The Winter People (Hardcover)

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Staff Reviews


— Penguin Random House

Centered in West Hall, Vermont, this novel is a fantastic combination of old wives' tales and suspenseful thriller. When Sara Harrison Shea calls her beloved daughter Gertie back from the dead, the consequences span across generations and bring to life your worst nightmares. Eerily addictive! — Jess Hanlon

Good lord. A book hasn’t scared me this much since The Witches in second grade. I had to stop reading it before bed because it was giving me nightmares. That being said, I really enjoyed The Winter People: family secrets, a farmhouse full of hidey-holes, missing diary pages, and SOMETHING IN THE WOODS. With every new piece of the puzzle found, you lose another. So suspenseful – you will be plagued with chills throughout the entire book, and then for a while after. — Amelia Stymacks

The perfect tale to make you pull the curtains tighter, double check the locks and turn on all of the lights on a dark and cold winter evening. Deliciously spooky. — Sarah Donner

February 2014 Indie Next List


“This unsettling novel tackles one of the biggest questions there is: Can the dead be brought back to life? Weaving between 1908 and the present, the plot involves a missing mother, a dead husband, a revenge killing, secret papers hidden in cubby holes, a mother destroyed by grief, something terrifying that is buried, something evil uncovered in a field, and a closet door that has been nailed shut. An intricate and chilling ghost story, The Winter People will have you flying through its pages!”
— Dianah Hughley, Powell's Books, Inc, Portland, OR

Description


The New York Times bestselling author of Promise Not to Tell returns with a simmering literary thriller about ghostly secrets, dark choices, and the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters . . . sometimes too unbreakable.
West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked deeper into the mystery of Sara's fate, she discovers that she's not the only person who's desperately looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.

About the Author


JENNIFER MCMAHON is the author of six novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Island of Lost Girls and Promise Not to Tell. She graduated from Goddard College and studied poetry in the MFA Writing Program at Vermont College. She currently lives with her partner and daughter in Montpelier, Vermont.

Praise For…


“Jennifer McMahon is a writer of exceptional talent, and The Winter People is a hypnotic, gripping and deeply moving thriller. With her beautifully drawn characters and complex, layered, and suspenseful story, McMahon has woven a dream from which I didn't want to wake—and couldn't have even if I wanted to.” —Lisa Unger, author of In the Blood 

“I don't believe in ghosts. At least that’s what I kept telling myself as I read The Winter People. I also don't need to sleep with the lights on. I told myself that, too. But I was whistling past a graveyard—or, in this case—past a Vermont landscape that is authentic and recognizable and still altogether chilling. The Winter People is terrifying—everything you could want in a classic ghost story.” —Chris Bohjalian, author of The Light in the Ruins

 
“In an edge-of-your-seat scary ghost story, Jennifer McMahon’s The Winter People yanks you from one page to the next by expertly weaving the past and present. I will never look at the woods behind my home in the same way again!” —Heather Gudenkauf, author of The Weight of Silence 

 
“A deliciously terrifying glimpse into a ghostly world that will haunt you long after you’ve finished the last page. Jennifer McMahon knows how to conjure your darkest fears and nightmares, while entertaining you with a clever, twisty plot that winds around and around, pulling you deep into the forbidden, secret world of The Winter People.” —Chevy Stevens, author of Always Watching
 
“This is not a book that will sit unread on anyone’s bedside table for very long. Open the first few pages and you are swept into a swift, dark current of unfolding events that will hold you enthralled. Much more than a spooky mystery of murder and mayhem, The Winter People blends the anguish of loss and the yearning for connection into one great story, well told.”  —Kate Alcott, author of The Dressmaker



Product Details
ISBN: 9780385538497
ISBN-10: 0385538499
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Publication Date: February 11th, 2014
Pages: 317
Language: English