Alright. Contemporary settings without a lot of fantastical or fantasy elements are definitely a hit or miss with me. Especially when the story revolve around mysteries and a sense of atmospheric tension, playing on the the psychological without having that much happening. It works better in films for me.

It's what happened here. The premice is enticing. But in the end, I found the story dragging too much, a bit boring, without enough complexity of the characters' psyche. They felt young, in their construction, with a very basic and straightforward journey, lots of trauma that didn't make me feel anything but annoyane. One of the character is supposedly queer, but she is made in an overly cliché way, without much depth and impact on her character. All of the characters had a sort of one dimension feel, something I couldn't ignore.

The pacing is slow, especially at the beginning. It gets better, but still, there isn't enough feel of life for me to care and want to go to the end. I skimmed to see how the resolution goes. Knowing made me quite glad to have skipped 30% of the story. Stories don't have to be original to be great, sometimes I want to the same flavour over and over again. But this felt like a familiar story in a not-interesting way.

I think this story will appeal to people who wants to read about a group of friends with an old trauma, grouping again a decade later and finding answer to some of their questions. Atmospheric in a delicate still way, at least for me.

This was my second foray into the works of Chuck Wendig. The first happened to be the much-lauded Book of Accidents.
I was hoping this would at least come close to that amazing book. It didn't just do that, it surpassed it and has possibly become one of my all-time favourites.
As always with my reviews, I try to give away as little of the plot as possible so I'll tread carefully with what I'm about to say. Yes, this is a horror novel, and yes it is kinda graphic on occasion but the one thing Chuck Wendig did exceptionally was highlight the human condition. We all have hangups, issues from our past that haunt us from time to time and this is delivered perfectly within this story.
There is a constant undercurrent of uneasiness, but one I'm sure the majority of us could relate to in some shape or form.
As always the writing is night on perfection, with beautifully drawn scenes and scenarios throughout which I could almost see in my mind's eye.

This was a book that will stick with me for a long time, if not forever. A book that resonates with me and I hope it will for you.

In summary, READ THIS!

This was a fantastic novel. The horror aspects had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Very, very cleverly written.

The things that really stuck with me though were the themes surrounding mental health and trauma. As someone of similar age range to the main characters (which was so refreshing to read by the way), I related to a lot of what they were or had gone through on a really personal level.

I think there were only a couple of grammatical mistakes I saw, and I would have LOVED more information on Eddie. He was in it such a short time but he's giving demon time-traveller vibes and I am here for it.

So grateful for the ARC copy and intend to buy when it's released!

I really enjoy the works of Chuck Wendig, his style and the horror genre really appeal to me. This one was no exception.
I’ve heard the real stories/ urban legends of people finding Staircases in the woods so I was extremely curious about this one. I don’t know if it was these stories that inspired the author, but I can see how they could have.
This is an eerie, atmospheric and immersive read. Had a real creepy feel to it.
It had the feeling of old school horror, with the build up of tension, and the forest felt like a character all of its own.
The pacing was good and flowed well, really wanted it to just keep going.
Can’t wait to read more from this author, I’d highly recommend this one.

3.5 Stars

Back in the 90s five best friends entered the woods but only four returned. What started as a fun filled camping getaway soon turned to horror when the teens discovered an ominous staircase amongst the trees and a member of the group simply vanished. Years later, the now adult group return to the woods in search of their missing friend and finally discover the awful truth of the staircase.

I loved the concept of this book, the claustrophobic atmosphere and the horror of being lost in an maze of terrifying possibilities made from your own personal trauma. There were a number of surprising twists that added interest to the story and I loved how this novel highlights the monstrous nature of human beings in a unique and thought-provoking way.

However, I felt that the story concentrated too much on the lead up to the staircase and unnecessary background information, unfortunately, leaving less of the book to focus on the finale. As a result, the ending felt rushed and I didn’t get the satisfying conclusion that I really hoped for, which sadly knocked my rating down a little. Nonetheless, this novel was an enjoyable and impactful horror read with unsettling scenes and very dark themes that I would recommend to anybody with a love for dark and creepy books. Available from the 29th of April 2025.

