sex in the woods, but the actual mystery subplot feels half-forgotten at the end and leaves so many questions unanswered.

Overall, I didn't love this book as much as Summer Sons, but I do really hope to read more historical horror from Mandelo in the future.

The Woods All Black has a lot going for it. Lee Mandelos prose is continuously vibrant and emotional. The setting and themes surrounding this story are strong, if a common one in trans and gay literature.
The church are violent hypocrites grasping at their proverbs and hyms to subdue a small population under their control. We’ve got the resident rebel, and the new one who comes with ideas of freedom and self expression.
What it turns into is revenge porn. (And monster fucking, which I did not expect). It felt quite self indulgent, which is not a bad thing.
This is going to be cathartic and an enjoyable read for people who need it, but it was not for me!

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo has been a completely unexpected and gorgeous experience. I was expecting Appalachian creature horror to haunt my nightmares. Instead I got a stunning story of revenge, trans resilience, and the ancient atmosphere of a person rooted in the mountain range. With a gory, chaotic, hauntingly beautiful romance to round it out, this should be on every queer horror enthusiasts TBR.

What stood out to me the most was the unexpected turn the scenery of the Appalachian mountains. When I think of the Appalachian mountains, I imagine creatures out of my worst nightmare, shutting the blinds tight before the sun goes down, and never answering the door once the sun sets. So to say that was y expectation walking into this would b an understatement. Instead, Lee Mandelo took a path of respect and adoration I could have never imagined. The setting was such a pivotal background point of the story that wasn’t fully acknowledged until half way through, but the beauty of it is apparent from the beginning.

The Appalachian mountain range is one of the oldest mountain ranges. The reputation it has gained as a haunting and dangerous place is reflected in it’s age. But this story paints it in a space of ethereal beauty. Not something to be toyed with, but something powerful and stepped in sacrifice.

That is exactly the image portrayed in both the setting and our love interest, Stevie. We spend the story following Leslie, a trans man who has been requested in a rural Appalachian town as a nurse. When he arrives he is scorned and basically exiled all while watching religious horrors prepare to be unfolded on another trans boy in town, Stevie.

While Leslie is desperately worried, and attracted, to Stevie, he is connecting with the land and causing chaos. Gotta love him for it.

Stevie quickly becomes the most mysterious and interesting character in the story, carrying rage and revenge on the wind whispering through the trees. He is dynamic, transforms both physically and mentally in just a short period of time, and he carries the story as a whole.

His relationships with himself, his family, the woods, and Leslie are difficult to understand at first, giving the story an air of mystery while working through the severe religious abuse throughout the town. Stevie pushes Leslie throughout the story to stand up for himself, breaking free and supporting the rage and revenge coursing through his veins.

It is a stunning dynamic of brutality and care that seems to be well preserved in trans horror as a genre.

Another crucial aspect of the story to acknowledge is that it is definitely 18+ with some gore forward sex scenes towards the end of the story. They are beautifully done, encapsulating the beauty and power behind trans sex. Lee Mandelo presents the trans body as a piece of art, embracing each aspect of it while still acknowledging the individual comfort of each character. As someone who often doesn’t like gore of any variety, the gore in this story felt like true art. Like a series of paintings I would hang in my house. Gore fueled by rage, revenge, love, and resilience is an intense and important image for the trans community and I loved every second of it.

If you are looking for a trans romantic horror filled to the brim with revenge and blanketed in the ancient air of the forest, this is for you. For lovers of All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes and Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White, this atmospheric tale will quench your thirst for vengeance and adoration.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

5/5 stars

This book is a masterclass in queer horror.

The novel is set in 1920s Appalachia and follows Leslie Bruin, a transgender nurse, who is hired by a small town to administer vaccines and assist in midwifery. However, it is clear as soon as Leslie gets into town that he is not welcome and that the town has fallen into a well know trap of small town religious extremism. But Leslie is determined to help people, particularly once he meets a kindred spirit falling victim to the town's violence. However, as the tension in the town builds, so too does the strange activity in the woods that surrounds it.

This is a book that perfectly understands its genre. The book is filled with gorgeous prose that feels very Appalachian, filled with turns of phrase and an overall tone that melds beautifully with the setting. It captures the horror of small town life for trans people, where even though there's clearly supernatural horror going on in the woods surrounding Spur Creek, it never quite matches the constant tension created by bigotry and the real threat of violence from everyone living around you. It's a tension known all too well by queer people, especially trans people. Without getting into spoilers, this book also provides a really compelling take on the relationship queer people have to monsters and monstrousness. It feels very much in conversation with all of the stories queer people have about resonating with villains, monsters, and the Other across horror media.

