I desperately wanted to like this book as I loved The Leviathan but unfortunately I couldn’t get interested enough to read any more than the first third.

I was drawn to this due to its synopsis and gothic setting (gothic / historical literature is one of my favourite genres). Unfortunately this book fell flat for me.

A deliciously dark historical novel. The perfect mix of history, psychological thriller, and supernatural happenings. The writing and its descriptions makes this book a very visual read, bringing all the dark goings on to life!

I found this book rather disjointed and somewhat lacking in the anticipated gothic vibe. The main character Catherine was not compelling in any way. The most interesting parts were actually about the miners. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

Catherine Symonds is determined to find out what happened to her estranged sister Emily, she was employed as a governess in the distant Locksley Abbey and she finds the information given incomprehensible. Catherine has applied to be the replacement governess under false pretences in the hope of uncovering the cause of her sister's death. This is a dark tale of intrigue, mystery and supernatural stirrings. The gloomy atmosphere drips from the pages of this book.

So I’ve read Andrews’ debut novel The Leviathan last year and after reading the premise I immediately requested Puzzle Wood. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectations.

Firstly it takes about 20-30% of the book to get you engaged and I pushed through mostly because this was an ARC and I like to give them a good go even if I decide to DNF. I did finish this book but at some parts the dialogue / monologue was so boring I found myself skipping large sections of it even early on. I appreciated Andrews’ attempt to bring local mythology into the storyline but she executed it in such a dry way that it felt like reading a textbook.

The book was a strange mixture of interesting ‘who dunnit’ as Catherine tries to find out about her sister’s death but there was a subplot of ‘Chartists’ (miners who rebelled against the government in Newport) and we almost had a dual POV of country doctor Arthur who looks after the local mining population around the local area. The two storylines link up (kind of) at the end but reading Arthur’s POV and backstory was again, not very interesting when you just want to know what happened to Catherine’s sister.

Another thing I noticed was, early on the transition between Catherine / Arthur remembering a memory or even an event that happened earlier in the day was poorly executed. I had a number of moments reading the book where I had to reread paragraphs as suddenly the guests were entering the dining room again when we already had a large section of them eating dinner earlier … for it to be Catherine remembering how they entered the dining room an hour ago? This happened a few times and was so confusing to read, just chopping and changing between the present and a recent memory but not making it clear for the reader.

Overall it was an okay read, I didn’t enjoy it as much as her debut and my 2* rating is due to the book’s inability to keep me intrigued throughout. The ending had some good twists but at that point I was happy I was done with it.

(Note for ARC readers / the publisher - Another reviewer mentioned this but the Kindle PDF given out as an ARC is horribly formatted. I get this with ARC a lot so I’m used to it but this was another level. There were too many spelling mistakes to count, names of people or places not being capitalised and odd numbers and hyphens breaking up the text. This felt like it got no editing and was a rough draft as a result. Not a pleasant reading experience)

Having enjoyed a previous book by this author, I was looking forward to this one. The title and the blurb sounded really good ans historical fiction is one of my favourite genres. Unfortunately, this one wasn't for me and decided to DNF.

📚The Puzzle Wood by Rosie Andrews

Historical fiction is not something that I typically read. I tend to find it overdone and a bit of a struggle to get through. However I really enjoy the areas of history that Andrews focuses on. One of her talents as a writer is in being able to find areas of history that haven’t been focused on all that much and to interweave this with very region specific folklore that plays with superstition and trickery in the gothic tradition rather than fantasy.

Picking up the best of Jane Eyre here we see a woman come to the Welsh borders to investigate the death of her sister, a former governess in a house with a wife confined to her chambers. In amidst this is the legacy of the Chartist uprisings in the region and the young doctor compromised into spying for the choleric yet frightened Sir Rowland. In amidst this are strange happenings in the woods and a dark power that seems to reign over them.

Andrews manages to imbue a now seen as rather dull area of history with the political ferment of the time and to bring new life to it. The supernatural elements of the book are dealt with clever sleight of hand that keeps the psychological intensity and pacing of the book up with falling to firmly on either side. The denouement was a little confused, so many people were revealing their true natures and side plots that you struggled to get a sense of the jeopardy but overall this was a fun and intriguing read for a winter’s night.

Taking a governess job at Lockesley Abbey under false pretences, newly widowed Catherine is desperate to find out what happened to her estranged sister in the same role.

There is something sinister in the woods that surround the Abbey, including noises and lights at night. There are rumours of a monster in the mines.

Sir Rowland Bridewell, head of the family in his father’s absence, is a foreboding character with savagely trained dogs. His wife is never present, confined by illness. His daughter runs wild around the halls and his father’s ward is a sinister and cruel presence.

Combined with the complex forces at the abbey, something which gives Catherine terrible nightmares lurks in her past, just beyond the reach of memory.

Meanwhile, Arthur Sidstone takes over from his grandfather as Abbey doctor, making a pact to protect the wood that his grandfather is obsessed with from the grasp of the Bridewells.

When there is a death at the Abbey, Catherine turns to Arthur and to Ned – a miner and the housekeeper’s nephew – to help unravel the great web of lies and mystery.

A chilling and spooky novel with a clever ending.

