I wasn’t really a fan of The Woods.
I found the plot interesting but there’s a little bit too much going on and I wasn’t able to understand what was going on until around 60% of the way through which is a little insane!
Characters are well written and I could picture them well in my mind but overall this just wasn’t my cup of tea.

This was one of those strangely compelling reads that unsettled from the off. Tess is haunted by memories of her sister. She is convinced the death was no accident, and her fear of the woods surrounding her old family home prevents her from visiting.
Details are slow to come by. Tess is shown to be struggling with her mental health from the outset, and we’re never quite sure what she recalls accurately and what is deliberately being concealed.
When she is given the news that her stepmother is close to death Tess knows she should visit. But her fear of what she remembers is a huge barrier. What we do know is her family is not a cohesive unit. She has had a problematic relationship with her stepbrothers for years, and her reluctance to look into what happened definitely makes us wonder what she’s hiding.
At its heart this was a story of complex relationships. There are numerous secrets and it’s only as we unravel them all that we can establish exactly what happened all those years ago when two girls went into the woods and only one came out.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this in exchange for my thoughts.

I started The Woods meaning to just see how it might shape up but then it seemed I’d barely taken a breath and I was done. Utterly addictive, totally compelling and beautifully plotted throughout.

The unreliable narrator trope has been popular for a while to differing standards – in Tess we have a classic example of how to do it really really well- she is unreliable and knows it- yet she is determined to uncover the truth. But is it a truth she can live with?

The group dynamic of fractured and reformed family is intensely involving, set during a Summer when a killer is on the loose. In present day the group return home to sit at the deathbed of one of their own- but old rivalries and half remembered events set up a collision course of repercussions..

It really is an excellent psychological thriller, atmospheric and disturbing both in character and event and the ending is perfectly done. Wonderful.

Highly Recommended .