The Staircase in the Woods

Author Chuck Wendig
Narrator Jay Myers, Amber Benson, Xe Sands
Publisher Cornerstone
Publish Date 29 April 2025
Run Time 13 hours and 25 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Contemporary horror and ghost stories, Dark fantasy, Science fiction.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF ACCIDENTS FROMS THIS NEW MESMERISING HORROR NOVEL

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.

'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

'Deliciously disorienting and deeply captivating' ALAINA URQUHART, NO. 1 NEW TORK TIMES BETSELLING AUTHOR OF THE BUTCHER GAME

© Chuck Wendig 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

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%

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