Kimi Cunningham Grant: These Silent Woods

Kimi Cunningham Grant show the lengths that a father will go to, to keep a family together:

In a remote cabin in the Appalachian forest, there is a remote cabin with no electricity, no running water and a simple way of life. This is where Cooper and his daughter Finch have made their home for the past eight years and Cooper would have it no other way as he has a past that he would prefer not face. But Finch is getting relentless and pushing back, wanting to explore more on her own and do her own thing. When their one connection to the outside world, who brings them supplies each year, fails to show up it sets off unforeseeable event, that will change Cooper and Finch’s lives forever.
 

This book is a slow burn that is very much character driven and beautifully written. It was not quite what I expected, I thought there was going to be some sinister twist or for it to get darker along the way and it just never really happens. Even what Cooper does in order to make sure that him and Finch stay together is not as bad as he makes it seem, I honestly was picturing something way worse that what actually happened. I think that this is where the book is lacking for me is from my own expectations of what this book should have been, especially with the title and how the premise is presented. I was thinking that this book was going to fall more into the thriller genre than the contemporary fiction genre. We are basically waiting for Cooper to tell his story of how he and Finch ended up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and why they avoid people at all costs.

 

Cunningham Grant has a great ability to make the reader really care about the characters, and not just Cooper who is the POV that we read in the book but of Finch as well. As Cooper is the POV in this book, we are able to get a past and present aspect in the book. This allows us to get to know him before, after and now time as a person but many of his strong attributes remain the same. Finch is also an interesting character, very one with the forest and her surrounds having grown up in the middle of nowhere. Even though she is still a child you can tell the independent woman she is going to become with what she is pressing Cooper about even now. You also feel sorry for Finch as she has never had friends her own age with is why she becomes obsessed (in a way) for the girl with red hair.

Now that I know the type of book that Cunningham Grant has the ability to write, I would read another novel by her. I would just go in with different expectations after reading this book. So although this was not the book I expected it to be, I still enjoyed her writing style, characters and setting of this book. I look forward to see what Cunningham Grant comes out with next.

Enjoy!!!

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