The Hazel Wood

The majority of Alice's seventeen years have been spent travelling with her mother, always one step ahead of the strange misfortune that lurks around every corner. However, Alice finds out just how bad her luck can get when her grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult classic book of dark fairy tales, passes away alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood: her mother is kidnapped by someone claiming to be from the Hinterland, the terrible supernatural realm where her grandmother's stories are set. The only clue Alice has is the note her mother left behind, which reads, "Avoid the Hazel Wood."

Alice has always avoided the cultish admirers of her grandma. She is now forced to team up with her classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland aficionado who may have ulterior motives for wanting to support her. Alice has to go to the Hazel Wood in order to get her mother back, and then she has to go to the place where her grandmother's stories originated in order to maybe learn why her own narrative turned out so poorly.