Content Warnings: Addiction, Alcohol & Drug Use, Body Horror, Gore, Cancer, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Death, Death of Child, Death of Parent, Pedophila, Sexual Assault, Sexual Violence, Suicide, Self-harm, Violence.

Thank you to Netgalley, Chuck Wendig and Publishers Random House UK & Cornerstone for the chance to read and review this ARC.

The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig is a spellbinding, atmospheric masterpiece that seamlessly blends supernatural horror with deep emotional resonance. The story centers on a mysterious staircase found in the heart of a dense, uncharted forest—a haunting anomaly that draws in a diverse cast of characters, each grappling with their own secrets and fears.

Wendig’s writing is vivid and immersive, bringing the eerie, almost sentient forest to life. The staircase itself is a chilling enigma, and its role in the unfolding mystery kept me utterly hooked. The plot is intricately woven, with every revelation hitting hard and the tension building steadily to an unforgettable climax.

What sets this book apart is its emotional depth. The characters are richly developed, their struggles and growth grounding the supernatural elements in raw human experience. Themes of loss, redemption, and the unknown are explored with nuance, making this story as thought-provoking as it is terrifying.

The Staircase in the Woods is a triumph of storytelling—a perfect blend of suspense, emotion, and imagination. For fans of literary horror and speculative fiction, this is an absolute must-read. Five stars, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time!

The premise to Chuck Wendig's The Staircase in the Woods shows a lot of promise.
Unfortunately, it never really delivers.
The set up for this book is sound: Decades after their friend disappeared after going up a mysterious set of stairs during a campout in the woods a group return to the fabled spot to find out what happened to him.
That mystery leads the group to take the stairs themselves, ending up in a twisted house of horrors that forces the group to face old truths and work together to escape the seemingly endless maze of rooms.
The book suffers from a sluggish story and feels overwritten taking far too long for anything to happen.
I wanted to love this one but it didn't really work for me.

A story of friendship, games, fear and loyalty. I was enjoying this book till about half way until I started to get scared and had to put the book down. Staircase in the woods reminds the reader that we all hold something back, we all have fears, hates and regrets. I enjoyed this book but I really want to know what happens after it finishes.
If you see a staircase in the woods…. Please don’t climb those steps.

While camping in the woods a group of friends discover a mysterious staircase. Where does it go? They don't know, but one of them goes up it and disappears. Years later they're brought back together when another staircase is discovered. With more than a bit of manipulation they head back out to the woods and up the staircase to find their friend or at least discover what happened to him. The narrative is split between both trips into the woods showing what happened to the survivors of the original camping trip and how the group ultimately fractured and the myriad horrors they find up the staircase on their second trip.

The Staircase in the Woods contains all Wendig's trademarks: graphic horror, the influence of Master of Horror Stephen King and a LGBTQ+ character who really doesn't need to be. This time it's Lore 'A queer woman who is', by her own definition, 'genderfluid, pansexual, aromantic...' but it's really just an excuse to include a hint of kinky lesbian sex. By halfway through her otherness has all but been forgotten and by book's end she's as straight as an arrow.

The Staircase in the Woods doesn't quite hit the highs of Wendig's previous offering, Black River Orchard, but it's well worth a read by horror fans.

Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Random House UK and the author for an advance copy.

It's been a whilst since I read a horror/thriller, and this one scratched the itch.

I didn't particularly love the style of how this was structured and written and I found the time jumps jarring in places.

That said, I wasn't completely enticed into the story and finished the second 50 percent of the book in one sitting. Its certainly a page turner.

The book was creepy and there were plenty of shock moments. The entire vibe of the book was very similar to IT by Mr King.

