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The Willow By Your Side
The woods. Dreams and portents. Youth. Magic runs through all of them. But in the aftermath of war a young boy is twisted and tested trying to hold his family together.
As his sister recovers from a terrible assault by her father, she teaches him about the magic in the land, the tombs of ancient kings and the wishing lake, about the treacherous Red Cap and the places deep in the woods where the adults don’t go.
But when she disappears, the balance fails. Parents divided by their pain and all eyes in the village turn to the father, a man who brought his own nightmares back from the war. They search the woods, pushing deeper into the strange spaces where myths grow with the trees. But only the boy knows the secret paths they took, and the way to the lake where wishes come true.
A story of the potent and dark spaces of folklore, The Willow By Your Side is the best of British fantasy. Channelling Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood and Catriona Ward’s Rawblood, Haynes plunges deep into the landscape, peeling back the delicate rules of the British identity, and what we hide beneath it.
As his sister recovers from a terrible assault by her father, she teaches him about the magic in the land, the tombs of ancient kings and the wishing lake, about the treacherous Red Cap and the places deep in the woods where the adults don’t go.
But when she disappears, the balance fails. Parents divided by their pain and all eyes in the village turn to the father, a man who brought his own nightmares back from the war. They search the woods, pushing deeper into the strange spaces where myths grow with the trees. But only the boy knows the secret paths they took, and the way to the lake where wishes come true.
A story of the potent and dark spaces of folklore, The Willow By Your Side is the best of British fantasy. Channelling Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood and Catriona Ward’s Rawblood, Haynes plunges deep into the landscape, peeling back the delicate rules of the British identity, and what we hide beneath it.
- GenresFantasy
328 pages, Paperback
Published November 25, 2018
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60 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 30, 2018
Book Reviewed by Nia on www.whisperingstories.com
This book is comprised of two different stories wrapped around each other so tightly that the lines between them are a blur. On one side, a young boy is narrating the events of the day to his missing sister – his father returned from the war with what we can only imagine is PTSD, their family has a very different dynamic now he’s returned and they’re all trying to find a new balance around his mood swings and refusal to discuss anything about the experience of war.
On the other side, the boy and his sister go on adventures through the local woods and she tells him stories about the supernatural things that happen there, about the old king buried under the hill and other fairy tales.
It’s a perfect example of the unreliable narrator – are these things real or are they just something that a 12 year old believes in because he’s a child? The answer to that question isn’t answered quickly, so it drove me insane right up to the conclusion!
I’m personally not a fan of the first person unreliable narrator set up in general, so I got grumpy with the delayed gratification of it all, but the fact that I finished the book and was happy to let it lead me to the answers goes to show well written it is. The author has a wonderful writing style that not only brings a Gothic fairy tale atmosphere to life, but that of a struggling family trying to get their lives back on track after the war.
The part I found particularly insightful was the author showing us how the return of a soldier could impact an entire family rather than just the one person, that children can’t just be children when a parent brings their nightmares home with them after witnessing atrocities.
All in all, this is an exceptionally well written and suspenseful book!
This book is comprised of two different stories wrapped around each other so tightly that the lines between them are a blur. On one side, a young boy is narrating the events of the day to his missing sister – his father returned from the war with what we can only imagine is PTSD, their family has a very different dynamic now he’s returned and they’re all trying to find a new balance around his mood swings and refusal to discuss anything about the experience of war.
On the other side, the boy and his sister go on adventures through the local woods and she tells him stories about the supernatural things that happen there, about the old king buried under the hill and other fairy tales.
It’s a perfect example of the unreliable narrator – are these things real or are they just something that a 12 year old believes in because he’s a child? The answer to that question isn’t answered quickly, so it drove me insane right up to the conclusion!
I’m personally not a fan of the first person unreliable narrator set up in general, so I got grumpy with the delayed gratification of it all, but the fact that I finished the book and was happy to let it lead me to the answers goes to show well written it is. The author has a wonderful writing style that not only brings a Gothic fairy tale atmosphere to life, but that of a struggling family trying to get their lives back on track after the war.
The part I found particularly insightful was the author showing us how the return of a soldier could impact an entire family rather than just the one person, that children can’t just be children when a parent brings their nightmares home with them after witnessing atrocities.
All in all, this is an exceptionally well written and suspenseful book!
October 24, 2024
Oh. Oh *shit*.
That's dark.
That's dark.
February 20, 2019
I loved this book. The writing is superb and the pacing spot on. Haynes captures the internal angst and confusion of the young boy with subtlety and insight. The conflict between the war-scarred father and his ethereal, teenage daughter is at times tragic and abrasive.
Haynes manages to entwine two stories as tight as ivy on an oak tree and just as natural, that the transition between worlds, real or imagined, is seamless.
The Willow By Your Side tackles some big issues, PTSD, mental health, the break up of a family, and the coming of age of the book’s narrator, but never loses sight of the story.
I’m still not quite sure what happens, and I like that.
Haynes manages to entwine two stories as tight as ivy on an oak tree and just as natural, that the transition between worlds, real or imagined, is seamless.
