The Staircase in the Woods

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
'A DELICIOUSLY SCARY TALE OF FRIENDSHIP AND COURAGE...' THE GUARDIAN 
'Unputdownable, with imagery that cuts like a knife - this is Chuck Wendig at the top of his game.' THOMAS OLDE HEUVELT, AUTHOR OF HEX AND DARKER DAYS 
 
'A searing, propulsive, dread-filled exploration of the horrors of knowing and being known.' KIERSTEN WHITE, NO. 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF HIDE 
 
__________THIS PLACE HATES YOU...Five high school friends, bonded by an oath to protect each other no matter what. 
 
On a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere 
 
One friend walks up – but never comes back down. 
 
Now twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared, and the friends return to find the lost boy – and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods… 
FROM THE MODERN HORROR SENSATION COMES A NEW BONE-CHILLING MASTERPIECE. 
 
 
__________ACSEND THE STAIRS AND FALL INTO A WORLD OF TERROR: 
'Chuck Wendig is one of my very favorite storytellers.' ERIN MORGENSTERN 
 
'Wendig's wheelhouse is knowing exactly how to pluck heartstrings and prey on fears at the same time' SADIE HARTMAN 
 
'Move over King, Chuck Wendig is the new voice of modern American horror' ADAM CHRISTOPHER

Chuck Wendig is the Frank Lloyd Wright of horror and here's his masterstroke of malaise. The Staircase in the Woods is a true blueprint for terror that stands alongside the likes of such classic habitats as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, Michael McDowell's The Elementals, and Stephen King's The Shining.

Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

Chuck Wendig weaves his magic once more, turning a lonely staircase in the woods into a searing, propulsive, dread-filled exploration of the horrors of knowing and being known. I’d follow him anywhere (fictionally, not literally, because I’m not setting foot on those stairs).

Kiersten White, No.1 New York Times bestselling author of Hide

A highly original twist on the archetypical reuniting of childhood friends, The Staircase in the Woods is more than just a deliciously nostalgic horror story. It’s a masterclass in character. As each of the people who inhabit these pages dwell through the labyrinth of guilt and grief and memory, they will also possess your mind, and you will fall in love with them because they are all too human. Unputdownable, with imagery that cuts like a knife - this is Chuck Wendig at the top of his game

Thomas Olde Heuvelt, author of HEX and Darker Days

Chuck Wendig has given us another stunner. The Staircase in the Woods is as mysterious, alluring, heartbreaking, ever-shifting, and unnervingly powerful as the nature of friendship itself.

Nat Cassidy, author of When the Wolf Comes Home and Mary

Heart-wrenching and anxiety-inducing. Like if the crew from King's IT were thrown into the chaotic hallways of Danielewski's House of Leaves, The Staircase in the Woods will become lodged in your mind, if you let it in.

Jenny Kiefer, author of This Wretched Valley

With The Staircase in the Woods, Chuck Wendig has crafted a very sinister take on the familiar urban legend. Highly original and deeply disturbing, this one will stick with you.

Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Reluctant Immortals and The Haunting of Velkwood

The Staircase in the Woods is delicious disorienting and deeply captivating. It will pull at the 
threads of your psyche in the best way until you feel like you just emerged from the most 
exquisite nightmare.

Alaina Urquhart, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of The Butcher Game

You'll read this book and be unseated, disoriented, and yes, scared. But if you read it as I read it, 
you'll come away with a searching portrait of four friends trying to find the things we all tend to 
lose as we grow older: faith, direction, hope, happiness, purpose. That's the heart of Chuck 
Wendig's work in these pages, and to read a book that illuminates such profound human truths is 
very rare indeed.

Nick Cutter, bestselling author of The Troop    125%

Chuck Wendig is the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers, The Book of Accidents, Wayward, and more than two dozen other books for adults and young adults. A finalist for the Astounding Award and an alumnus of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, he has also written for comics, games, film, and television. He's known for his popular blog, terribleminds, and books about writing such as Damn Fine Story. He lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with his family.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
A group of friends investigate the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents 
 
Five high school friends, bonded by an oath to protect each other no matter what. 
 