I will certainly read more Chuck Wendig

Chuck Wendig’s The Staircase in the Woods is an eerie tale of friendship, loss, and the haunting pull of the past.
The story begins with five teenagers escaping the pressures of family and school for a night in the woods—a night of rebellion, solace, and shared companionship with the only people they feel truly understand them - a night that changes their lives forever. Drawn to a mysterious staircase in the forest, one of them vanishes, the staircase disappears, and the bond that once united them begins to unravel.

Years later, the group reunites and discovers the staircase has returned, pulling them back into a dark mystery they had tried their best to leave behind. As the story unfolds, their motivations and the true nature of their friendship are revealed. Wendig masterfully explores the fragility of human connections and the weight of regret, forcing the characters to confront uncomfortable truths. Although initially likeable, the characters reveal increasing layers of complexity as their pasts come to light. Their vulnerability lays bare their deep flaws, exposing them as raw, layered, and achingly human. This gradual shift unsettled me, making the tension all the more compelling. Will their bond survive the trials ahead, or will the darkness of their unvoiced history tear them apart for good?

Wendig weaves a tale that’s equal parts horror and psychological drama, guiding us through a maze of unsettling twists and entirely relatable self-recriminating reflections. The Staircase in the Woods is not just a story about losing what matters most—it’s about rediscovering so much more in the process.

In this story, you follow five high school friends who go camping one week-end. During their camping trip, they found a staircase in the middle of the woods. One of the friends, Matty, goes up the staircase and disappears. 20 years later, the four friends left meet again and find another staircase also in the middle of the woods. This time they all walk up to find what happened to Matty.

I have always been fascinated by staircases in the woods stories and have read many reddit threads about it. There's something very poetic, mysterious, eery and, often times creepy, about seeing those pictures of staircases in the middle of nowhere, giving the feeling they just appeared and could as easily disappear.

I loved the premise of the book&the back and forth between the present and the teenage years of our characters. You really get to dive deep into their pasts, the different dynamics between them and how the disappearance of Matty twenty years prior affected them, and still affect them to this day.

The way depression and anxiety was described in this book mainly through one of the character was very well made and relatable. The writing was great and the descriptions of the different rooms, the gruesome things taking place in them, were very vivid and fascinating.

The book lost me a bit because of all the repetitions. After a great beginning, I felt the pace slowed down significantly and I think some editing could have been made for the pace to pick up a bit more. Some of the dialogues between the characters also felt very repetitive and even though it was twenty years later and they were supposed to be adults, I felt their discussions and attitudes to be very juvenile.

Thanks to NetGalley, Chuck Wendig, Del Rey, and Random House Worlds for the advanced copy of this book!

Chuck Wendig has to be the writing equivalent of Robert Johnson, as I’m sure he did a deal with the devil to weave such magic with words. His soul in exchange for the ability to craft books such as The Staircase In The Woods.

This was an astonishing read. It’s been some time since I forewent doing ANYTHING other than squeezing in reading wherever I could. Don’t get me wrong, I read every single night, but found myself forgetting that series here, or going for a walk there, saving time on cooking dinner just so I could carve out time to read this book.

The Staircase in the Woods is, for me, as close to perfection in pages as possible.

We start with 5 mostly dysfunctional, outcast or plain weird teenagers that have bonded to such a degree they both are known as and are bound by “The Covenant”. They enter the woods one day, encounter a staircase in the woods, drink beer, take drugs, and only 4 of them return. Life blows up for them.

Many years of distance, resentment, fear and change later, the remaining friends return to the forest after a call from one of The Covenant – and all hell breaks loose. They may have changed but their destinies have been waiting, unchanged, for years.

Wendig has a way of building characters so beautifully and artfully that you not only are invested in them but feel as if you know them. His empathy for humans and their struggles is woven through this, and I’d wager that the man himself has been through some shizzle and has a few tales to tell. That lived experience puts flesh on bones.

