What the Woods Took
Cover designed by Kerri Resnik and illustrated by Peter Strain
CONTENT WARNINGS
substance abuse
mentions of suicide
death/harm of a child
mentions of sexual assault/child sexual abuse
gore/violence
Yellowjackets meets Girl, Interrupted when a group of troubled teens in a wilderness therapy program find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters eager to take their place.
Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to two strange men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it quickly becomes clear this is a planned abduction—one that everyone but Devin signed up for. She’s shoved into a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of other equally confused teens. Two counselors inform them that they’ve been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. Devin and the others have driven themselves into destructive spirals to avoid dealing with their pasts, but if the campers can learn to change their ways—and survive fifty days hiking through the wilderness—they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.
Devin is immediately determined to escape. She’s also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every therapy exercise and lags behind on every trail. But there’s something strange about these woods—inhuman faces appear among the trees, visions of people who shouldn’t be there flash through the leaves—and when the campers wake up to find both of their counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded in the woods and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they’ll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods isn’t as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other—and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.
Atmospheric and sharp, What the Woods Took is a poignant story of transformation that explores the price of becoming someone—or something—new.
OUT 12.10.2024
GOODREADS | amazon | barnes & noble
