Wow! This was absolutely incredible. The spooky atmosphere of the woodland setting combined with the dark, haunting local folklore just really worked for me.

I loved the local folklore centered around the Birds that is revealed during the course of this book. Especially the differing opinions from the local residents on whether they believe the legends and stories about the old woods.

The main POVs were Bella, Eddie, Francesca, Owen, and Detective Inspector Walker. There are entries from a summer journal that recount events from 15 years ago. We also get a few chapters from the local fisherman early on in the book. Francesca’s POV was the most interesting, especially seeing how she treated the people around her and the new-age spiritualism aesthetic that she’s obsessed with.

The only aspect of this book that I did not enjoy was the large number of POVs and short chapters which could sometimes feel like “filler.” For example, there didn’t need to be so many chapters with the fisherman, especially early on in the book when the chapters on the other side were so much more interesting. The chapters of the summer journal were pretty boring, not to mention unrealistic for someone to write down word-for-word dialogue in the diary.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.