The ease at which he dispenses dishes of horror, gives you glimpses of the gory and peels back layers of your worst nightmares at which to peep is genius and to my mind, puts him up there as the writer of the ages in this genre. He’s in a league of his own, but the effortlessness of the reading, the casual intelligence of it is a joy to behold.

This adventure – or misadventure – is beautiful, nostalgic, claustrophobic, sprawling, joyful, cunning, clever, horrible and a study of human nature and relationships all at once. It will stay with me for years to come in ways that The Talisman, Weaveworld, The agic Cottage, Christine and the like did – engrained within me and carried in my meat and guts. The bookscape will be missed and the story hangover is strong and makes it tough to start a new book.

I cannot recommend this The Staircase in the Woods enough. It’s an adventure you need to join, peeking through your fingers as you do, dreading each step and where it may lead you. Top marks, Mr Wendig – you’re a joy to read.

Thank you for letting me read this ARC.

Fantastic concept and I like Wendig's writing. I also love the child/ adult divide in storytelling and enjoy how different authors tackle it - horror being the perfect backdrop. Still there was a discinnect for me here and I think it was that I just didn't gel with the characters. Overall a great read but not my favourite of the author's works.

Since Chuck Wendig appeared on the horror scene, well over a decade ago, he has been incredibly prolific writing some terrific novels, novellas, contributed to big franchises such as Star Wars, edited anthologies, dabbled in children’s books and had a collection published. His recent fiction has been of a particularly high standard, Wanderers (2019) and The Book of Accidents (2021) are my favourites, with others such as Wayward (2022) and Black River Orchard (2023) also picking up a lot of praise.

Many of his novels from the last few years have been blessed with great hooks to such readers in, with Wanderers being a fine example, and his latest The Staircase in the Woods pulls the same trick. The concept is an intriguing one: a group of friends find a strange staircase in an isolated forest leading to who knows where and one of the group climbs it. The plot relies heavily, perhaps too heavily, on the well-used trope of adults returning to the location of a traumatic teenage incident to right a wrong. We have seen this storyline a thousand times and although The Staircase in the Woods is a solid enough read it brings nothing new to the party and is held back by a group of generally unlikable characters, none of which had me rooting for them.

The story moves between the narratives told twenty years apart and examines how the traumatic experience of Matty walking up the stairs never to be seen again has impacted their lives over the next couple of decades until Nick brings them all together again under false pretences of a reunion, when really he continues to feed him obsession to find Matty. To say anything much of what goes on in the adult section of the novel heads into spoiler territory, I knew little of it when I read the book, and Wendig throws plenty of surprises and curveballs with a story which is littered with clever concepts.

Even if I did not care too much for the characters he definitely had me on the hook for what the big reveals might me. This was one of those books where it would be easy for the ending to be disappointing, mainly because it was a tricky novel to finish, but I did find the manner in which things were brought together to be satisfying blending in elements of psychological thriller with horror and most certainly putting the characters through the ringer and different versions of personal hell. However, these adult sequences did become repetitive, the bickering annoying and their resentments annoying. On more than one occasion I did dream of a couple of them being bumped off (which was entirely possible) in a highly creative kill sequence. I might even have cheered.

In contrast, the sequences grounded in their teen reality were both strong and on occasion touching. Imagine having to return home and not be able to tell the truth about what happened to one of your best friends. To be ostracised by the whole town, as they were certain the four returnees had something to do with the disappearance. There was a particularly powerful scene a year after the incident where Matty’s family bury an empty coffin and all eyes are on the four friends who are bonded together by a friendship covenant, until the cracks begin to appear.

As adults, they’re scarred and impacted in different ways. Owen, trapped by trauma and OCD, works dead end jobs and is disconnected from everybody. Lor, is a successful game designer who sees to be angry with everybody, still carries guilt for betraying Owen years ago over an idea they jointly came up with but she used in her breakout game. Hamish, who has drastically transformed, now lives a normal, suburban life with kids but endlessly cheats on his wife. Meanwhile, Nick remains unchanged and will do anything to find Matty but needs help from his oldest friends.

