Book Review and Giveaway: The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher

Pages: 369

Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Pub. Date: January 7, 2014

Source: Publisher for review

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Goodreads says, "Emily’s dad is accused of murdering a teenage girl. Emily is sure he is innocent, but what happened that night in the woods behind their house where she used to play as a child? Determined to find out, she seeks out Damon Hillary the enigmatic boyfriend of the murdered girl. He also knows these woods. Maybe they could help each other. But he’s got secrets of his own about games that are played in the dark.  A new psychological thriller from the award-winning and bestselling author of STOLEN and FLYAWAY."

Emily Shepherd lives in a military town and her father, a veteran, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.  One night Emily is looking out her window into the dark woods and sees her dad carrying what appears to be a dead animal out of the woods; however, upon closer inspection, she realizes that it's not a dead animal, but instead, a dead body.  It turns out that it's the corpse of Ashlee Parker, a popular girl from Emily's school.  Emily's father is arrested and on trial for murder.   To Emily's surprise, he has pleaded guilty.  Emily knows her dad is innocent though, because she has a strong suspicion that there were other people in the woods that night.  As it turns out, Ashlee's boyfriend, Damon, and his friends were in the woods that night and Damon wakes up hungover with no clue where Ashlee is or what happened to her.  Of course, Damon blames Emily's father for Ashlee's death, but Emily knows there is more to this than meets the eye.  Lucy Christopher's The Killing Woods is an edge of your seat psychological thriller that kept me flipping the pages late into the night.

I really felt for Emily in The Killing Woods. She was so sure of her father's innocence and in turn, it made her an outcast at school and in her neighborhood. She recognizes that her father suffers tremendously from PTSD, but she knows deep down that he didn't kill Ashlee. It was really interesting to figure out how Ashlee was going to prove his innocence and slowly she pieced the puzzle together.  I love when mysteries come together like that and Emily was the kind of character that I love rooting for.

The narration alternates between Emily and Damon, which I thought was done very well in The Killing Woods.  It was also very interesting to hear Damon's perspective on the events of the evening and to try and figure out what exactly he and his friend were doing in the woods that night.  Slowly, like Emily, the readers were able to piece together the puzzle and find out what "games" he and his friends play.

The setting was pretty fantastic in The Killing Woods. I don't normally like scary books, but I do enjoy psychological thrillers. The setting of the woods and the military town added to the novel's creepy factor. The woods became a character in itself and Christopher did a great job bringing it all to life and making the atmosphere extremely eerie. After reading The Killing Woods, I can now see why Christopher is an award winning author.

If mysteries and psychological thrillers are your thing, then I recommend The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher. Want to learn more? Then check out the book trailer or watch a video of Lucy Christopher reading chapter one.  

I am very excited to host a giveaway for two copies of the book to two lucky US readers. The deadline is January 31, 2014 and please refer to my giveaway rules. Good luck and thank you to Scholastic for allowing me to host the giveaway.

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