In the House in the Dark of the Woods

Book excerpt: A dark fairytale, full of witchcraft, where nothing is as it seems Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods. In this dark fairy tale, a young woman sets off to pick berries in the depths of the forest, but can't find her way home again. Or perhaps she has fled or abandoned her family. Or perhaps she's been kidnapped, and set loose to wander in the wilderness. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman who offers her help. Then everything changes. On a journey that will take her to the depths of the witch-haunted woods, through a deep well wet with the screams of men, and on a living ship made of human bones, our heroine may find that the evil she flees has been inside her all along. Laird Huntis an American writer and translator. He has written seven novels, including Neverhome, which was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection, an IndieNext selection, winner of the Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine and The Bridge prize, and a finalist for the Prix Femina Étranger. His In the House in the Dark of the Woods is also available from Pushkin Press. A resident of Boulder, CO, he is on the faculty in the creative writing PhD program at the University of Denver.