REVIEW: The Hazel Wood

The Hazel Wood
Author: Melissa Albert

When Alice learns at 17 that her grandmother has died, she has no clue that the death will set off a strange sequence of events. Alice has spent her entire life running from place to place with her mother, never really knowing why. Her mother never answers questions about her grandmother, the estate called The Hazel Wood, or the strange, fairy tale book that made her grandmother famous. When her mother is kidnapped by dark creatures from The Hinterland, a mystical land that is the setting for her grandmother's book, Alice starts to unravel the dark secrets of her family and their past.

I loved this book! The story flows like a modern Grimm's Fairy Tale. Dark, fantastical, demented. One second I wanted Alice to find The Hazel Wood and discover the truth....and the next second I wished I could tell her to run in the opposite direction. The story sucked me in from the start and kept my complete attention from beginning to end. There were plenty of strange twists and turns in Alice's story. It's just a wonderful, darkly magical modern fairy tale.

I listened to the audio book version of this story. Narrated by Rebecca Soler, the audio is 10.5 hours long. Soler reads at a nice steady pace. I liked her voice and she was easily understandable. I have partial hearing loss but was easily able to hear and understand this audio book. All in all, a nice listening experience.

I was excited to learn that there will be a second book coming out in 2019, plus a collection of Tales from The Hinterland set to release in 2020! I will definitely be waiting in line to read both!