The Staircase in the Woods

by Chuck Wendig

Overview

A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

“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.”—Kiersten White, author of Hide and Lucy Undying

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593156568
Publisher:	Random House Worlds
Publication date:	04/29/2025
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	42,151
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.12(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

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.

Editorial Reviews

01/27/2025

This by-the-numbers horror outing from Wendig (Black River Orchard) introduces a group of five misfit friends who, as bullied and traumatized kids, formed The Covenant, a promise to protect one another. This vow was broken when, on a camping trip, their friend Matty vanished at the top of a mysterious staircase they found in the forest. Decades later, the staircase reappears, offering the group the chance to find Matty and make things right—but there’s a gruesome puzzle waiting at the top of the stairs to be solved first. Unfortunately for readers, the solution to this puzzle lies at the end of an overlong pastiche of horror fiction clichés and abundant asides about geek culture that grow tiresome (at one point, one of the terrified protagonists takes a break from the action to recount the plot of the Legend of Zelda). Wendig tries to eke a captivating mystery out of these elements, but the narrative is weighed down by clumsy attempts to shock and the characters aren’t fleshed out enough to carry the plot. Particularly underdeveloped is the one nonbinary character, Lore, who feels tokenized by the narrative. This disappoints. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

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.”—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.”—Kiersten White, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hide

“[A] masterclass in character . . . 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

“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, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Butcher Game

“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

From the Publisher

02/01/2025

In 1998, five teenagers ventured into the woods of Pennsylvania and stumbled upon a mysterious staircase that led to nowhere. One climbed it, and by the end of the night, only four returned. Now, 20 years later, the survivors are shattered, each haunted by that day and with their lives in tatters. Then the staircase reappears, and the estranged friends are drawn back together. This time, driven by guilt and desperation, they resolve to climb it themselves, hoping to uncover the truth, and to perhaps reclaim the friend they lost. Wendig's disturbing novel follows the classic trope of adults confronting the horrors of unresolved childhood trauma. The ghastly atmosphere, combined with an ever-present sense of danger, creates an unrelenting tension that grips readers. The horrors within the staircase unfold like a twisted escape room, blending video game logic with cruel mind games. This is also a tale about friendship, found family, and overcoming the pain of the past, featuring a cast of broken, flawed, and at times unlikable characters who nonetheless inspire empathy. VERDICT Wendig's (Black River Orchard) latest is perfect for fans of Black Mouth by Ronald Malfi and The Dissonance by Shaun Hamill.—Andrea Dyba

Library Journal

2025-02-01
Four kids who swore an oath of friendship reunite as adults to face their fears.

The foundation of this novel is a consciously employed trope about messed-up kids, from the Losers Club in Stephen King’sIt (1986) to more recent groupings of youth gone wrong in everything from Edgar Cantero’sMeddling Kids (2017) to Gerard Way’sThe Umbrella Academy comic-book series. Here, it’s five kids from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, circa 1998: charismatic Matty, cynical Nick, carefree Hamish, cool-ahead-of-her-time Lore-née-Lauren, and nervous nail-biter Owen. Each burdened with terrible families, they create a pact, the Covenant: “It’s how they’re there for each other. How they’ll do anything for each other. Get revenge. Take a beating. Do what needs doing.” But when they discover the titular staircase during a camping trip and their impulsive leader Matty disappears while climbing it, the band breaks up. Decades later, Lore is a successful game designer, having abandoned Owen to his anxieties, while Hamish has become a family man and Nick is dying of pancreatic cancer. When he invokes their pact, the surviving members reassemble at a similar anomaly in the woods to make sense of it all. Climbing another staircase into a liminal space marked with signs saying “This place hates you,” among other things, our not-so-merry band suddenly finds themselves trapped in a haunted house. There’s plenty of catnip for horror fans as these former kids work their way through shifting set pieces—rooms where children were tortured, murdered, and worse, including some tailored specifically to them—but the adversary ultimately leaves something to be desired. The book isn’t as overtly gothic asBlack River Orchard (2023) or as propulsive as his techno-thrillers, but Wendig has interesting things to say about friendship and childhood trauma and its reverberations. Lore gets it, near the end: “We’re all really fucked up and just trying to get through life, and it’s better when we do it together instead of alone.”

A flawed but visceral take on shared trauma and the fragility of friendship when we aren’t just kids anymore.

Kirkus Reviews