Even if The Staircase in the Woods treads very familiar ground Chuck Wendig does a good job of putting a fresh coat of paint onto an intriguing psychological horror novel. 400 pages was probably too long a time to spend with characters who did nothing but bitch to each other, but it is still worth checking out, especially if you are a fan of his other fiction.

So, I’ve been a huge fan of Chuck Wendig’s for many years, and I may now be at a point where just his voice on the page means I’m just primed to enjoy what he writes. And so it was here, where I really enjoyed and stuck with this story, even though nothing and no one here is likeable.

Four friends reunite despite profound estrangement to relive and regret the supernatural disappearance of a fifth friend in their youth. As young adults, the five were a classic found family, extreme outsiders who found refuge from home and community in their little clique. But Matty, who would end up disappearing, was never a real fit with the others. Intelligent, popular, handsome and accomplished in every way, he was hiding from expectations, while the others lived lives where those were few and far between. His presence ends up being a crack in what would otherwise be a common bond of dysfunction, and it is into this crack that the horror elements flow, exposing the myth of found family as some unshakeable fix for the struggles we have with the wider social world. When his disappearance up a set of stairs in the woods finally destroys this fragile family, it proves to be only the beginning of how these people will go on to hurt each other in the name of found family.

The supernatural elements of the book are very chaotic, and the villainous entity they’re up against is really a kind of haphazard collection of threats and consequences. What’s far more interesting is the counter-IT (as in the Stephen King classic) theme going on here, where the bonds of youth are not the essential strengths we hold them up to be, and the traumas we think can be cured by the company of like-minded, similarly abused souls are only amplified by misery’s preferred company. Here, damaged people damage people and that remains the message from opening to ending. It subverts the trope, brings a greater and more personal edge to the horror and elevates what is otherwise another haunted house story to one where the living haunt the living and not the dead.

It’s hard to like, but compelling to read and I would definitely recommend it.

“It’s where home stops being where the heart is. Home is where the hurt is. Where the horror lives.”

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC! I think this might just be my book of the year. I have been FASCINATED by the staircase in the woods phenomenon ever since I got lost one dark night in a Reddit thread from a park ranger in America telling his stories of what he’s found in the heart of the woods. So when I saw this book, and from an author I already knew and loved, I knew that I HAD to read it!

This book was everything I hoped it would be and more. The plot was fast paced with a good mix of back story and enough going on to keep the story going. I didn’t want to put it down. Chuck Wendig has a talent for reaching into the darkest corners of humanity and airing their secrets for all to see and that’s definitely the case again here. The horror in this book stems from the evil in the actual world, which is scarier than any ghost or zombie story.

I also really appreciated the nod to The Book of Accidents with the mention of the boulder fields of Ramble Rocks Quarry. I just want more! What happened next? Are there more stairs to be found? The evidence of a good book is that I would happily read on. Definitely 5*, read this!

I have given this book a one star because this book was not for me
I thought I would as I don't have a favourite genre yet so I thought I would give this book ago
Maybe someone else would like it though

Omg this was brilliant, I had a feeling I would enjoy this but wow!

This book has creepy, intense and traumatic vibes, it tackles heavy topics very well and the friendship is something to be admired during this ordeal.

Literally couldn’t fault it except the ending because how could you leave me hanging like that? Book 2 immediately please!

This was the first book I have read by Chuck Wendig and the writing style is so detailed and atmospheric. The idea of the staircase in the woods was something I haven’t heard of before so I was excited to read the book. However I really struggled with the pacing of the book. There was a lot of dialogue that I felt was unnecessary and some of the flashbacks threw me off the story. There was also the use of slurs/insensitive language throughout which is something I find quite hard to read. My rating is based upon the concept of the staircase/haunted house and the detail within the imagery.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.