Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice's life on the road, always a step ahead of the strange bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice's grandmother, the reclusive author of a book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate - the Hazel Wood - Alice learns how bad her luck can really get. Her mother is stolen away - by a figure who claims to come from the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: STAY AWAY FROM THE HAZEL WOOD.
To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began.
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[Althea Proserpine is raising her daughter on fairy tales]***
(Penguin, 8 February 2018, 400 pages, ebook, ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
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I thought The Hazel Wood was amazing.
I love fairy tales, the darker the better. I dislike attempts to make fairy tales cute. Fairy tales should be terrifying.
I knew I had to read The Hazel Wood as soon as I read the blurb and I was not disappointed.
I loved everything about this book. I loved Alice, her mother Ella and the fleeting glimpses of her grand-mother Althea. The relationship between Alice and Ella is quite dark and twisted at times. Why do they always move? Why has Ella cut Althea out of her life? What do the hints of violence really mean?
I would have loved to read a copy of Althea's Tales from the Hinterland. I loved the idea of the obscure book having a massive fan base. I would have been part of that club.
The Hazel Wood offers the perfect fairy tale quest, Alice must journey into darkness to find her mother and unravel the truth about herself and Althea's stories. I loved the concept of the book, that Althea's stories are real, stolen from a world where fairy tales life and breathe.
The book is pretty dark at times, like the perfect fairy tale. I was stunned when Alice discovers the truth about herself, her connection to the Hinterland and her place in the Hinterland.
My favourite bit of the book is when Alice and Althea's uber-fan Finch decide to go to the Hazel Wood to rescue Alice's mother. The Hazel Wood is the name of Althea's mansion but it's a lot more than a house.
The Hazel Wood is fantastic. Well worth a read.
