The Dark Between The Trees

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Thank you to Rebellion Publishing for accepting my eArc request on Netgalley for this book. As always this doesn’t affect the honesty of my review! Talon and Sosa are about to be drawn into an adventure which, like many others, is full of heroes and claws and teeth. What those legends rarely say is how much those claws can hurt. The Dark Between the Trees is fine. It’s enjoyable, especially when Barnett pulls you into their flow. Barnett plays extremely coy where ambiguity is concerned and while it works most of the time there are areas where it feels overplayed. The characters didn’t really do it for me, but they had the potential to be good shepherds for the reader. It’s a nice little tale if you are looking for some spooky lost in the forest story with a smattering of folk mythology. This novel had dual narrative which is one of my favourite narrative modes. The chapters alternate between an army in the 17th century who, battle weary, found themselves lost in the wood and a modern day academic who is looking into the disappearance of the army. I felt that this narration style provided some foreshadowing and explanation and I thought it was done so well! There were some parallels between the members of the different parties.

The pace of the book was impressive, although around the middle it seemed to slow down. But that was easily overcome, and the story advanced fast. A special mention goes to the end, extremely mature and fulfilling. The slight open-ended way of ending it was also a welcome move, making the story not give up its uncertain nature. The characters were great to follow around and study. It is truly pathetic how the fate of the dead ones turned out, or even of those trapped in the woods. The concept of time was something being hinted at quite early in my opinion, as I could tell the intersection from the moment both parties passed the charcoal pit. But even then it happened it an unexpected way, and was quite exciting to read. I also really liked Dr Alice Christopher’s monomania over uncovering the secrets of what happened to the soldiers that got lost in the wood, having dedicated her entire academic career to it. Our very own modern Captain Ahab! I feel like any academic can relate to her when it comes to struggling for funding their research. Whereas Nuria, a student at the end of her dissertation, was the character I could relate to more and ultimately felt the most for.

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What kind of research did you complete for the story? Did you get to do any interesting interviews? Make any special trips to the setting? Pas I stated, this is a character driven novel and this book isn't about the destination but the journey. Because the ending is ambiguous and things don't get resolved into a nicely wrapped bow, it may be off-putting to some. But I didn't mind at all. It leaves room for my imagination to wonder what has actually happened and what it means. I have grown up reading Satyajit Ray’s various horror stories, and reading Chander Pahar (Mountain of the Moon) by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay every few months. I have loved, since I was able to read, the thrill and rush of reading horror and adventure. This book reminded me of these works, after quite a long time. This was especially because both Chander Pahar and this novel take place in the forest, with the same sense of disorientation, doubt, an unknown but legendary animal chasing and killing comrades, and finally, the cave. It didn’t feel borrowed, but like two stones is the same alley. This book had managed to scare me off from late night reading, that’s how good it is. And it is honestly an honour to read it in May, because I know when it comes out during the Halloween season, it will fit right in.

Today, five women are headed into Moresby Wood to discover, once and for all, what happened to that unfortunate group of soldiers. Led by Dr Alice Christopher, an historian who has devoted her entire academic career to uncovering the secrets of Moresby Wood. Armed with metal detectors, GPS units, mobile phones and the most recent map of the area (which is nearly 50 years old), Dr Christopher's group enters the wood ready for anything. Hello again dear reader, it is October and spooky season is on 🎃. So how about a review for a surrealist gothic folk-thriller?? That sounds like a bit of a mouthful but broken down in other terms this is the kind of book that is 80% just supernatural vibes surrounding a very simple plot that will have you coming out of it more than a little confused but satisfied nonetheless. Well, I wrote a quite in-depth podcast on the early part of the civil wars, so I did do a fair bit of research on the period – although most of it predated me actually writing the novel. In some ways, the 2009 half of the book is a reflection of my early discovery that researching the 1640s is difficult and frustrating if you want to do it justice! What are you reading right now?

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The story could get very slow at times and while there's nothing wrong with this slow burn, I found myself hoping something exciting would actually happen when it never did. However, this wasn't a major issue in the book The Dark Between the Trees is folk horror of the most classic kind, refreshed for the new century.”— Esquire Overall, a great read for horror fans who love: stories set in the forest, a sense of mystery and exploration, fans of the Ritual or the Descent, and a clean horror that doesn't rely on discomfort or immorality to creep you out. I would recommend this to other horror fans. In 1643, a small group of parliamentarian soldiers escaped into Moresby wood after being ambushed by unseen soldiers. Only two of them are heard of again, while the other seventeen men are lost to history. Dr. Alice Christopher has been obsessed with this group since she learned about them. She has been waiting twenty years to get a chance to explore the Moresby Wood and trace the regiments’ steps and now she finally has it. Unfortunately, for Alice and the lost soldiers, Moresby wood has more secrets than one can shake all discarded branches in the wood at. But that won’t stop Alice, and the four other women she’s brought with her, from discovering truths that history has left in the mud. Equipped with as much survey equipment as they can carry, the women feel prepared for whatever myths the wood can throw their way. Not long after the women leave the outer edges of the forest do they begin to feel that they may have more trouble than they bargained for.

There are a lot of characters in this story, and at first I found this too much, that it made the story overwhelming and difficult to get to grips with. But something pushed me through these early struggles, and I'm glad they did, since with every new chapter, and every new detail, I became more and more invested in all of these characters. Their conflicts, both internal and relational, are so well written.Either way, I loved this book, and I think it deserves a cult following when it eventually releases later in the year. I hope it gets that cult following - I'll certainly be recommending it to people, especially those who will appreciate its slow burn, atmospheric sense of progression, and great cast of characters. The only areas I felt could be better were, first, the way the Moresbys spoke: English until the 15th century was quite different of how it is now, or even when Shakespeare wrote. And it was certainly nothing like the written language we read frequently. However, for the sake of modern readers, it is an understandable adjustment, although it could have been incorporated better. Even an inclusion of medieval French could fit, since French was at that time one of the most popular languages in Europe. Second, some of the sentences, conjoined by commas, felt a tad bit long.