The meeting of the two worlds-the modern world and New York City as we know it vs. I received this book in my February OwlCrate in which the theme was “Hidden Worlds” and it could not have been more fitting. That’s right, she heads straight for The Hazel Wood, where she is about to participate in a head on collision of the “real” world-the world she has always known-and the world in which her grandmother’s stories take place, in a supernatural and whimsical mashup of existences that is at times both fascinating and ominous. When Alice’s mother is kidnapped and she leaves behind a warning to stay away from The Hazel Wood, Alice does what any good rebellious teenage girl would do- the exact opposite of what her mother said. But Alice has never read the Tales from the Hinterland (even though she suspects she may be named after one of the characters contained within) and her mother has always tried to keep her from the stories and her grandmother.

Like many obscure and rare things, Tales from the Hinterland has developed somewhat of a cult following, discussed and dissected by bloggers and fans who are just as much interested in the woman who created it as the stories contained within. Althea was the author of a book of strange (and sometimes, in keeping with the true tradition of fairytales, gruesome) book of fairytales called Tales from the Hinterland. At the time the novel takes place, she and her mother have finally slowed down a little bit and are living in a posh apartment with her mother’s new husband and his teenage daughter, Audrey.īut Alice knows their new slow, somewhat stable lifestyle won’t last, and she’s right: when she receives word that her famous grandmother, Althea Proserpine, has passed away at her estate (called, of course, The Hazel Wood), her life gets turned on its head once more and the “bad things” are about to catch up to her again-and get much closer than ever before. Alice has spent most of her life moving frequently with her mother, seemingly always on the run from “bad things” or bad luck, even if she didn’t always totally understand what the bad things were. The Hazel Wood is a contemporary fantasy novel by Melissa Albert which centers on the main character of seventeen-year-old Alice.

Much like the main character of this book, actually. Instagram // back! And I’m back with a vengeance, because this review has been a long time coming and I have a lot to say, and some of it may come across a little…erm…let’s say “strong-willed”.

The hazel wood book