‘The deeper you go, the darker your intent’
[ About the Book ]
“How far would you go to get out?”
This is the question three unlikely friends living in a dead-end town in America ask each other. The answer would come to haunt them.The narrator is a writer in his late 30s, eking out a living as a college lecturer. Samantha Pierce, a woman he hasn’t seen in twenty years, re-enters his life and tells him that she is being blackmailed – because of something they did twenty years before in the Black Wood.
A cat and mouse game ensues as they try to find out the identity of their blackmailer, while the narrator recalls the events of the summer they graduated High School – the summer that led to the fateful night in the Black Wood when their question was answered, and they did something that would change their lives forever.
[ My Review ]
Black Wood is the new release from Irish writer Derek Flynn. Just published on 22nd March, it is a thriller that questions how far we are prepared to go to achieve our hopes and dreams.
The tale is told through the narrator, a man in his 30s. Originally from small town America, he is now living in New York, teaching in a local college. He unexpectedly receives a call from a old school friend, a girl he had always had a crush on, Samantha. She is terrified and is looking for his help. He had lost contact with his high school acquaintances many years previously after an incident that impacted his life, and others, for years to come. Now Samantha is claiming that she is being blackmailed and needs his help, urgently, to uncover the source of this threat. Samantha is frightened. She has always known this moment would come but why now? What does this person want?
Surviving high school is a typical teenage experience for many kids but twenty years previously, something bad happened in a place known locally as the Black Wood.
‘That wasn’t it’s real name, but that’s what everyone called it. Of course the trees weren’t black, not really. But when the sun was framed behind them, they looked like they were. Especially in the wintertime when they were bare and knotted, with the twisted bodies of old men. The Black Wood was an apt name – the deeper you went, the darker your intent‘
The Black Wood was a place where the kids hung out, drinking, taking drugs, seeing ‘how far’ they could go, but for Samantha and our narrator it holds some very twisted memories. Now a shopping mall, the woods are long gone, but the memories remain. As the hunt for the blackmailer continues, snippets of their past is revealed and we get to fit the pieces together and unravel the complex threads….
What did happen that fateful night in the Black Wood?
Black Wood is an engaging tale filled with dark, sinister undertones and secrecy. Packed with deceptions and lies, it takes the reader on a tense and suspenseful journey as the truth is slowly revealed.
[ Bio ]
Derek Flynn is an Irish writer and musician with a Masters in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin. BLACK WOOD is his third novel.
His previous books BROKEN FALLS and THE DEAD GIRLS have been a big hit with readers – THE DEAD GIRLS featured on a number of book blogger’s “Best of 2018” lists and came in at number 11 in the Rick O’ Shea Book Club poll of the “Best Irish Books of 2018”.
He is also a regular contributor to Writing.ie, where he writes his “Songbook” column.
Like most writers, he is fuelled solely by caffeine and self-doubt.
Twitter ~ @DerekFlynn03
Website ~ https://derekflynn.wordpress.com/
