DAW Books acquires World English rights for They Fear Not Men in the Woods by Gretchen McNeil, a commercial horror novel set in the Pacific Northwest about a young woman’s unsettling and melancholic homecoming seven years after the unsolved murder of her father upon the discovery of his remains.
Executive Editor Navah Wolfe says “I read this book in a gulp—it’s the addictively readable cinematic horror novel of my nightmares with a pitch-perfect ending reminiscent of Midsommar, but with its own completely original twist.”
Gretchen McNeil is an experienced YA novelist whose books have been adapted as BBC and Netflix TV series and Lifetime movies. They Fear Not Men in the Woods is her debut adult novel and will be released in the fall of 2025.
About the Novel:
Seven years ago, Jen Monroe left behind hometown of Barrow, Washington, after her father, a forest ranger passionate about protecting old trees from the aggressive logging business that runs their small town, vanished seemingly into thin air. She never wanted to come home again.
Until she gets a call: her father’s remains have been found, in the very woods he knew better than anyone. It seems false. It seems impossible. So Jen goes home, determined to find out what happened to her father. And when her ex-boyfriend proposes a camping trip into the woods in his memory, it feels like the opportunity Jen had been hoping for, to find her father. To find the truth.
But what she finds instead may be something deeper, darker and far stranger. And deadlier.
