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IN THE NIGHT WOOD

Dale Bailey

A contemporary fantasy in which 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. Dale Bailey is the critically acclaimed author of seven books, including The End of the End of Everything and The Subterranean Season. His story "Death and Suffrage" was adapted for Showtime's Masters of Horror television series. His short fiction has won the Shirley Jackson Award and the International Horror Guild Award, has been nominated for the Nebula and Bram Stoker awards, and has been reprinted frequently in best-of-the-year anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy.
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Published 2018-10-09 by John Joseph Adams/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Comments

Dale Bailey has written a literary puzzle box that deftly mixes the scary, nasty folktales of the 19th century and Daphne du Maurier's classic Don't Look Now.In the Night Wood is an affecting, weighty, and haunting book about the shackles of grief.

In the Night Wood is a wonder: literary, intriguingly supernatural, and all too human. A must read for anyone who as a child wanted to find a magic wardrobe to explore or a rabbit hole to fall down only to realize as an adult that those whimsical childhood adventures have a darker side.

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

UK: HarperVoyager

The mystery is compelling but the heart of Dale Bailey's latest novel is the damaged relationship between grieving parents.

Pre-pub excerpt released on Tor.com: Read an Excerpt from Dale Bailey's In the Night Wood Read more...

Gothic horror is definitely a theme for horror novels this fall, and this tale of a couple who moves into an almost certainly haunted house after the death of their young daughter promises to be a quick but satisfying read. Read more...

In the Night Wood taps into the oldest, darkest roots of the fairy tale tradition, presenting the story of a family in crisis while steered by the pagan energies of a wilder age. It is beautiful, heartbreaking, and inspiring. Once again, Dale Bailey proves he's among the best writers we have.

Every story is a ghost story, Bailey tells us. But not every ghost story is as haunting as this one. Nor as luminously written, literate, absorbing, transporting, and all-around excellent. I couldn't put it down.

A couple in crisis moves to an old manor house for research on a Victorian fantasy novel and finds the story may not be as fictional as it appears.. The succession of reveals in the frantic last 30 or so pages. is tense and disturbing, satisfying for any horror fan. A modern gothic horror done right. Read more...

A grieving American couple inherit a Victorian manor in a picturesque English village and are thrust into a gothic tale of sinister woods, dark bargains, and child sacrifice... Bailey weaves literary allusions and folkloric motifs together with gorgeous prose to create this grief-imbued story... This will appeal to fans of psychological horror, fairy-tale retellings, and metanarratives. Read more...

Elegantly written, In the Night Wood paints a moody portrait of a marriage threatened by betrayal and loss over the backdrop of a strange wood, mysteriously vanishing children, the legend of a horned king, and a children's story that might be more than just a story. Bailey builds his world with great care, slowly and carefully drawing both you and the characters in, revealing some pieces of the puzzle only gradually. By the time you realize where the story is going, he's already hooked you: you couldn't escape even if you wanted to.

Bailey infuses his eighth novel with a sinister foreboding that excellently villainizes its bucolic English setting.. Bailey's eerie prose centers readers firmly and successfully in his seductive and frightening night wood. Read more...