Bride-to-be Chloe has found the perfect setting for her wedding in the rustic church called Small Angels, but a presence stirring in the bordering woods may put an end to her places – and her life.
Sometimes you just have to stay out of the forest. And tell your out of town bride that the church she wants to get married in might be haunted.
This book is a bit back to the basics as far as folk horror is concerned – creepy forests and ancient evils which must be appeased. It’s certainly atmospheric though, which goes a long way toward selling the way people are simultaneously fearful of and drawn to the Mockbeggar Wood. I enjoyed the rotating narration between Chloe, Kate, and Lucia which gets into different aspects of the haunted woods and the willfully ignorant stance of the villagers, which naturally comes back to bite everyone.
However, there’s nothing in particular in the characters or the plot to really set it apart from most other books with similar premises – I knew pretty much all throughout even the way that the story would end. The lack of communication between characters, which is to some extent I guess is supposed to show how the policy of silence hurts everyone, is carried so far as to feel just contrived. I also thought the characters outside the three narrators were a bit thinly sketched.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
