In this horror story set in colonial New England, a law-abiding Puritan woman goes missing. Or perhaps she has fled or abandoned her family. Or perhaps she’s been kidnapped, and set loose to wander in the dense woods of the north. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman in the forest. Then everything changes.

On a journey that will take her through dark woods full of almost-human wolves, through a deep well wet with the screams of men, and on a living ship made of human bones, our heroine may find that the evil she flees has been inside her all along. The eerie, disturbing story of one of our perennial fascinations–witchcraft in colonial America–In the House in the Dark of the Woods is a novel of psychological horror and suspense told in Laird Hunt’s characteristically lyrical prose style. It is the story of a bewitching, a betrayal, a master huntress and her quarry. It is a story of anger, of evil, of hatred and of redemption. It is the story of a haunting, a story that makes up the bedrock of American mythology, but told in a vivid way you will never forget.

Out October 2018

MY THOUGHTS:

I received this book in exchange for my honest review.

An atmospheric dream-like novel full of a sense of foreboding. Monsters, witches, shape-shifters and more to become immersed in.

Hunt definitely has a lyrical voice and is quite capable of pulling a reader into this dark place of the heart and soul.  A true literary horror story. The setting is perfectly set up and the character arcs develop and grow, twisting and turning toward goals that are both frightening and poetic.

I was not expecting this book to be so enjoyable.

I gave it: