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Monthly Archives: April 2025

The Staircase in the Woods: A Review

“On Friday, June 5th, 1998, five teenagers went into the woods surrounding Highchair Rocks in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Only four of them came out.” – Chuck Wendig, The Staircase in the Woods

So begins Wendig’s latest novel. That summer night, Owen, Hamish, Nick, Matty, and Lauren went camping. The Covenant, as they called themselves, was bound by solemn promises to protect each other from bullies, to collaborate on homework so none of them fell behind, and so on. That night in the woods, high atop the cliffs, they find something impossible. A staircase, spiraling upward with no remnants of other structure around, no indications of how it had gotten there, or why. When no obvious answers could be found, most of the group decided to leave it be and go back to their campsite. Something about the staircase continues to eat at Matty, though, and so he invokes the Covenant (despite being told that’s not how it works) to get everyone else to go back with him and see what awaits them at the top.

Reluctantly, the other four teens trail along only to watch in shock and horror as, at the final stair, Matty vanishes. There’s no sign of him again.

The days and weeks after are chaos as the four survivors struggle to process what happened and to come up with a cohesive lie to tell to the police about what happened to their missing friend. They face relentless questioning about where they last saw him, who they talked to, and where he could have gone. The only problem is, none of them really know where Matty went, and the staircase is gone too, eliminating the possibility of anyone following after him.

Now, decades have passed, and the four surviving members of The Covenant have done their best to move on with their lives until an email arrives from Nick. He’s dying. Cancer. He wants to get the old gang together one last time before he’s gone, so he offers to fly all of them out to see him. He even invokes The Covenant to ensure that, despite all of the myriad issues they’ve developed as they’ve aged, they’ll come. And so they do.

Upon arrival, they quickly realize that Nick wasn’t being entirely honest with them. Instead of a nice get-together, he leads them off into the woods where, against all sense, they find the staircase again. It’s not the same place, but they know, somehow, that it’s the same staircase. He urges them to climb with him. A chance, he says, to do the right thing. To go find Matty.

To bring him back.

And, in the name of The Covenant, they follow.

The Staircase in the Woods is a brilliant, dark piece of horror from Wendig in the vein of Stephen King’s It (friends coming back together again as adults to face the evil they couldn’t defeat in their youth). The members of The Covenant have fallen away from each other, and they’re going to confront more than just the mysteries that lie at the top of the staircase if they’re going to have any chance of making it out of the woods again. I love Wendig’s horror (see my recent review of Black River Orchard) and I’m certain that most of you will too.

The Staircase in the Woods is out today from Del Rey books. My utmost thanks to them and to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

Advocate: A Review

Aelis is back again! Daniel M. Ford returns to the world we first explored in The Warden and Necrobane, and damn if Advocate isn’t another stellar entry in the series. At the end of Necrobane, Warden Aelis de Lenti had been notified that Bardun Jacques, her mentor from her warden training days, was arrested for murder. Word came to the frontier town of Lone Pine that the Archmagister has requested Aelis return to the city of Lascenise to serve as his Advocate, a role supplemental to his lawyer, and a position that can only be filled by another Warden. She must help to search for information that can prove his innocence, or he will most likely be put to death.

Aelis is loathe to leave her post behind, even if she only intends for it to be temporary. There are many things in Lone Pine that require her near-constant attention, and the people there have finally come to fully trust in her presence and skill. She’s almost starting to think of her sheep-shit-scented tower as home. Decent progress for a rich socialite trained as a Necromancer, really. But Bardun Jacques is the man who is most responsible for Aelis’s success as a student at the Lyceum, so she begins to pack her things for the long journey. She reassures the people that she has come to love that she’ll be back as soon as she can, hopefully with more answers for one particular person, and a particularly difficult problem that’s been plaguing her since Necrobane.

Aelis’s trip with back south to Lascenise with fellow Warden Amadin is interrupted when their carriage is attacked. This attempt on her life helps Aelis to realize that there are far bigger things at stake than just the career of one old wizard. She’s going to have to choose her allies carefully if she’s going to succeed and survive. Being back on familiar ground can only serve as so much of an advantage when there’s a full-blown conspiracy of theft and assassination coming to light. Still, she’s grown a lot during her time at her station in Lone Pine, and a Warden with three schools of magic at her disposal is nothing to mess with, unless you have a great deal of power and influence to wield yourself.

Daniel M. Ford continues to be a powerhouse of a fantasy writer. As he delves into more of Aelis’s history (academic and otherwise), he showcases more of a spectacular magic school and its surrounds. The Lyceum is every bit as wondrous as you would want a magical college to be, complete with a library that rivals those found in The Name of the Wind and Shadow of the Torturer. His combat scenes are tight, well-choreographed, and intense, and his worldbuilding remains top-notch. I loved every page of Advocate, and I hope that you do as well.

Advocate hits store and library shelves on April 22nd. Get ready. And hope, like I do, that there’s more to come.

My utmost thanks as always to Netgalley and Tor for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.