These Silent Woods
A Novel
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4.2 • 308 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant's These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense.
No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world.
For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he's got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness. But she’s starting to push back against the sheltered life Cooper has created for her—and he’s still haunted by the painful truth of what it took to get them there.
The only people who know they exist are a mysterious local hermit named Scotland, and Cooper's old friend, Jake, who visits each winter to bring them food and supplies. But this year, Jake doesn't show up, setting off an irreversible chain of events that reveals just how precarious their situation really is. Suddenly, the boundaries of their safe haven have blurred—and when a stranger wanders into their woods, Finch’s growing obsession with her could put them all in danger. After a shocking disappearance threatens to upend the only life Finch has ever known, Cooper is forced to decide whether to keep hiding—or finally face the sins of his past.
Vividly atmospheric and masterfully tense, These Silent Woods is a poignant story of survival, sacrifice, and how far a father will go when faced with losing it all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cooper, an Army veteran struggling with PTSD and the narrator of this grim and evocative novel of suspense from Grant (Fallen Mountains), is raising his eight-year-old daughter, Finch, in a remote cabin in the Appalachian Mountains. Their only contact with the outside world is an annual visit from Jake, a fellow veteran who brings them provisions for the winter. When Jake fails to appear on the appointed day one December, Cooper is forced to venture into the outside world and confront the violence that has driven him into the wilderness. When his tenuous sanctuary is further threatened by Finch's growing fascination with a hiker who stumbles across them, tragedy ensues. Meanwhile, Cooper reflects on the brief happiness he enjoyed with his girlfriend Cindy, Finch's mother, before Cindy died in a car accident shortly after Finch was born. It eventually emerges that Cooper kidnapped Finch from Cindy's parents, who disapproved of him, and has been hiding from them since. Grant does a fine job of making Cooper sympathetic, despite his obvious faults. The beauty of the book's prose as well as its deeply felt message of redemption and hope will please many. Grant is a writer to watch.
Customer Reviews
Mindblowingly good!
Great book, kept me reading into the night. Definite must read.
Slow first 2/3.
The ending is great.
It was fine.
I heard from so many people that this was the best book they’d ever read, so maybe it was overhyped for me. It was fine. It was good. But I don’t even think it was great, let alone the best book I’ve read. The characters were likable and the storyline was interesting but it just seemed kind of anticlimactic and a little slow.