Cooper and Finch live cut off from the world in a cabin with no electricity. They don’t go into town; they don’t rely on the outside world at all. No one else knows they’re out there except for Cooper’s best friend Jake and the neighbor Scotland, whom Cooper doesn’t wholly trust. But Finch is getting older, her curiosity about the world getting stronger. Cooper’s fragile castle of existence becomes threatened when Finch’s curiosity and a stranger in the woods lead the outside world to their door.
The theme for this year seems to be drawing me to survivalist stories and stories of people living off the grid, hidden from the world. In These Silent Woods, we don’t know why they live this way, and it comes to us leisurely. The genre is labeled mystery/thriller/suspense, and I feel it’s more mystery than anything else. It doesn’t hold the edge of your seat thrill ride, and it doesn’t make you hold your breath in suspense. But that shouldn’t diminish any feelings towards reading this because the story draws you in from the start, and Cunningham Grant hits you right in the feels. It’s an enjoyable read from start to finish. Thank you, St. Martin’s, for sending this along.
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These Silent Woods is available for preorder on Amazon, Bookshop, and B&N, it releases October 26th.
About the Book:
A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant’s These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense.
No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world.
For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that’s exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he’s got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness. But she’s starting to push back against the sheltered life Cooper has created for her—and he’s still haunted by the painful truth of what it took to get them there.
The only people who know they exist are a mysterious local hermit named Scotland, and Cooper’s old friend, Jake, who visits each winter to bring them food and supplies. But this year, Jake doesn’t show up, setting off an irreversible chain of events that reveals just how precarious their situation really is. Suddenly, the boundaries of their safe haven have blurred—and when a stranger wanders into their woods, Finch’s growing obsession with her could put them all in danger. After a shocking disappearance threatens to upend the only life Finch has ever known, Cooper is forced to decide whether to keep hiding—or finally face the sins of his past.
Vividly atmospheric and masterfully tense, These Silent Woods is a poignant story of survival, sacrifice, and how far a father will go when faced with losing it all.
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