The Night Country

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

An addictive thriller crossed with the darkest of fairytales that's guaranteed to keep you up all night . . .



Alice has fought hard for a normal life. Having escaped the Hinterland - the strange, pitch-dark fairy tale world she was born into - she has washed up in New York City, determined to build a new future for herself.

But when her fellow survivors start being brutally murdered, Alice must face the fact that the Hinterland cannot be so easily escaped, and that, from the shadows of her past, something - or someone - is coming for her . . .

THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED SEQUEL TO INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING NOVEL THE HAZEL WOOD


Praise for The Hazel Wood:

'Magical, mesmerising and inventive' Karen McManus, bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying



'Simultaneously enticing and fearsome... Insidiously beautiful' Guardian


'The Hazel Wood kept me up all night. I had every light burning and the covers pulled tight around me as i fell completely into the dark and beautiful world within its pages. Terrifying, magical, and surprisingly funny, it's one of the very best books I've read in years' Jennifer Niven, bestselling author of All the Bright Places


'This eerie debut YA novel puts such a terrifying twist on classic bedtime stories, you'll not sleep a wink' Heat Magazine

© Melissa Albert 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critics Review

  • 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
  • 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
  • Darker, bloodier and even stranger than THE HAZEL WOOD, THE NIGHT COUNTRY invites the wolf from the forest inside your home. A sinister jewel of a novel, like splitting a pomegranate and finding the inside filled with blood and rubies, every sentence of this book thrilled and chilled me to the bone.

    Melinda Salisbury, bestselling author of The Sin Eater's Daughter
  • A charming, mysterious fable that unpacks what it means to be a story and whether we are all simply the stories we hear and tell.

    Cassandra Clare, author of the Mortal Instruments series
  • 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
  • Melissa Albert deftly weaves her magic once again between our world and the fairy tale realm of the Hinterland. The Night Country is a new modern classic filled with wondrous delights and daring forays into the dark. Not to be missed!

    Kim Liggett, author of The Grace Year

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