“My Mother was raised on fairy tales, but I was raised on highways.”

From Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood.

Alice and her mother (Ella) have spent their lives as modern day nomads; they stay in a place until their luck runs out, then they hit the road for another temporary home.  Ella’s mother Althea Proserpine is a famous, reclusive author of a one-hit-wonder book of dark fairy tales called Tales from the Hinterland.  Alice has never read the book and Ella refuses to speak of her childhood with her mother or their upstate mansion: the Hazel Wood.  Alice has often felt that she and her mother are running from something, but she’s never been able to figure out what exactly that is.  News of Althea’s death seems to place Ella at ease because she claims that the pair can finally stop running, but soon darkness find them again.  Ella is kidnapped and Alice is left alone with only a few confusing clues as to who took her and where she is.  The closer she gets to finding her mother, the more evident it becomes to Alice that the “fictional” characters of her grandmother’s book are real and responsible for Ella’s kidnapping.  Alice and her friend Finch (a major fan of Althea’s book) set off on a road trip to upstate New York in an effort to find the Hazel Wood, Alice’s mother, and the secret behind the dark fairytales that have come to life.

This novel is the perfect blend between modern fiction and dark fairytales to make it a captivating read.  With the help of the narration style, the story flies along to the very last page.  It is a captivating story, that takes all the attraction of childhood fairytale stories and adds in a grown-up sense of danger and darkness; The Hazel Wood is the perfect read for those interested in a twisting, slightly horror-filled fairytale.