When Barbara Van Laar is discovered missing from her summer camp bunk one morning in August 1975, it triggers a panicked, terrified search. Losing a camper is a horrific tragedy under any circumstances, but Barbara isn't just any camper: she's the daughter of the wealthy family who owns the camp—as well as the opulent nearby estate, and most of the land in sight. And this isn't the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared in this region. Barbara's older brother also went missing 16 years earlier, never to be found. How could this have happened yet again?
Intricate ... Transports readers so deeply into its richly peopled, ominous world that, for hours, everything else falls away ... Nuanced ... Chillingly astute about the invisible boundaries demarcating social class.
Extraordinary ... I was so thoroughly submerged in a rich fictional world, that for hours I barely came up for air ... Moore’s previous book...was a superb social novel about the opioid crisis in Philadelphia; The God of the Woods is something weirder and stranger and unforgettable.
Intricate and intriguing...cunning ... Hugely satisfying ... Surviving these woods, it seems, will entail unearthing deeply buried family secrets. Moore cleverly guides us through that tangle of trails, to a thrilling and unexpected conclusion.