The Night Country (Hazel Wood Series, 2)
Melissa Albert, 2020
Flatiron Books
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250246073
Summary
In The Night Country, Alice Proserpine dives back into a menacing, mesmerizing world of dark fairy tales and hidden doors of The Hazel Wood.
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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1984-85 (?)
• Raised—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Columbia College of Chicago
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, NY
Melissa Albert is the founding editor of the Barnes & Noble Teen Blog and the managing editor of BN.com. She has written for McSweeney’s, Time Out Chicago, MTV, and more. Melissa is from Illinois and lives in Brooklyn. The Hazel Wood (2018) is her first novel; Night Country (2020) is its sequel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
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.
Guardian
A lush and enchanting tale. Albert effortlessly draws on a wide range of literary references and builds a world where magic really does emerge from pages and where books are not just figurative but literal doors. Dreamy and disturbing in equal measure, it’s the perfect antidote to a grey winter’s day.
Irish Times
(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) 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
This follow-up to the astonishing The Hazel Wood (2018) displays the same lush prose, dizzying imagination, and macabre sensibilities…. Alternating… plots don’t intersect until the surreal, shattering climax.… [A] necessary read for Hinterland fans (16-adult).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for NIGHT COUNTRY … and then take off on your own:
1. To what degree, if any, have either Alice or Ellery—or both—changed since their appearances in The Hazel Wood, this book's prequel. Are they different? If so how?
2. Do you find the city of New York a fitting milieu for the dark enchantment of this fantasy? Did you find the urban setting for the Alice chapters as mesmerizing as the Hinterland? How does the author depict the city to conform to her fairytale ethos.
3. Alice frequently questions her own humanity, her goodness. What do you think about her following observation regarding her soul?
To be honest, I don’t know if I’ve even got a soul. If a soul is what makes you human, then I probably don’t. Unless a soul is something you can grow, like, after the fact. And I don’t think it is. So. No Soul.
4. Alice believes that, despite her yearning, she'll never quite achieve normalcy. She says she is doomed by "the loneliness of singularity." How so? How does she differ from the "junk drawer of ex-Story oddballs" in the novel? What do they hope for and why?
5. Discuss Alice's transformation toward the end of the book. How does she gain control of her life?
5. Ellery is tasked with his own project. Talk about role in this dark tale.
6. How does Night Country compare with The Hazel Wood? Do you prefer one over the other? Does the sequel fulfil the
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)