On a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere 
 
One friend walks up – but never comes back down. 
 
Now twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared, and the friends return to find the lost boy – and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods… 
 
FROM THE MODERN HORROR SENSATION COMES A NEW BONE-CHILLING MASTERPIECE.

Black River Orchard

A small town is transformed by dark magic when strange apple trees begin bearing fruit in this new masterpiece of horror from the bestselling author of Wanderers and The Book of Accidents. 
 
It's autumn in Harrow, but something is changing in the town besides the season. 
 
Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard grows a new sort of apple: strange and beautiful, with skin so red it's nearly black. 
 
Take a bite of one of these apples and you will you will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But soon your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing - and become darker. 
 
This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples . . . and what's the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful? 
 
But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. And a stranger has come to town, a stranger who knows Harrow's secrets. Because it's harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.

Chuck Wendig is one of my very favorite storytellers. His stories are so rich and vivid and layered they seem to live and breathe, they have teeth and they might bite. Black River Orchard is a deep, dark, luscious tale that creeps up on you and doesn't let go. Sharp and crisp and juicy like the most obvious of fruit metaphors. This is folklore for the modern age, visceral and familiar in ways that make it all the more terrifying.

Erin Morgenstern, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Starless Sea

Wendig's ensemble cast and rich atmosphere of collective decay bring to life a book that makes your skin crawl. Creepy and insidious to the core, Black River Orchard whets your appetite and then turns you inside-out.

Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth

There's a soul-unraveling blight leeching across the pages of Chuck Wendig's Black River Orchard, an irresistible kind of charming decay that traps the reader in this eerie orchard and renders them completely spellbound. This will undoubtedly be heralded as one of the finest horror novels of the 21st century.

Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

A gripping story of love and legacies gone rotten, deeply rooted in the landscape and as twisty and gnarled as an ancient apple tree. Be careful what you wish for: I devoured it down to the core.

T. Kingfisher, USA Today bestselling author of What Moves the Dead

Myth and magic, history and folklore, trauma, and temptation, it's all tangled together here and watered deeply with blood. Wendig has pulled off a fresh and unexpected horror feat, expertly drawing from the ancient, endless wells of our greatest fears.

Premee Mohamed, Nebula Award-winning author of Beneath the Rising

An epic saga that is at once propulsive horror novel and parable, thriller and cautionary tale, Black River Orchard is the immensely talented Chuck Wendig at his finest. Like the dark, red apples at the heart of this beautifully told, character rich, and utterly engrossing story, you'll take one bite and won't be able to stop yourself from devouring the rest.

Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six

The horror of Black River Orchard is the existence of an insidious, dormant catalyst for evil that exists inside of us. All that has to happen is for humankind to discover that one thing that will universally divide us all. Wendig's wheelhouse is knowing exactly how to pluck heartstrings and prey on fears at the same time; high stakes horror meets peak emotional investment means Total. Reader. Devastation.

Sadie Hartmann, author of 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered

Enchanting, exquisite and dark, Chuck Wendig masterfully weaves a new horrifying fairy tale in Black River Orchard.

Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award winner of Crime Scene.

An essential for horror readers-and buy it for new horror readers-it will convert them instantly. A well-written, compelling read.

V. Castro, author of The Haunting of Alejandra.

Wayward

The epic sequel to Chuck Wendig's apocalyptic literary masterpiece WANDERERS. 
 
HOW DO YOU SURVIVE THE END OF THE WORLD? 
 
Five years ago, a group of ordinary Americans fell under the grip of a strange new malady that caused them to sleepwalk across the country. They were followed on their quest by the shepherds: friends and family who gave up everything to protect them. 
 
Their destination, Ouray, became one of the last outposts of civilization, because the sleepwalking epidemic was only the first in a chain of events that led to the end of the world - and the birth of a new one. 
 
