Look, I won't even deny that the cover of this is what made me pick it up. Heather Mackey's Dreamwood called to me. It lured me in with promises of danger and adventure. Books like this are my favorite, because they remind me why I fell in love with Fantasy as a child. I never fail to feel giddy at the prospect of entering a new world. Truth be told, I couldn't have resisted this book even if I'd actually tried.

Lucy Darrington is an interesting character. At the start of book, she appeared to be completely in control of her situation. Running away from boarding school is something that most young girls wouldn't dare to do, but Lucy isn't most girls. I loved her keen interest in the world around her, and the no-nonsense way that she approached every situation. For Lucy, it's all about the facts. That's how you get things done.

As for the story itself, I'll admit that it was a little slow at some points. However I do believe that that slower points were worth working through. Once Lucy and Pete entered The Devil's Thumb, and they were well on their way to finding Lucy's father, things picked up nicely. The part of me that had wanted to skip ahead was glad that I didn't, because the change in pace was exciting. I love when authors aren't afraid of the truth of adventures, despite the age they write for. There are deaths in this book. They aren't gory, and they aren't violent, but they're there nonetheless. The forest is an unforgiving place most times.

I was wavering between giving this three and four stars, but ultimately I think that I've settled on three. The ending to this just wrapped up too perfectly for my taste. While I completely understand this is aimed a much younger readers than myself, I still believe the ending was too formulaic. After everything that Lucy had been through, the happily ever after just seemed trite. Maybe when I was younger I would have loved it! Who knows? I was a reader of Grimm's Fairy Tales, so perhaps I'm just used to things being tied up a little less beautifully.
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An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review. This did not influence my thoughts in any way.
I thought this was a well written story and I really liked the idea behind it. I didn't really connect to the characters but I was interested in what was happening to them. ( )

First off, I want to say that the cover art for this book is quite beautiful, and that was as much of a draw to me as the book description. I got this in audiobook format, and while the narration is perfectly serviceable I continue to have difficulty connecting with the characters and keeping all the story elements straight in my head. I will keep trying, but this may be one of those books that I just need to read in print before I can really enjoy the audio. I do note that other reviewers have also had difficulty with focusing on the narration, so it does sound like it isn't just me.

I received this as an audio book for Early Reviewers. I was hoping to listen to it on the way to the beach with my family. We tried numerous times to engage with the story but could not seem to become invested in it. I am not sure if this is a reflection of the story of the narration. I would like to try reading a paper copy and see if that is more enjoyable. ( )

In an alternate late 19th century, twelve-year-old Lucy Darrington flees a San Francisco finishing school and heads to the fictional Saarthe, an alternate Pacific Northwest where logging is the major industry within lands still owned by indigenous peoples. She steps off the train in Pentland, hoping to reunite with her father, a ghostologist whose work on the East Coast has diminished as the result of a scandal. Instead of a happy reunion, Lucy finds her father is missing and the region is filled with tension as loggers battle a plague, called Rust, killing the enormous kodok trees and thus threatening the primary source of income for settlers and First Peoples alike.

A mysterious old man tells Lucy that only the mythical and elusive Dreamwood—a tree out of legend—can heal the Rust plague. Sure her father was looking for the truth about Dreamwood, Lucy sets out to find him and immediately faces a perilous reality: Dreamwood exists (if at all) in the Devil’s Thumb, a peninsula suffused with mystery and magic, and from whose wooded shores few ever return.

Accompanied by Pete Knightly, who hopes to find a cure for Rust that will help his own deeply indebted family, and a Native American girl, Niwa, Lucy reaches the Devil’s Thumb. Here she and Pete face their own weaknesses, an environment hostile to humanity’s arrogant carelessness, a group of unscrupulous men also searching for Dreamwood, and His-sey-ak, the nature spirit who haunts the forest.

Clever, courageous, pragmatic, headstrong, and arrogant, Lucy yearns for friendship even as she is often careless of its demands. She is likeable, a character easy to root for, even though Mackey occasionally allows Lucy to stray into cliché: For example, although Lucy is warned that death awaits those who dare take anything from the forest on the Devil’s Thumb, she quickly yields to temptation, as does Pete. Could Mackey not think of anything less signaled and predictable to prove her main characters are prone to human frailties? This incident, along with one or two others, detract from an otherwise suspenseful climb to the story’s climax, which itself feels rushed, as if Mackey was running out of inventive steam.

Mackey does not excel at detailed, satisfyingly grounded world building. Instead she relies on broad and unsatisfying explanations of this alternate history, in which added (and thoughtful) details would have been welcome. Pentland, for example, is presented as the barest sketch, as is the topography of the Pacific Northwest, whose its dramatic mountains and volcanoes, mists and infrequent blue skies cry out for better exposition. And the mysterious old man Lucy encounters in the woods near Pentland? He is painted sketchily and exists, all too obviously, as a means to push Lucy in the direction of Dreamwood and the Devil’s Thumb; if mentors are going to be featured in a story, they deserve better treatment.

More pleasing is Mackey’s portrayal of the Lupines, a fictional Native American nation whose members understand the uses and dangers of the magic that suffuses the region and who—a refreshing plot point—have retained control of most of their ancestral lands. While I would have loved more participation in this story of Niwa and her people, the inclusion of the Lupines adds to the inventiveness of this alternate history.

Lucy’s quest contains enough that is creative that most readers will forgive the plot holes, thin secondary characters, and clichéd plot points to enjoy this supernaturally-tinged adventure/mystery. Recommended. ( )