What would you expect from a title like The Puzzle Wood? It seems to have come from a list of randomly generated titles: stick a pin in it. My overall impression was, not much puzzle, not much wood. Perhaps I was hoping for a Mythago Wood type mystical landscape; there is a bit of that, but it is buried deep. What it mostly feels like is a long-lost Daphne du Maurier novel.
We’re in coal mining country: Wales. The novel starts with correspondence concerning the death of a governess. The narrative proper begins with Catherine Symonds, the governess’s sister, en route to take up the position of governess in the same household. She’s hoping to uncover the truth about her sister Emily’s death. This opening scene is reminiscent of Jonathan Harker on his way to Castle Dracula: that vague sense of being conducted towards some kind of threat. An uncommunicative coachman, something in the woods. It’s tropes all the way down.
Meanwhile, a young doctor with secrets of his own is working (on his grandfather’s behalf) with landowner Sir Rowland in hopes of persuading him not to develop his land. Trying to curry favour, he agrees to investigate the operation of the local coal mine.
For me, this second plot thread was an awkward fit. On the one hand, we have a 19th century-set gothic novel: a big old house with a locked up wing, an unearthly child, unexplained death. On the other, the brutal mine overseer, pit ponies, and… Chartists?
Of course, the plot wheels turn and things fit together, kind of, but here’s the thing. It all felt too much like an early draft to me, with some polishing still required. The ARC itself said something to the effect of not being fully formatted. I did find it quite challenging to read, because the PDF I downloaded to my kindle did have rough formatting throughout. For example, there were arbitrary line breaks for page after page where you would read to the end of a line, then two words floating on their own, or two and a half words then another full line, then two words, and so on. Worse still, there were missing capital letters throughout, and every page or so a string something like — 0 - — 1 —, sometimes all together, but quite often — 0 mixed - — up 1 — within a sentence, or coinciding with one of those random line breaks. The best solution I could come up with in the end was to turn the kindle horizontally and then adjust the font size until those random line breaks more or less faded into the background.
All of which was a shame, because beyond all those distractions, this was quite an entertaining gothic horror, albeit something of a pastiche. It even finishes with “A Note on the Type”, which is my favourite book feature of all, and the shame of it is, the font in question was lost in the transfer to the e-reader, so that served as a final disappointment.
Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the ARC.

I was hesitant about reading this based on the few reviews I read, however I determined that I would form my own opinion. I am so glad I did.
Not being familiar with Ms Andrews' former books, I wanted to read with an open mind. I start by saying that the blurb does not adequately prepare the reader for the story and this may be the reason for poor reviews.
The wood is the key location for the story, the Mine and Abbey closely intertwined. Catherine arrives undercover posing as a governess in order to discover how her sister came to have died while at the Abbey. Critically, Catherine has very hazy recollections of her teenage years and how her sister Emily disappeared from her life.
The other key character is Arthur, the grandson of the local doctor who has returned from overseas to settle back in the area. He has his own memories to face which prove more hard to hide in this familiar place.
Overall this story requires patience and active reading, the plot is winding and complex but so rewarding. I finished it within days as the story was so absorbing. Ms Andrews writes with great skill and huge empathy for her characters and I encourage anyone interested in historical fiction/slightly gothic to invest in The Puzzle Wood. It is a very satisfying read. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC.

"The Puzzle Wood" is a historical mystery novel written by Rosie Andrews.

I was deeply fascinated by the premises of this book, the title and the beautiful cover. I would have enjoyed it, but unfortunately the unfolding did not convince me and drowned the whole thing out. Too bad, because I loved the setting a lot! An eerie, almost empty mansion filled with sinister creaks, insidious drafts, ominous shadows, and mysterious light plays? An isolated place surrounded by ancient dark woods? Help, I went into jujubes over the choice! In addition, I liked the vivid descriptions a lot, as well as the author's evocative prose. The problem is the general confusion that, in my opinion, hovers between the pages. The novel seemed to me chaotic, unnecessarily complicated, as if it didn't quite know where to aim. The characters did not convey much to me, coming across as superficial, which left me rather indifferent and made me lose interest in the events narrated.

All in all, I enjoyed the premises, the setting, and the prose, but unfortunately I didn't like the development!

Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the sound of this book- an intriguing storyline and historical fiction is my favourite genre, but unfortunately I decided not to continue after 40% as I found it confusing and I was not invested in trying to figure it all out. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book, but sadly not one for me.

I recently started reading "The Puzzle Wood" by Rosie Andrews with high hopes because it had an interesting cover, a good summary, and an appealing title. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the book as much as I thought I would, so I gave it two stars.

When I first heard about historical fiction, I was drawn in by the idea of a teacher going on a mysterious trip to Locksley Abbey in the Black Mountains. A mood of tension and expectation was made by the accounts of the creepy house and its few staff, the old woods nearby, and the scary dogs. But the story quickly lost its appeal as I tried to make sense of a confused background that didn't fit in with the main plot.

In a historical fiction setting, the present-day plot had some draw, but the complicated connection to the main character's sister's strange death in the woods confused me. Trying to combine stories, memories, and killings didn't work out well, and I had a hard time seeing how the past was connected to what was happening.

There were a few surprising turns that really sparked the story, even though Andrews' writing style is usually slow. These shocks piqued my interest for a moment and gave me a hint that things might get worse in the story. However, these exciting parts were not enough to save the reading experience as a whole.

When I think about Andrews's other work, I feel the same way: I was slowly drawn into the story, with a few moments of interest here and there. Unfortunately, "The Puzzle Wood" doesn't have the interesting parts that would make it a great book.

I was really attracted to "The Puzzle Wood" by Rosie Andrew - the cover, the description, the name... sadly this book didn't meet my expectations. I enjoyed the current narrative which sat nicely within the genre of historical fiction: governess wanted and will be residing in a remote location that is full of mystery. I also enjoyed the description of the journey to the house and the potential that the woods held. I was however greatly confused by the back story and how it linked with the current plot. There were a few enjoyable twists but sadly this isn't an outstanding read.

My review for this one feels very similar to her previous book.
It's a slow burn, takes a while to suck you right in.
However, with this book, there were a few surprises, and they made me sit up a little straighter, and almost rub my hands with glee that the action was hotting up.
Enjoyable.