But the people of Ouray are not the only survivors, and their new world is fragile. Forces of cruelty and brutality are amassing under the leadership of self-proclaimed president Ed Creel. And in the very heart of Ouray, the most powerful survivor of all is plotting its own vision for the new world: Black Swan, the A.I. who imagined the apocalypse. 
 
Against these threats, they have only one hope: one another. Because the only way to survive the end of the world is together. 
 
'As great as Wanderers was, Wayward is better . . . Combines grim extrapolation, great characters, and hope.' Christopher Golden 
 
'Salient, masterful, this is an author at the top of his game.' Adam Christopher 
 
'IMAX-scale bleeding-edge techno-horror from a writer with a freshly sharpened scalpel.' Kirkus

The Book of Accidents

A family returns to their hometown - and to the dark past that haunts them still - in this masterpiece of literary horror by the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers

Wendig combines cosmic horror and human heroism with his continuing theme of the traumatic effect of abusive relationships handed down from father to son; this is a rich, rewarding tale.

This is a full-blooded rural haunted house chiller with something for everyone: ghosts, doppelgängers, numerology, parallel worlds, demons and more.

The dread, the scope, the pacing, the turns-I haven't felt all this so intensely since The Shining.

Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians

Move over King, Chuck Wendig is the new voice of modern American horror . . . a masterwork

Adam Christopher, author of Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town

Universally horrifying and viscerally intimate, Wendig brilliantly uses The Book of Accidents to explore a painful truth: in the end, we all haunt ourselves.

Kiersten White, New York Times bestselling author of And I Darken

What follows is a gruesome, compelling, bloody yarn complete with serial killer, mysterious landscape of shifting stones, abandoned mines and an interdimensional twist that turns the suspense up to 11 and beyond. Goodness prevails, but what a ride.

Unforgettable, terrifying dose of top-flight horror that hits on our most basic, core fears. The Book of Accidents chills you to the bone while still warming your heart.

Alex Segura, author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall and Miami Midnight

A propulsive thriller that is as funny as it is frightening, clever as it is uncanny, tender as it is terrifying.

Alma Katsu, author of Red Widow and The Deep

In the tradition of Stephen King's Dark Tower books, Wendig views the cosmic and terrifying through the lens of the domestic, anchoring his visions of the sublime in the grit of the familiar

John Langan, author of Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies

Sweeping yet intimate, multi-layered and big-hearted, this is a novel to sink deeply into

An excellent gripping tale that crosses the genres with aplomb.

'Move over King, Chuck Wendig is the new voice of modern American horror' Adam Christopher 
 
'A rich, rewarding tale' The Guardian 
____________________________________________________________________________ 
 
A family returns to their hometown - and to the dark past that haunts them still - in this masterpiece of literary horror by the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers 
 
When Nate's father dies, he leaves behind a final gift for his son: his childhood home. Married now, Nate decides to move in with his wife, Maddie, and their son, Oliver, seeking peace from the chaos of the city. 
 
But it doesn't take long before things get strange in the night and even stranger by day. 
 
Because Nate was a child being abused by his father, and has never told his family. Because Maddie was a little girl who saw something she shouldn't have. Because something sinister, something hungry, walks in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of this town in rural Pennsylvania... 
 
And now, what happened all those years ago is happening again, and this time, it is happening to Oliver. When he meets a strange boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic, he has no idea that what comes next will put his family at the heart of a battle of good versus evil. 
____________________________________________________________________________ 
 
'The dread, the scope, the pacing, the turns-I haven't felt all this so intensely since The Shining' - Stephen Graham Jones 
 
'Universally horrifying and viscerally intimate, Wendig brilliantly uses The Book of Accidents to explore a painful truth: in the end, we all haunt ourselves' - Kiersten White

Star Wars: Aftermath: Empire's End

The final book of Chuck Wendig’s New York Times bestselling trilogy.

