This worked because it made me worry more for her when she was in danger. Teenage love can have a supercharged intensity, but the way she was still hung up on him so many years later made her feel half-formed. I also thought Leonora’s obsession with Jamie made her a little too childish. It’s never good when the protagonist feels slow to catch on. I wish Leonora’s Tragic Unmentionable Secret had slipped out earlier, because by the time it was explained, this was less of a dramatic revelation about Leonora’s backstory, and more duh, obvs, Clare did it. This is more focused on the plot than the characters, but I did notice that Nina’s relationship felt developed and believable, even though we only see her girlfriend Jess for about a second.

Every odd thing that Leonora notices (footprints to the garage, Flo’s weird Clare-style clothes, misplaced phone, etc., etc.) comes back later. Whatever, I get it, she looks super guilty, can we get back to the secrets in the woods now? Instead, we kept flipping back to Nora in the hospital, trying to remember things and being questioned by increasingly suspicious police investigators. I didn’t love these - I thought they slowed down the hen night suspense and didn’t really provide more character development or more suspense in the investigation. Like in The Turn Of The Key, the story flash-forwards to Leonora in the hospital after the bachelorette weekend.

Naturally, they get snowed in right away and lose the landlines. Along with their old friend Nina, Clare’s creepily fawning new bestie, Flo, and some of Clare’s new friends, Leonora spends the weekend in a rural cabin. Leonora hasn’t seen Clare since high school and didn’t even know she was engaged, but when she’s invited to Clare’s bachelorette weekend, she feels obligated to show up. Like in The Hunting Party, several old school friends, who might not even like each other anymore, reunite for a weekend in an isolated cabin. But speed-read through the heavy-handed references to My Unspeakably Terrible Secret to get to the suspenseful, creepy page-turner inside.

I need to know a little bit more about a character to make me invested in her secrets. In A Dark, Dark Wood has a bit of a slow start, with too many references to Leonora’s Big Unmentionable Secret before the plot gets going or we learn much else about Leonora.

Book review in a dark dark wood