A New York Times bestseller
“A charming, mysterious fable that unpacks what it means to be a story and whether we are all simply the stories we hear and tell.” —Cassandra Clare, author of the Mortal Instruments series
“What Albert renders on the page is audacious: with resounding success, she keeps a firm grip on her characters and their stories, and her prose weaves a magic of its own, animating the ever-expanding fantastical premise through lyrical language, striking metaphor, and a mastery of tone that forces readers to feel the magic along with the underlying emotional stakes.” —Booklist, starred review
“This fairy tale noir adventure blends romance and mystery with plenty of action...a must-read for fans of portal fantasies, mysteries, and readers who prefer their magic with bloody sharp edges.” —School Library Journal, starred review
“Albert’s legion of fans will relish her return to the bloody, terrifying, seductive world of her debut and the inventive brilliance of her storytelling.” —The Guardian
“Rife with long-forgotten ghosts, unforgettable tales of fancy, and even a touch of romance, Albert shines in her sophomore novel, pulling the reader once more into the haunting depths of the Hinterland, where Stories rule, whether they know it or not.” —Paperback Paris
Praise for The Hazel Wood
New York Times bestseller
Seven starred reviews
#1 Indie Next Pick
Junior Library Guild Selection
ALA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults List
Publishers Weekly Flying Start
“The Hazel Wood starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth, and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a good book. It’s a captivating debut.” —The New York Times Book Review, 2018 Notable Children’s Book
“An original and imaginative fairy tale: thrilling, fascinating, and poignant in equal measure.” —Entertainment Weekly, Best YA Book of the Year
“Insidiously beautiful, this is the opposite of escapist fantasy; it is a story about the imagination’s power to loose atrocity into the (mostly) law-abiding confines of the real.” —The Guardian, Best Children’s Book of the Year
“A darkly brilliant story of literary obsession, fairy-tale malignancy, and the measures a mother will take to spare her child.” —The Wall Street Journal, Best Children’s Book of the Year
“This extremely creepy, wondrously original and beautifully written book conjures up a dark, bloody netherworld of fairy tales and enchants and enthralls from the first sentence to the final page.” —The Buffalo News
The Night Country (Hazel Wood Series #2)
Narrated by Rebecca Soler
Melissa AlbertUnabridged — 10 hours, 23 minutes
The Night Country (Hazel Wood Series #2)
Narrated by Rebecca Soler
Melissa AlbertUnabridged — 10 hours, 23 minutes
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Overview
"In this sequel to THE HAZEL WOOD, narrator Rebecca Soler returns to breathe life into Alice, who has now escaped from the magical story-fueled world of the Hinterland...Soler's narration brims with Alice's anger and grit, her conflicting emotions spilling into every word." - AudioFile Magazine
"A must-read for fans of portal fantasies, mysteries, and readers who prefer their magic with bloody sharp edges."- Booklist, Starred Review
The highly anticipated sequel to Melissa Albert's beloved, New York Times bestselling debut The Hazel Wood!
In The Night Country, Alice Proserpine dives back into a menacing, mesmerizing world of dark fairy tales and hidden doors. Follow her and Ellery Finch as they learn The Hazel Wood was just the beginning, and that worlds die not with a whimper, but a bang.
With Finch's help, Alice escaped the Hinterland and her reclusive grandmother's dark legacy. Now she and the rest of the dregs of the fairy tale world have washed up in New York City, where Alice is trying to make a new, unmagical life. But something is stalking the Hinterland's survivors-and she suspects their deaths may have a darker purpose. Meanwhile, in the winking out world of the Hinterland, Finch seeks his own adventure, and-if he can find it-a way back home...
