In the Night Wood
by Dale Bailey
In this contemporary fantasy, the grieving biographer of a Victorian fantasist finds himself slipping inexorably into the supernatural world that consumed his subject.
Failed father, failed husband, and failed scholar, Charles Hayden hopes to put his life back together with a new project: a biography of Caedmon Hollow, the long-dead author of a legendary Victorian children’s book, In the Night Wood, and forebear of his wife, Erin. Deep in mourning from the loss of their young daughter, they pack up their American lives, Erin gives up her legal practice, and the couple settles in Hollow’s remote Yorkshire mansion.
In the neighboring village, Charles meets a woman he might have loved, a child who could have been his own daughter, and the ghost of a self he hoped to bury. Erin, paralyzed by her grief, immerses herself in pills and painting images of a horned terror in the woods.
In the primeval forest surrounding Caedmon Hollow’s ancestral home, an ancient power is stirring, a long-forgotten king who haunts the Haydens’ dreams. And every morning the fringe of darkling trees presses closer.
Soon enough, Charles and Erin will venture into the night wood.
Soon enough, they’ll learn that the darkness under the trees is but a shadow of the darkness that waits inside us all.
Momma Says: 2 stars⭐⭐
In the Night Wood has all the elements for a gripping dark fairy tale - a wonderfully descriptive creepy setting, a lost child, and subtle and not so subtle ties between current and past events. Unfortunately, I wasn't gripped, and other than a few sightings here and there, I found very little in the way of fantasy. In fact, I found most of the story to be rather depressing. The author gives us a premise that hints at something original in the genre, but instead falls back on too many references to classic literature. Granted, those references work well with the dark tone of the story, but I would've liked a little more originality. That aside, my real problem with this story lay in the characters. Flawed or unreliable characters in a tale like this can work well, but there has to be something redeemable there. I didn't find that with Charles. He's certainly flawed, but I didn't see a single thing to like about this man. He's made mistakes and even acknowledges them, but he doesn't learn from the experiences, nor does he attempt to change. Charles' wife, Erin, is little more than a caricature in the story. We know she's grieving and has turned to drugs and alcohol, and that pretty well sums it up. I can empathize with her loss, but with so little development, it felt more like reading about a stranger in the newspaper - we have the bare bones details but no depth. We learn more about Silva during the will Charles cheat or won't he period than we ever learn about Erin. She does eventually come out of her substance induced haze and take some action, but for me, it was just too little, too late. Which is also how I felt about the fantasy aspect of the book. It's not particularly lengthy, coming in at just over two hundred pages, but most of it is heavy and felt much longer than it actually is. In fact, it took me over a week to finally finish it. It was way too easy to set aside for something that held my interest. The author is talented, there are lots of pretty words and the scene setting is brilliant, but there just wasn't much done with that until the big finish. In the end, the story was more a depressing account of two grieving parents and a failing marriage than dark fantasy. That does come in for the last act, but it felt rushed, and much like my thoughts about Erin, it was way too little, too late. This seems to be one of those books that people will either love it or hate it and after reading the blurb, I really wanted to love it. Sadly, I fall into the latter category and come away quite disappointed.
❃❃ARC provided by NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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