“He walks amongst the whispering trees
And this will ever be so
No help of ours could set him free
From the woods where roses grow”

Chloe and Sam are due to get married at St Michael and All Angels church, known in the village as Small Angels, and they’re both looking forward to sharing their special day with their family and friends, this is the village where Sam grew up, and Chloe wants to see it all. At the local pub, the Albatross, one of Sam’s childhood friends, Brian, starts to tell the crowd about the story of the Mockbeggar woods and the Gonne family. This is a story that all of the villagers are familiar with, it’s their history after all. Lucia, the youngest of the Gonne’s, tells us a lot of the story throughout the book, alternating with chapters told from Chloe and Kate’s (Sam’s sister) perspective. Lucia tells us the story of her family, of the bargain they had made to keep the village safe all these years. This is the story of Harry Child, a man murdered by his closest friend out of jealously, forever alone in the Mockbeggar woods, taking out his rage on anyone that’s happy.

“- your heart will feed my hungry dogs
And your eyes will feed my crow
And your blood will spill on the thirsty ground
In the woods where roses grow”

Lucia tells us how she was probably known as Lucia the bad, because she always struggled with the rules, she befriended Harry and spent time with him in Mockbeggar, something she should never have done. But she felt that they understand each other, better than anyone else. Harry saw her ugly side and he didn’t care about it, he still liked her anyway. The trouble with only having one close friend? They get jealous when someone else takes their attention away from you. And that’s what happened when Lucia saw Kate, she fell for her hard, and she started spending time with her and forgetting to spend time in Mockbeggar with Harry.

Chloe goes into Mockbeggar because she feels something is weird, and no one in town will talk to her about what happened in Mockbeggar, and to Harry Child. Chloe stumbles across the Rose House, Harry’s childhood home, and finds a big tree growing inside the house, and there are cooper coins hammered into the tree, trying to kill it. She gets them out of the tree so that it can come back to life, but what she doesn’t realise at that time is that the tree is Harry’s life force. She has finally set him free again after the Gonnes’ sisters tried to hard, and gave up so much, to make sure he couldn’t come back. That’s how they lost poor Elphine, she died taking an axe to the tree and making sure Harry was dead. That’s something poor Lucia feels the entire family blame her for, if it wasn’t for her making friends with Harry when she wasn’t supposed to, Elphine would still be alive and plaited her hair in that gentle way of hers.

Now that Harry is back to terrifying the town, and at full strength, he’s set his sights of Chloe, the happy bribe to be. After all, she had no right to get married in his church, no right to enter the woods he calls home, how dare she bring her happiness there. He sets out to terrorise her, and goes so far as to attack her, suddenly her mouth fills with soil and she’s choking and can’t breathe, she’s going to die, and then Harry stops. He let’s her live, but only for a little while longer. Chloe and Sam seek Kate’s help, afterall, she’s got the most experience with the Mockbeggar from her childhood spent with the Gonnes’ children. They devise a plan to get Chloe and Sam out of the village after the wedding, Harry seems to be weakest at noon, so on the day of their wedding they turn up and go through with the ceremony and try their hardest to pretend like nothing is wrong. But chaos soon erupts when Chloe and Sam try to flee, Harry’s there and he’s come to claim Chloe’s life.

So does everyone make it out alive? Will Kate and Lucia get their happy ever after? Or will Lucia have to honour the bargain she struck as a child, to stay with Harry forever as long as he leaves the village alone.

“But maybe one day things will change
And he’ll be free to go
And history will be laid to rest
In the woods where roses grow”


READ THIS BOOK. Pre order it, read it, scream about it. I love this book, it’s gripped me and it won’t let me go. I could not put it down. The descriptions in this book are phenomenal, the narration is BEAUTIFUL. You couldn’t have picked a better narrator for this one. The dual timeline is obviously a favourite of mine, and I do love a good book with multiple POVs. My next walk in the woods is sure to be a nervous one, afterall, the trees listen to all of our stories.

A gorgeous book full of gothic tales. Twisted pasts creep up and haunt the local village. No mater what anyone tries, things are not going well- the spirits are stirring and things are grim.