The queer representation in this book is very well done. The narrative does an excellent job of balancing multiple pronouns. Leslie's internal dialogue uses he/him and masculine words and is such a clear contrast to the townsfolk using very feminine language for him. It's also very refreshing to read a book where a trans person continues to pass as their assigned gender, but also has been out long enough that they have a very clear understanding of power dynamics and how to play with gender to suit their needs. The romantic elements of this book are not tame or chaste. They are intense and intimate and very very spicy. And the spice is very gender affirming.

This book is not going to appeal to every reader, nor should it. It is unashamed about what it is and who it is for. It's rare that a book hits so many marks for me, but Lee Mandelo really hit it out of the park with this one for me.

I enjoyed Summer Sons. So I was pretty excited to see a new title The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo.
As usual the writing style is my absolute favorite. I don’t know how Lee Mandelo does it but he is a phenomenal writer.
I was absolutely hooked, this story has everything you want.
The Author's way of writing draws you in like a warm blanket, comforting as much as it creeps. Utterly fantastic.

Thank You NetGalley and Tordotcom for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Lee Mandelo you will always be famous to me!!!! I'm a big fan of his previous two works, and I'm thrilled that this one continues the trend. This novella follows Leslie, a transmasc nurse with the Frontier Nursing Service who gets stationed in small town Appalachia in the early 1900s. To be honest, the first 3/4 of the.novella was pretty standard us-against-them religious holler bigotry against Leslie and Stevie, another trans guy in town. I was actually a little disappointed that it was, for me, feeling rote and lacking the Mandelo flair. The last 1/4 delivered though. I think people are going to really hate it (and judging by some of the other reviews, they do lol) but I loved it. Queer Appalachian body horror, sign me up. I think some folks in other reviews are profoundly misunderstanding what it is like to be isolated and queer and viciously angry and meeting someone else who is like you, and how the lines of sexuality and identity can be blurry.

Either way, I loved this one, and I will continue to pick up everything Mandelo writes in the future.

Small southern towns after WWI, could request they be sent a nurse from the Frontier Nursing Service. A lot of these backwoods places didn't even have a doctor, and during those times, that was a dangerous thing. Vaccinations can't help if there's no vaccinations or people to give them. In Spar Creek they got a bit more than vaccinations, and prescriptions, when Leslie Bruin arrived.

Leslie fought in the war himself, and then spent some time in Paris before joining with the FNS. Towns like Spar Creek don't often welcome outsiders with open arms and Leslie is definitely an outsider. He soon learns that he's not going to be able to do his job effectively. Between religious zealots, racists, and just plain small town meanness, he can barely open his mouth without getting into trouble. He soon learns there's a lot more going on in Spar Creek than he originally thought. Young Stevie for one thing, and those noises in the woods for another. Will Leslie be able to help the citizens of Spar Creek? Will he be able to help young Stevie or anyone at all? And maybe most importantly, will he be able to survive the beast skulking around his cabin every night? You'll have to read this to find out!

I very much enjoyed this novella and read it in two sittings. Spar Creek seemed like a few towns here in the northeast, at least in some ways. Religious zealots. Racists. Tightly knit and intolerant of anything that smells even slightly "different." Some places are still like that now, so it's easy to imagine how much worse it would have been in the early 20's. Small minded people in small minded places.

What added some spice here was the addition of the mysterious creature in the woods. This aspect kept the story interesting and while I can't say I was all that surprised, I think it took the story in an interesting direction.

I'm struggling to find more to say without spoiling anything, so let me sum up. Small town with a new arrival. Historical fiction with intriguing facts about the Frontier Nursing Service and life in the early 20's. A revenge story you can sink your teeth into. A trans protagonist, other interesting characters, (but mostly jerks), and a mystery monster lurking in the woods. Now, let me double check my math, (scribbling madly, carrying the one), and yep! All this adds up to a WINNER!

Highly recommended for fans of LGBTQ fiction, sexy times with monsters, historical fiction fans, and those that love tales of revenge!

*ARC from publisher.*

"Spill enough blood on it and the earth was bound to go strange."

A nurse is sent to a clannish Appalachian town to vaccinate the local citizenry, and help with expectant mothers in an area where infant mortality is high.

