In the Night Wood

By: Dale Bailey

Narrated by: John Banks

Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2018 Dale Bailey (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers

So many charms, but doesn't get to Wonderland.

I really wanted to love this book and the author has all of the right tools in his tool bag, it's just that he overly use a few. The Night Wood is a chilling title. There are old books... haunted manors in England. Strange druid beasts from forgotten time. Oh so many hooks, but not one to catch. So many delicious ingredients.The author unfortunately bombarded the pages with 10 dollars words, jargon, and a plethora of metaphors. It is no doubt, impressive, but I found my mind would wonder about every 10 minutes with this one, only to be led back when dialogue finally started up again. A lot of time was spent on inner reflection and very little time was actually progressing the story. None of the characters are relatable or likable. Wanted to love this book but it missed the mark for me.

Men have no self control & take comfort in patient women who lack emotional maturity.

The moral of the story seems to be that a wife who doesn’t give blowjobs is at risk of losing her husband to a woman who will. And subsequently the life of her child will be lost as well.
But time heals all wounds, and all will be well after you inherit a mansion where you can self medicate in luxury as your in-punished husband grows close to and solves a dull mystery with yet another woman.