The Woods — Stephen Leigh

“I was blown away by The Woods...The magic in this story is both beautiful and disturbing... Leigh's prose is elegant, his plotting tight, his character work outstanding.” -- David B. Coe, Crawford Award-winning fantasy authorThere is a certain magic growing up with life-long friends. The charmed existence became almost dream-like with two young boys growing up in a small neighborhood surrounded by an old, dense forest.But what happens when fantasies start becoming all too real? Grotesque and bloody rites give rise to a fey and magical girl who threatens to destroy the last remnants of the boys' idyllic childhood existence...whose mere presence may set the jealous boys at each other's throats.Hidden among the trees they know so well, Rob and Mark confront a grim, violent solution to their problems. This is a story of choices, a tale where the wild, romanticized dream-scape of youth intersects the gray world beyond, where fantasy collides and merges with reality.