Following Star Wars: Aftermath and Star Wars: Life Debt, Chuck Wendig delivers the exhilarating conclusion to the bestselling trilogy set in the years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

If you don’t read Empire’s End you will be missing out on Star Wars gold

The Sunday Times Bestseller 
 
Following Star Wars: Aftermath and Star Wars: Life Debt, Chuck Wendig delivers the exhilarating conclusion to the bestselling trilogy set in the years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. 
 
As the final showdown between the New Republic and the Empire draws near, all eyes turn to a once-isolated planet: Jakku. 
 
The Battle of Endor shattered the Empire, scattering its remaining forces across the galaxy. But the months following the Rebellion’s victory have not been easy. The fledgling New Republic has suffered a devastating attack from the Imperial remnant, forcing the new democracy to escalate their hunt for the hidden enemy. 
 
For her role in the deadly ambush, Grand Admiral Rae Sloane is the most wanted Imperial war criminal—and one-time rebel pilot Norra Wexley, back in service at Leia’s urgent request, is leading the hunt. But more than just loyalty to the New Republic drives Norra forward: her husband was turned into a murderous pawn in Sloane’s assassination plot, and now she wants vengeance as much as justice. 
 
But Sloane, too, is on a furious quest: pursuing the treacherous Gallius Rax to the barren planet Jakku. As the true mastermind behind the Empire’s devastating attack, Rax has led the Empire to its defining moment. The cunning strategist has gathered the powerful remnants of the Empire’s war machine, preparing to execute the late Emperor Palpatine’s final plan. As the Imperial fleet orbits Jakku, an armada of Republic fighters closes in to finish what began at Endor. Norra and her crew soar into the heart of an apocalyptic clash that will leave land and sky alike scorched. And the future of the galaxy will finally be decided.

Star Wars: Aftermath: Life Debt

Set between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, the never-before-told story that began with Star Wars: Aftermath continues in this thrilling novel, the second book of Chuck Wendig’sNew York Times bestselling trilogy.

‘an excellent read for Star Wars fans’

Star Wars Aftermath: Life Debt is a great addition to the growing body of work that forms the new Star Wars world, and is full of some delicious hints about the future of the franchise. Great fun.

A vivid experience, full of colour, smell and taste. Typically Star Wars… an intriguing read. A combination of diverse characters, landscapes and multiple plot twists/turns is sure to keep you entertained

Another highly enjoyable Star Wars tale – 9/10

The Emperor is dead, and the remnants of his former Empire are in retreat. As the New Republic fights to restore a lasting peace to the galaxy, some dare to imagine new beginnings and new destinies. For Han Solo, that means settling his last outstanding debt, by helping Chewbacca liberate the Wookiee’s homeworld of Kashyyyk. 
 
Meanwhile, Norra Wexley and her band of Imperial hunters pursue Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and the Empire’s remaining leadership across the galaxy. Even as more and more officers are brought to justice, Sloane continues to elude the New Republic, and Norra fears Sloane may be searching for a means to save the crumbling Empire from oblivion. But the hunt for Sloane is cut short when Norra receives an urgent request from Princess Leia Organa. The attempt to liberate Kashyyyk has carried Han Solo, Chewbacca, and a band of smugglers into an ambush—resulting in Chewie’s capture and Han’s disappearance. 
 
Breaking away from their official mission and racing toward Kashyyyk, Norra and her crew prepare for any challenge that stands between them and their missing comrades. But they can’t anticipate the true depth of the danger that awaits them—or the ruthlessness of the enemy drawing them into his crosshairs.

Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars: Aftermath

Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens 
 
The second Death Star has been destroyed, the Emperor killed, and Darth Vader struck down. Devastating blows against the Empire, and major victories for the Rebel Alliance. But the battle for freedom is far from over.

Wendig tackles what is quite possibly the trickiest novel to navigate since Heir to the Empire with confidence and precision, introducing new characters and concepts while retaining the jury-rigged, gung-ho swagger of the original trilogy. Roll on chapter 2.