The Willow By Your Side tackles some big issues, PTSD, mental health, the break up of a family, and the coming of age of the book’s narrator, but never loses sight of the story.
I’m still not quite sure what happens, and I like that.
December 22, 2018
A few years ago, I bought a boxed set of Susan Cooper's The Darkness Rising series, eager for the nostalgia of English children fighting evil, mythical forces in semi-allegory for real world conflicts. It was, sadly, a disappointing experience because, as an adult, the stories are frightfully simplistic in a way that they weren't to my spellbound childhood self.
The Willow By Your Side, however, is the perfect grown-up successor to that tradition. Atmospheric and creepy, the tale follows a young boy who is devoted to his troubled, tale-telling older sister as much as to his Great War veteran, PTSD-suffering father (his mother gets short shrift, but she clearly favors the older sister, so that's rather to be expected.) When his sister goes missing after a particularly fraught chapter in their family history, the boy goes into the nearby woods in search of her and enters a fantastical, hallucinatory world of monsters and history-made-almost-legend. Things get a bit muddled sometimes as we leap between past and present, reality and not-quite-surreality, but the boy's emotions are a steady throughline guiding us on his quest.
And it's hard because his emotions are so real and his family so loved yet so damaged that you absolutely understand why everything happens the way it does but you can't really root for anyone or even be really mad at anyone, much like in real life. The Willow By Your Side hit all my sweet spots: English children in a very English fantasy novel with a tinge of WWI and Roman legionnaires. If that's the kind of thing you like, too, then I can't recommend this novel highly enough.
The Willow By Your Side, however, is the perfect grown-up successor to that tradition. Atmospheric and creepy, the tale follows a young boy who is devoted to his troubled, tale-telling older sister as much as to his Great War veteran, PTSD-suffering father (his mother gets short shrift, but she clearly favors the older sister, so that's rather to be expected.) When his sister goes missing after a particularly fraught chapter in their family history, the boy goes into the nearby woods in search of her and enters a fantastical, hallucinatory world of monsters and history-made-almost-legend. Things get a bit muddled sometimes as we leap between past and present, reality and not-quite-surreality, but the boy's emotions are a steady throughline guiding us on his quest.
And it's hard because his emotions are so real and his family so loved yet so damaged that you absolutely understand why everything happens the way it does but you can't really root for anyone or even be really mad at anyone, much like in real life. The Willow By Your Side hit all my sweet spots: English children in a very English fantasy novel with a tinge of WWI and Roman legionnaires. If that's the kind of thing you like, too, then I can't recommend this novel highly enough.
May 29, 2021
This book is a perfect example of why we need to support independent authors and new writers.
A boy investigates the disappearance of his sister after she is severely injured by their father. As his search progresses, he delves deeper and deeper into the forest surrounding their home, and all the while that he hunts for his sister, something else is hunting him…
What begins as a simple disappearance mystery soon unfolds into a Chinese puzzle-box of a novel, a thriller evoking themes of family, the lies we tell ourselves and others, horror and honour and the unique survival guilt of war all wrapped up in Haynes’s beautiful use of language and sense of place. Highly recommended.
A boy investigates the disappearance of his sister after she is severely injured by their father. As his search progresses, he delves deeper and deeper into the forest surrounding their home, and all the while that he hunts for his sister, something else is hunting him…
What begins as a simple disappearance mystery soon unfolds into a Chinese puzzle-box of a novel, a thriller evoking themes of family, the lies we tell ourselves and others, horror and honour and the unique survival guilt of war all wrapped up in Haynes’s beautiful use of language and sense of place. Highly recommended.
January 21, 2019
I found this story gradually enfolded me and I really loved that feeling of being swirled further and further into its depths, like the little boy coming closer and closer to the heart of the woods. The characters were so nuanced and subtly drawn, I could have read more in their universe. The end was truly shocking, even though I normally read with a why-dunnit mindset, rather than who. This is a brilliant new arrival in the family of what I sometimes think of as 'dark-forest fantasy'. Looking forward to what this author does next.
January 31, 2019
Like Alan Garner's Boneland, The Willow By Your Side braids realistic violence and trauma into the folktale-influenced children's fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. But instead of the legacy of childhood heroics ruining the life of the adult, as in Garner's novel, here the real-world horror bleeds into and contaminates a boy's fantasies of woodland adventure. It's a powerful conceit that makes for an incredibly affecting and structurally brave and compelling novel.
April 17, 2019
Some good bits, but mostly dull filler. Would have been a better novella.
January 16, 2021
I found this book so confusing. It comes together at the end but it took too long to get interesting. Too slow and just not for me.
August 18, 2023
Unfortunately, the writing style just wasn't for me. I found this super boring.
November 13, 2023
As beautifully written as it is dark. A story of English myths and landscape, and the horrific aftermath of war. Melancholy, brutal and brilliant.
September 18, 2024
The style made it hard to get into, with it flicking between two stories, but occasionally pulling back together, with an unsatisfying ending!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews