The Dark Between The Trees

An unforgettable, surrealist gothic folk-thriller with commercial crossover appeal from a brilliant new voice.1643: A small group of Parliamentarian soldiers are ambushed in an isolated part of Northern England. Their only hope for survival is to flee into the nearby Moresby Wood... unwise though that may seem. For Moresby Wood is known to be an unnatural place, the realm of witchcraft and shadows, where the devil is said to go walking by moonlight... Seventeen men enter the wood. Only two are ever seen again, and the stories they tell of what happened make no sense. Stories of shifting landscapes, of trees that appear and disappear at will... and of something else. Something dark. Something hungry. Today: five women are headed into Moresby Wood to discover, once and for all, what happened to that unfortunate group of soldiers. Led by Dr Alice Christopher, an historian who has devoted her entire academic career to uncovering the secrets of Moresby Wood. Armed with metal detectors, GPS units, mobile phones and the most recent map of the area (which is nearly 50 years old), Dr Christopher’s group enters the wood ready for anything. Or so they think...

Claire North, author of Ithaca

“Blimey, this was creepy as hell!”

MR Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts

“Haunting and heart-stopping. The Dark Between the Trees marks the arrival of a bold new voice in British horror.”

Adam Roberts, author of The This

“Superbly tense.”

Marianne Gordon, author of The Gilded Crown

“Fantastically written and darkly mesmerising.”

Simon Bestwick, author of Black Mountain

“An assured, masterful slice of folk-horror strangeness.”

Booklist

“Surreal and haunting.”

The FT

“An impressive debut.”

The Guardian

“Barnett’s grasp of ineffable oddness would make Algernon Blackwood proud.”

Esquire

“The Dark Between the Trees is folk horror of the most classic kind, refreshed for the new century.”

SFX

“An unsettling and compelling folk horror.”

Aurealis

“An ambitious exercise on timelines and genres.”

The Fantasy Hive

“This novel is uncomfortable, phantasmagorical”

FanFiAddict

“The perfect spooky and eerie read for anyone looking for a gothic folk story with incredible ambience.”

Runalong the Shelves

“A deeply enjoyable horror tale.”

The Guardian

“A memorable, spooky tale.”

LoveReading

“A head-rush horror novel for readers who relish things that go bump in the night.”

About the Author

Fiona Barnett lives in Edinburgh, but grew up by the New Forest with stories of Roundheads and Cavaliers, and ancient secrets in the heart of the woods. She has podcasted on the British Civil Wars, and her short fiction has appeared in Haunted Voices: An Anthology of Scottish Gothic Storytelling.

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