The Hazel Wood - The Hazel Wood (Paperback)
Melissa Albert (author)Published: 08/02/2018
Much more in tune with the gothic sensibility of Grimm than the wholesome sentimentality of Disney, The Hazel Wood posits links between the dark fairy tales of our protagonist’s grandmother and our own equally perilous world.
My mum and I lived like vagrants, staying with friends til our welcome ore through at the elbows, perching in precarious places, then moving on. We didn't have the luxury of being nostalgic. We didn't even have the chance to stand still. Until the year I turned seventeen and Althea died in the Hazel Wood.
Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice's life on the road, always a step ahead of the strange bad luck biting at their heels.
But when Alice's grandmother, the reclusive author of a book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate - the Hazel Wood - Alice learns how bad her luck can really get.
Her mother is stolen away - by a figure who claims to come from the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: STAY AWAY FROM THE HAZEL WOOD.
To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began . . .
Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
ISBN: 9780141388663
Number of pages: 400
Weight: 261 g
Dimensions: 197 x 128 x 24 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Insidiously beautiful, this is the opposite of escapist fantasy.' - The Guardian
'Part twisted fairytale, part psychological horror, Melissa Albert’s young adult debut is plum-pudding rich with allusions to Angela Carter and Lewis Carroll'. - The Observer
'The Hazel Wood kept me up all night. Terrifying, magical, and surprisingly funny, it's one of the very best books I've read in years.' - Jennifer Niven
'Thoroughly, creepily captivating, with surprises I never saw coming!' - Kristin Cashore, author of the Graceling Realm series
'This book will be your next obsession. Welcome to the Hazel Wood, where bad luck is a living thing, princesses are doomed, and every page contains a wondrously terrible adventure - it's not safe inside these pages, but once you enter, you may never want to leave.' - Stephanie Garber
'A beautiful, terrifying, astonishing and strange story that reads as though Angela Carter has been sucked into a Grimm fairy tale, this book is a wise and wonderful read for fairy tale fans.' - Robin Stevens, author of the Murder Most Unladylike series
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“Utterly bewitching!”
Wonderful storytelling from the start. This book is firmly rooted in fairytales. It vividly depicts a magical world, you are transported to the Hazel Wood. “A gust of wind blew the feathers off my arms in one great... More
“Dark, magical and captivating - this fairytale will keep you up at night”
Alice has spent her childhood moving from place to place with her mother. They always seem to running away from a string of bad luck, and Alice's life is full of odd happenings and reappearing strangers.
When...
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“"If you've spent your whole life running, how do you learn to stand still?"”
The Hazel Wood is one of those books that simply demands to be read; it’s intriguing, well-crafted and impossible to put down. Alice and her mom Ella are constantly moving around, trying to escape from the trouble... More
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