Saturday, December 23, 2017

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

She's spent her whole life moving with her mother.  They don't stay anywhere very long.  They lived in whatever they could afford or their car.  Her schooling is intermittent.  And she's not sure where the danger is but her mother does.  So they keep moving...

Flatiron Books and Net Galley allowed me to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published January 30th.

Alice knows she has a grandmother but she's never seen her.  When she dies, she thinks they may have inherited the house and the property but her mother has no desire to claim it.  So Alice goes on with life and school.  She meets a boy she grows fond of.  He's rich, she's poor but it seems to make no difference.  But when Alice comes home from school and finds her mother gone with no note and her stepfather facing her with a gun, life as she knows it comes to an end.  Her mother is missing, her stepfather throws her out, and she and her friend agree to find her mother.  She's going back to Hazel Wood.  The only problem is that no one knows how to find it...

This is an odd little story where the fairy tale world and our world are joined together by a bridge.  The problem is that Alice doesn't realize she's the bridge, so her world gets real strange.  She has strangers after her.  Strangers that her grandmother wrote about in her fairy tale book.  And then her friend betrays her.

It's an interesting read and you almost feel like you've fallen down Alice's rabbit hole but as the author twists the tale it turns out as well as it could.  This is a mix between fantasy and horror so be sure you're ready to read it.  It will keep your attention.

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