To say the least . . . he does not receive a warm reception.

I see that I'm in the minority in NOT loving this one, so I'll attempt to explain why the book didn't do much for me.

I felt as though I was being held at a distance by the writer. I don't know if it was to build an air of mystery or what, but it kept me from caring much about the characters. While there's some beautiful writing here, the author started to build suspense, and then . . . nothing happened. For a horror novel, I didn't really find the book creepy or scary. And, I never really got the townsfolk's immediate hostility toward Leslie. Did they sense his sexual ambiguity, or did they just not cotton to outsiders of any stripe? I did find it funny (funny ha-ha), however, that unlike our modern-day ignorant hicks, this bunch was more than willing to get vaccinations. Wow! Look how far we haven't come . . .

The Woods All Black is a book that wound up to be something way different than what I thought it was going to be. The synopsis is deceitful because excuse me, there is monster and human sexual encounters. There is NOTHING in the synopsis about that happening. This reader thought this would be a horror thriller that's set in a historical era post World War I about a transgender male who is placed in a small town Appalachia, who is heavily influenced by religion. NOT expecting to read about a monster who is created and then has sex with a human.

Separate from the monster sex, I think this book could have been something greater. They story could have expanded in some ways, but yes it's a novella. The main character is slightly annoying, but that's understandable in a world that is set back from the rest of the world that they have experienced, they are just doing their best. Some of the timeline of the other characters in the background seem a little fuzzy. But overall, the story (minus the monster thing) was good. A solid 4 stars.

However, the monster and human physical interaction... That totally ruins it for me. Therefore, I am rating it a 2 out of 5 stars. If another reader wants to figure out the pages that this physical interaction occurs and other mentions of it in the future for others, then please feel free. This story is not something I could freely recommend versus other stories out there. It will live in my mind to recommend to those who are bit more freaky outside the usual norm.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this story.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor Publishing, and Lee Mandelo for access to an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Woods All Black is a short, impactful novella set in 1920s Appalachia. Leslie is a transgender former army nurse whose job has sent him to a rural, closed off town of Spar Creek. There is something unsettling about the town and its fiery preacher that sets him on edge, even after the horrors of the trenches in World War I.

This book tells such a complete story and touches on so many complex topics despite its short length. I really enjoyed the perspective of a historical LGBTQ character, and admittedly, didn’t really know much about the experiences of transgender individuals in the past. The author provided a list of sources used in their research and further reading suggestions in their acknowledgements, which is such a nice resource. There were some unexpected moments in the story that really surprised me, and it is quite violent at times, so check CW!

Lee Mandelo is an author that I automatically read. His debut novel Summer Sons is one of my favorites of all time. The Woods All Black is a southern historical horror novella that is slow to the build up but knows how to give the reader the pay off. The pacing fills the reader with dread, knowing something terrible is going to happen in the town of Spar Creek. But what’s coming? A reckoning. That’s what.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for this ARC. This was a creepy and disturbing story. I very much enjoyed this small snippet of historical horror set in 1920s Appalachia. Coming in around 150 pages it is also a quick read.

The Woods All Black ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.75)

It’s 1920 and Leslie just got assigned a nursing job in small backwoods town of Spar Creek. The problem is the preacher of this town immediately hates gender non conforming Leslie on sight. This disdain is the deciding factor in how the town feels and interacts with Leslie. Even as Leslie puts on a act of a good Christian woman the town refuses his help. Making his job impossible to do!
Then we meet Stevie who is just like Leslie. Leslie try’s helping Stevie escape the town, even as he realizes there’s more going on with the boy than meets the eye. But when the preacher and the town take things too far the only solution might be to burn it all down.

The Woods All Black does an incredible job blending horror, revenge, religious extremism and an erotic romance! And yes there’s some good ol monster fucking!

Lee also incorporates so much of his queer historical knowledge into this book. It adds so much depth to the book! We get some historical facts about how some queer people self labeled during that time period as well as how they lived and blended in with society! I was also very excited to see Lee do a story in Appalachia! Trans people have a long history there so I’m loving seeing trans authors writing about it!!
But what Lee did a little too well for me personally was the religious extremism and the preacher. So many times I felt like I was sitting in that church house and it added so much to the horror aspects for me! Anytime the preacher was on page I was on the edge of my seat.

This book took so many elements that I love and so seamlessly and effortlessly incorporated them to create a unsettling and rage filled story! This is a must read especially if you love a little “the monsters they made us” type queer story!