In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey

Title: In the Night Wood
Author: Dale Bailey
Page Count: 224
Rating: A-
Format Read: Galley
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy
Keywords: Fairytales, Fae, mystery
Kid Appropriate: No
Expected Publication Day: October 9, 2018

Synopsis from Goodreads:

In this contemporary fantasy, the grieving biographer of a Victorian fantasist finds himself slipping inexorably into the supernatural world that consumed his subject.

American Charles Hayden came to England to forget the past.

Failed father, failed husband, and failed scholar, Charles hopes to put his life back together with a biography of Caedmon Hollow, the long-dead author of a legendary Victorian children's book, In the Night Wood. But soon after settling into Hollow's remote Yorkshire home, Charles learns that the past isn't dead.

In the neighboring village, Charles meets a woman he might have loved, a child who could have been his own lost daughter, and the ghost of a self he thought he'd put behind him.

And in the primeval forest surrounding Caedmon Hollow's ancestral home, an ancient power is stirring. The horned figure of a long-forgotten king haunts Charles Hayden's dreams. And every morning the fringe of darkling trees presses closer.

Soon enough, Charles will venture into the night wood.

Soon enough he'll learn that the darkness under the trees is but a shadow of the darkness that waits inside us all.

My Review:

The synopsis of this book had me expecting something completely different from what I encountered with this story. That being said I really enjoyed this slower adult fantasy.

At only 224 pages I expected to be able to finish this in a sitting or two. This is not a tale to be sped through. Rather it sits heavily on your mind and is meant to be sipped and savored rather than devoured. Long after putting this book down I would find it creeping back into my mind, its fantastic mix of fantasy, mystery, and family drama drawing me further in.

I thoroughly enjoyed the way in which Bailey introduced the fantasy elements into this book. They were not overpowering and the degree of certainty, or rather uncertainty, that they truly exist always matches the perspective of Charles as he muddles through his own tale. There is never a feeling of we as readers know more than the main characters of Charles, Elaine, and to a lesser degree Silva.

Another point that I was worried about after I began reading was whether or not the death of Charles and Elaine's daughter would make this an overly heavy, depressing read. At first this was the case but as the story progressed I never felt that the drama and sorrow were overly played out the way that some stories dwell on the death of a child so that there is nothing else. It was an important part of the story, but realistically handled in the way each parent handled their grief and how that does not always look the same even between partners in a relationship.

This would be a perfect read for adult fans of Holly Black's The Cruel Prince or The Darkest Part of the Forest as well as readers looking to recapture the magical writing of Katherine Arden (The Bear and the Nightingale) or Naomi Novik (Spinning Silver and Uprooted).