“I was eighteen years old, give or take a fairy-tale century, when I had my first kiss.”

From Melissa Albert’s Hazel Wood: The Night Country.

For most of her life, Alice was raised by a single mom (Ella) constantly on the run from their past and the legacy of Alice’s author grandmother (Althea Proserpine), it was only when she was a teenager did Alice find out that their traveling lifestyle was for a different reason than she imagined.  Alice was a character that was stolen out of a fairytale by Ella in order to save her from a terrible ending.  Alice’s friend, Ellery Finch, helped Alice truly break free of the Hinterland and she has since been trying to enjoy her new life while the Hinterland slowly dies.  While Alice has made friends with fellow ex-story Sophia, Alice’s various experiences of life in the real world are tainted by Daphne and several other dark ex-stories whose overwhelming desire to gain more power makes Alice uneasy.  While Alice has tried to keep her magic-less life separate from the Daphne-led ex-stories, a string of ex-story murders causes Daphne to drag Alice back into their tumultuous world.  As she struggles with how to respond to the growing danger around her, both past and present, Alice finds a magical letter in a book which sets her on a dangerous path to find the writer and the ex-story responsible for the murders before it’s too late.

Albert’s novel is the perfect blend between modern fiction and dark fairytales which makes it a captivating read.  With the help of the edge-of-your-seat mystery, 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.  While The Night Country looses something from the first book, it is still the perfect read for those interested in continuing in the twisting, horror-filled fairytale world.