This book is crafted with all the care that goes into spinning nettle shirts for your enchanted swan-brothers and all the agony and beauty of spitting up roses and diamonds. For the Hazel Wood is a doorway, and Alice has to decide if she's willing to go through it and find out the truth about her mysterious family. But soon their fantasy adventure turns into a horror story as the ruthless citizens of the Hinterland creep further and further into reality, seeking to terrorize Alice and use her for their own means. They settle into a life in New York, but Alice keeps waiting for the darkness to find them.īook Reviews 'Skinful Of Shadows' Delights Without ReservationĪlice enlists the help of her classmate, Ellery Finch, a Hinterland fanboy who just seems happy that Alice has finally noticed him. When the news comes that her grandmother has died, it seems like maybe Alice and her mother can finally catch their breath. Alice doesn't know her grandmother, who shut herself away in an estate called the Hazel Wood before Alice was even born, but she is secretly obsessed with her and the elusive world that she created. It's a book so rare and compelling that it has die-hard fans who've never even read it - including Alice. They can't ever seem to escape their family legacy: Alice's grandmother is a famous author, who wrote a book of dark fairy tales set in a mythical world called the Hinterland. Will it deliver what you want like a golden box full of perfect snowmelt from atop the highest mountain? Or will you open the box to discover the cut-out heart of a poor maiden who never had a fair shot?Īlice has spent her whole life on the run with her mother, almost as if something terrible is chasing them.

It's a writer problem: now and then, a book comes along with a premise so delicious that you wish you'd thought of it. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Hazel Wood Author Melissa Albert

Fallen Angels by Deborah McClatchey