What the Woods Keep

July 15, 2018
Hayden Holland, a white woman living in Brooklyn with her French-Senegalese best friend, Del Chauvet, finds out on her 18th birthday that she has inherited a house from her mother, Ella. Ella had a mysterious death: She disappeared into the woods of their hometown of Promise, Colorado, a decade ago, never to be seen or heard from since and was declared dead in absentia. Hayden and her father moved away soon after to New York, but problems followed them there. Hayden kept having nightmares and later had to be home-schooled, along with seeing a therapist, after a violent incident with another student at school. Her father, Thomas, lost tenure due in part to his obsession with theories too extreme for his university to support. Hayden visits the old house, along with Del, seeking answers to lingering questions and trying to make sense of the conditions her mother attached to the codicil to her will. Can she fulfill her mother's wishes while uncovering secrets so long withheld from her? Superfluous prose makes for a long read, although the ending, ironically, is rushed and anticlimactic. Inconsistent and inorganic character reactions mixed with all-too-convenient plot devices make suspension of disbelief difficult. With a plot that reads like an overstuffed gumbo recipe and heavy and obvious foreshadowing, this ambitious story spends too much time on exposition and not enough on character development. (Fantasy. 14-18)

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November 1, 2018
Grades 8-11 Hayden's mother is missing, her father has been relieved of tenure status, and Hayden herself has been in a bit of a downward spiral ever since. On her eighteenth birthday, Hayden finds out that she has inherited the family estate, and she and her roommate, Del, decide to go see what's what. Little does Hayden realize that her father's paranormal research and her mother's disappearance could have so much in common. As Hayden and Del work to uncover the secrets of her family history, they begin to realize things are much more complicated than they could have ever expected. Blending mythology and a contemporary story of family drama, de Becerra's debut novel is a narrative that will keep readers enthralled. Even with the arguably unnecessary romance element and the excessive telling over showing, the story itself will find an audience, particularly among those with a penchant for urban fantasy or modern mythology. Pulp fantasy readers will find this plenty satisfying.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2019
Hayden has tried to move on after her mom's disappearance ten years ago, even as bizarre events and secrets follow her. Now that she's eighteen, she's inherited her family estate in Colorado...with a few conditions, including trusting her blood but not the ravens. Attempting to reconcile science with myths, Hayden's journey, like the narrative style, is dramatic but not very substantive.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

August 2, 2018
Hayden Holland is different from most other teenagers. Her mother disappeared in weird circumstances, and her father moved them to the city, away from the small Colorado town of Promise where she had been born, and away from Shannon, her best friend and the boy next door. But trouble followed Hayden: on her 18th birthday, she receives a secret inheritance—her family’s home in Promise, bequeathed by her mother. With her friend Del, Hayden seeks answers to the childhood mysteries that have plagued her life, but things only become stranger—and more dangerous—for Hayden and everyone around her. What the Woods Keep is a speculative fiction novel for older teen readers, in a similar vein to Maggie Stiefvater’s 'Raven Cycle' books, with many dark fantasy tropes in play. Unfortunately, De Becerra does not have Stiefvater’s deft hand at character or storytelling. There are some interesting facets, particularly the scientific terminology that is cleverly unpacked at the start of many chapters. Sadly though, this can’t make up for a story that doesn’t completely make sense, with some inconsistent characterisation and issues with continuity in the text. There is a good idea at the heart of this novel, but De Becerra doesn’t quite pull it off.