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Blog Tour Review - Gothic by Philip Fracassi

Blog Tour Review - Gothic by Philip Fracassi On his 59th birthday, Tyson Parks—a famous, but struggling, horror writer—receives an antique desk from his partner, Sarah, in the hopes it will rekindle his creative juices. Perhaps inspire him to write another best-selling novel and prove his best years aren’t behind him. A continent away, a mysterious woman makes inquiries with her sources around the world, seeking the whereabouts of a certain artifact her family has been hunting for centuries. With the help of a New York City private detective, she finally finds what she’s been looking for. It’s in the home of Tyson Parks.- Meanwhile, as Tyson begins to use his new desk, he begins acting... strange. Violent. His writing more disturbing than anything he’s done before. But publishers are paying top dollar, convinced his new work will be a hit, and Tyson will do whatever it takes to protect his newfound success. Even if it means the destruction of the ones he loves. Even if it means his own...
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Review - The Hazel Wood

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice's life on the road, always a step ahead of the strange bad luck biting at their heels.
But when Alice's grandmother, the reclusive author of a book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate - the Hazel Wood - Alice learns how bad her luck can really get.
Her mother is stolen, by a figure who claims to come from the cruel supernatural world from her grandmother's stories.
Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: STAY AWAY FROM THE HAZEL WOOD.
To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began . . .

This book is dark, mesmerising and thoroughly unsettling.
I felt on edge the whole time I was reading it. The first half of it has that "something out of the corner of your eye" feel that really good scary stories have, that familiar world where there's just something off that you can't quite pin down.  But you keep going, on into the Hazel Wood, and the world starts to take on a dream like feel, hazy, and you're no longer sure what's happening and what's metaphor, what's real and what's just story. 
It's beautifully done. The pacing, the gradual unfolding of the plot, the stories within the story, the language of the writing, it all has incredible subtlety to it. 
The characters are superb too. I loved Ellery Finch, who always felt like he was vibrating with energy and potential. Alice's relationship with him was really interesting, and I liked the lack of any real romantic plot between them. Alice herself is a fascinating character, mostly defined by what we don't know and yet she felt real and complex.
I love fairy stories, and books about fairy stories, and I particularly like the darkness that is so often found just below the surface of these stories. That scary, thrilling side of stories is played out remarkably well in The Hazel Wood.
One of the most atmospheric books I've read in a long time.
I'm giving The Hazel Wood five moons.
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
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