A milestone partnership
The Woods is adapted from Harlan Coben's 2007 novel, known as Dans les bois in France. This series marked his 14th partnership with Netflix, showing just how closely the bestselling author and the streaming platform have worked together.
A plot rooted in loss and mystery
Netflix's synopsis describes the story:
“Twenty years ago, Paul ‘Cope’ Copeland’s sister, Camille, disappeared from a forest summer camp, tearing his family apart. Now, Cope is a successful lawyer and devoted single father to his ten-year-old daughter, Cami, seemingly having rebuilt his life. When a man's body is found—twenty years after he was believed to have died with Camille—Cope becomes convinced his sister may still be alive. Driven to find the truth, he reunites with his first love, Lucy Silverfield, and together they search for answers. Along their journey, they uncover years of lies, hidden truths, and family secrets that could threaten everything Cope has built.”
A personal story for Coben
This project holds special meaning for Harlan Coben. Nearly twenty years after the book's release, he has said he considers The Woods one of his most personal novels. As he told Netflix’s Tudum:
“It’s one of my most personal novels. Like my hero Paul Copeland, I worked as a counselor at a summer camp when I was still too young for the job.”
The themes of The Woods have clearly stayed with Coben, bringing a layer of authenticity and lived emotion to the story that goes beyond typical thrillers.
A story previously told—now reimagined
Longtime fans might recall that The Woods was first adapted for Netflix as a Polish-language series, released in 2020 (titled Dans les bois in France). This new version offers a fresh English-language take for a broader audience, with new actors and reinterpretations of the source material.
Will the mysteries of the woods finally come to light? According to Coben’s latest adaptation, what’s hidden can always rise to the surface—and sometimes, those secrets can change everything.
