In Melissa Albert's darkly fantastical novel 'The Hazel Wood,' Alice, a seventeen-year-old girl, has been shadowed by ceaseless misfortune, never settling as she and her mother flee from a relentless string of bad luck. The death of Alice's grandmother, the enigmatic author of a cult dark fairy tale collection, marks the turn from the odd to the ominous. Upon her passing, Alice's mother is abducted by a sinister figure claiming to emerge from the Hinterland—the supernatural realm where her grandmother's tales unfurl. Left with a dire warning to avoid the Hazel Wood, her grandmother's mysterious estate, Alice is drawn into an adventure as vast and unpredictable as the stories that spawned it. Together with Ellery Finch, a superfan of her grandmother's works, Alice journeys to the Hazel Wood and beyond, delving into a world where her own narrative takes a twisted turn towards the fantastic and the fearsome.