A Trail in the Woods follows Epiphany Mayall, a psychic counselor in her sixties who sets off with her son and granddaughter for a summer retreat in Lenox, Massachusetts. What begins as a family getaway turns into a haunting journey filled with mystery, loss, and spiritual reckoning. The story drifts between realism and the supernatural, weaving ghosts, psychic visions, and tangled histories into a tale of grief and renewal. O’Connor paints both Florida and New England with lush, sensory detail, and her characters are written with the quiet melancholy of people trying to understand both the world around them and the worlds beyond.

I found the writing to be smooth and deeply atmospheric. The author’s voice has that old-fashioned warmth, steady and patient, but it also hides sharp edges. I loved how the conversations between Epiphany and her son capture that mix of affection and frustration that defines family life. Some scenes, especially those with the ghosts, felt almost cinematic. Others lingered on explanation, and I caught myself wanting the story to move faster. Still, the pacing fits the theme. It’s a book about healing, and healing never happens in a rush.

Emotionally, the novel caught me off guard. It isn’t scary in a horror sense, but it’s haunted in a quieter, sadder way. I felt the weight of regret, the pull of memory, and that fragile thread of hope that keeps people going after loss. O’Connor’s use of dreams, coincidences, and spirit encounters makes the reader question where grief ends and magic begins. I admired that. It made me think of how every family carries ghosts, visible or not.

A Trail in the Woods isn’t just a ghost story; it’s a meditation on love, forgiveness, and the strange ways the past reaches into the present. I’d recommend it to readers who like slow-burning mysteries with a spiritual twist, to anyone drawn to stories about mothers and sons finding common ground, and to those who don’t mind a few eerie chills mixed with heartfelt emotion.