Do yourself a favour, you don’t want to be suffering from Jedi fatigue come December, avoid any further trailers for the new film and read this instead. Wendig has achieved an accomplishment I thought nigh on impossible. He has written a novel that has left me actively salivating for the next Star Wars movie. Well played Mr Wendig, well played. Turns out, thirty two years later, I haven’t changed a bit; I am still completely in thrall to my childhood favourites. If The Force Awakens manages to capture the same sense of adventure that is on display here, then the future of Star Wars is in safe hands

highly readable, sharp continuation of the saga

Chuck has kept the spirit of the original Star Wars movies – that cheesiness and goofiness we all loved so much – but at the same time made sure there is enough realism and grittiness so that it appeals to the tastes of readers today. 10/10

It's clear from the start that Wendig really gets Star Wars, he manages to immerse the reader into that unique Star Wars feeling right from the start. The ambience is spot on. Aftermath is full of the strange creatures and dusty technology that helps to make up the Star Wars universe. He then populates this canvas with intriguing, lively, thoughtful characters that fit into the spaces seamlessly…The ending, when it comes is just superb and does what a book should, leave you wanting more - such as figuring out just who is really in charge of the remnants of the Empire. Star Wars Aftermath almost makes up for that sweeping canon reset, a few more like this and Disney will be completely forgiven. A wonderful Star Wars adventure by a gifted author. 5 *

Coupled with Wendig’s elegant prose, and you have a journey that is both breath-taking yet restrained, throwing you headlong into a story that reaches its crescendo at around the half-way point and maintains this pace throughout, while subsequently making it clear that all these events are just the beginning.  The clues for what lies ahead are there for those who want to look for them (especially during the intriguing final chapter), but for others this is Star Wars fiction at a high standard done well. The Force is strong in this one indeed. 4 *

Compelling characterisation, both heroes and villains spring into fully formed being, good dialogue and a rapidly evolving, entertaining plot – that for some reason which I can’t quite put my finger on reminded me of ‘Where Eagles Dare’, ensure that ‘Aftermath’ rattles along an brisk, engaging and enjoyable pace. With equal thought and measure having gone into the interludes and asides that pepper the story (and doubtless set up another novels and books in both the series and the Star Wars universe as a whole), some of which feature familiar faces and a scoundrel or two, Wendig has managed to do what I previously thought was nigh-on-impossible, delivering a book that immerses the reader, the fan and the devotee into a Universe full of wonderful possibility and a multitude of endless adventures that has restored more than a little magic to the Star Wars franchise . The force is strong with this one…

Fast paced, fires on all cylinders ... a very hard book to put down.

Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens 
 
The second Death Star has been destroyed, the Emperor killed, and Darth Vader struck down. Devastating blows against the Empire, and major victories for the Rebel Alliance. But the battle for freedom is far from over. 
 
As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance—now a fledgling New Republic—presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but he’s taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders. 
 
Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world—war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be. 
 
Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit—to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on Norra and her newfound allies—her technical-genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector—who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.

Chuck Wendig

The heir to one of the world’s most influential families reckons with the demonic secret of their power in this contemporary dark fantasy that melds occult magic with shocking family drama, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents. 
 
Mourning Mayne knows he’ll one day bear the duty of managing his family’s vast empire of wealth and power. But the feckless Mourning has always struggled to accept this legacy of cruelty, domination, and exploitation . . . and something even darker. 
 
Because the Maynes are no ordinary family: Hidden in our world are the fiends—half-human, half-demon, and possessed of a dark magic born from buying human souls—and the Maynes are one of the oldest and most influential fiendish families. 
 
But when Mourning’s estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that Mourning return to the fold, he has to decide whether to accept his legacy and embrace his role in the family or to forge his own destiny, and with it, change the course of the world. 
 
Because along the way home, he will meet Key, a black-market seller of human souls, and Quinn, an artist who may hold the dark truth behind the fate of the fiends. Alone, they have all struggled with the darkness of their natures. Together, they might find a path out of the shadows.

Chuck Wendig

Books by Chuck Wendig

Series by Chuck Wendig

Aftermath

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