Praise for The Night Country:
“The Night Country is a new modern classic for thrill seekers young and old. A stunning sequel filled with wondrous delights and daring forays into the dark. Not to be missed!” - Kim Liggett, author of The Grace Year
Editorial Reviews
07/01/2020
Gr 9 Up—This dark fantasy sequel to The Hazel Wood finds Alice struggling in New York after having been rescued from the Hinterlands by her friend Finch. After someone tries to kill her on the subway, she realizes people from the Hinterlands are infiltrating the human world and murdering ex-Stories like her. Narrator Rebecca Soler returns to the series, voicing the multiple perspectives effortlessly. She reads Alice in the first person in an edgy, intense manner, while Finch tells his perspective in the third person as he wanders through different worlds. Soler gives the book a creepily atmospheric tone while reading the lyrical text with ease. While it is necessary to have finished The Hazel Wood to fully comprehend this sequel, those who have will not be disappointed. It is slow to start but explodes into a satisfying conclusion. Don't give this to your faint-of-heart listeners as violence and blood abound. VERDICT Lovers of dark fairy tales and The Hazel Wood will inhale this.—Julie Paladino, formerly with East Chapel Hill H.S., NC
11/15/2019
Gr 9 Up—It's been two years since Alice Proserpine fought her way out of the Hinterland and the fairy tale she inhabited there with help from Ellery Finch—the boy who chose to explore other worlds instead of returning with Alice to New York City. Being an ex-story isn't easy even in a city like New York, where strangeness already lurks on every corner. At first it seems like she might really be able to reinvent herself with a new, human life. But something is happening to the Hinterland survivors who made it out—something that's leaving them dead. While Alice tries to track down the culprit, Ellery has to try to find his own way out of the Hinterland before there's nothing left. Everyone knows how a fairy tale is supposed to end, but as Alice and Ellery search for answers and a way home, they soon realize that their tales are far from over and may not end happily. This sequel to The Hazel Wood is a suspenseful story of loss, hope, and searching. The fairy tale noir adventure blends romance and mystery with plenty of action as Alice struggles to stop a conspiracy with ramifications she can barely imagine. Alice's pragmatic first-person narration contrasts well with third-person chapters following Ellery as he tries to find his way home and, possibly, back to Alice. VERDICT A must-read for fans of portal fantasies, mysteries, and readers who prefer their magic with bloody sharp edges.—Emma Carbone, Brooklyn Public Library
In this sequel to THE HAZEL WOOD, narrator Rebecca Soler returns to breathe life into Alice, who has now escaped from the magical story-fueled world of the Hinterland. Back in New York, Alice is trying to make a normal life for herself among humans, but when something starts murdering refugees from the Hinterland, she’s once again drawn into its world of dark fairy tales. Soler’s narration brims with Alice’s anger and grit, her conflicting emotions spilling into every word. Soler’s deep, sometimes clipped voice perfectly captures a young woman on the edge of adulthood who is caught between two worlds. Though the plot is slow moving at times, Soler’s performance is captivating enough on its own to keep listeners engaged. L.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
2019-10-25
A dark fantasy sequel asks whether characters who flee their stories still have a chance for a happy ending.
Once upon a time she was Alice-Three-Times, a vengeful princess in a grim fairy-tale world. Now she's just Alice, trying to be human in New York City even as her escape triggers a mass exodus from the Hinterland. Ellery Finch, the schoolmate who helped free her, is growing weary of his travels through alternate dimensions, finding his thoughts turning back to home—and Alice. Meanwhile, someone is murdering ex-Stories in a very Alice-ish way….This follow-up to the astonishing TheHazel Wood (2018) displays the same lush prose, dizzying imagination, and macabre sensibilities (along with the grisly body count). Evocative details limn exotic fairylands and gritty New York as equally magical. Personalities are more approachable: blonde, white Alice is less rage-fueled than filled with confusion, frustration, and longing; brown-skinned Finch has grown beyond his vacillating geekiness to courage and confidence. Alternating between Alice's first-person narration and Finch's third-person perspective, the twin plots don't intersect until the surreal, shattering climax; but since the romantic yearning that drives both protagonists was scarcely hinted in the first book, it never becomes convincing here. Still, they make a formidable team.
Plot bobbles aside, a necessary read for Hinterland fans—and who isn't? (Fantasy. 16-adult)
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940172012426 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Macmillan Audio |
| Publication date: | 01/07/2020 |
| Series: | Hazel Wood Series , #2 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Age Range: | 12 - 17 Years |
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