They Fear Not Men in the Woods
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
"McNeil surprises and thrills in this folklore-inspired hike through mountains of dread. Unlike her characters, readers won’t regret following her into the waiting trees." —Kiersten White, #1 New York Times-bestselling Author of Hide
"Drawing from Scandinavian folklore, McNeil excels at creating an immersive forest setting, where eerie silences and misty shadows explode into true terror."—Booklist
When Jen Monroe hears her father's remains have been found, she returns home to disprove his death, only to find the forests of rural Washington are hiding something ancient and dangerous…
Seven years ago, Jen Monroe left behind her hometown of Barrow, Washington after her father, a forest ranger passionate about protecting old trees from the aggressive logging business that runs their small town, vanished seemingly into thin air. She vowed never to return...until she gets a text from her estranged mother. Her father's remains have been found.
It seems impossible to Jen who has always believed her father is still alive, and she returns home, determined to find out what really happened. When her ex-boyfriend proposes a camping trip into the woods in her father's memory, it feels like the opportunity Jen had been hoping for: to find her father. To find the truth.
But what she finds lurking in the forest may be deeper, darker and deadlier than she could have ever imagined. And it has no intention of letting her leave.
Unsettling, tense, and atmospheric, this is a feminist suspense novel for those who have always known there’s something hungry waiting in the woods.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McNeil (Four Letter Word) squanders the promising premise of this disappointingly juvenile horror novel. Grad student Jen's forest ranger father went missing in the woods outside their hometown of Barrow, Wash., seven years before the start of the book. Now his remains have apparently been found and Jen returns to town ostensibly for the funeral but really in hopes of proving he's still alive. She gathers old friends for a hiking trip to his last-known whereabouts to seek answers. The locals seem to be hiding secrets and mysterious figures lurk among the trees. Unfortunately, the book has little interest in its own central mystery; its development is paper-thin and its resolution easily predictable. Meanwhile, most of the horror elements are crammed into a rushed finale that feels more slapstick than scary. Instead, the page count is eaten up by childish sniping between the cast as they relitigate their high school relationships. Jen's internal monologue is full of internalized misogyny (she thinks of her mother as a "lunch-shift stripper" for getting a manicure) and jarringly cruel cracks about the people around her, but the narrative doesn't really wrangle with these thornier aspects of her character. This hike through the woods turns into a slog.
