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Book Summary and Reviews of The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

The Winter People

by Jennifer McMahon

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  • Jan 2015, 400 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year

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.
 
Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that has weighty consequences when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished. In her search 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 into the historical mystery, she discovers that she's not the only person looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.

Paperback reprint. First published in hardcover Feb 11, 2014

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. This mystery-horror crossover is haunting, evocative, and horrifically beautiful, a triumph that shares good literary company with Karen Novak's Five Mile House (2000), Tananarive Due's The Good House (2003), Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale (2006), and Robert McCammon's Speaks the Nightbird (2007)." - Booklist

"One of the year's most chilling novels... Enthralling."- The Miami Herald
 
"Almost every character is imbued with a great deal of psychological depth, which makes the stereotypical portrayal of Auntie, a Native American sorceress, all the more disappointing. McMahon is more successful when she deftly switches between past and present, using the changes in perspective to increase the tension." - Publishers Weekly

"Crisp, mysterious and scary... Reminiscent of Stephen King." - USA Today

"A hauntingly beautiful read." - Oprah.com  

"Not a book to be read late at night, or in a creaky old house, The Winter People is a literary thriller to savor." - Shelf Awareness 

"Everything you could want in a classic ghost story." - Chris Bohjalian, author of The Light in the Ruins
 
"The Winter People is hypnotic, gripping and deeply moving... A dream from which I didn't want to wake."  - Lisa Unger, author of In the Blood 

"McMahon is a scrupulous writer, nicely attentive to the nuances of character and landscape... The mournful voice of Sara Shea lingers in the memory, and McMahon, wisely, gives her the last word." - The New York Times Book Review

"An edge-of-your-seat scary ghost story... I will never look at the woods behind my home in the same way again!" - Heather Gudenkauf, author of The Weight of Silence

"Deliciously terrifying... Jennifer McMahon knows how to conjure your darkest fears and nightmares ... pulling you deep into the forbidden, secret world of The Winter People." - Chevy Stevens, author of Always Watching

This information about The Winter People was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Cathryn Conroy

Creepy, Creepy, Creepy! A Goosebumpy, Scary Ghost Story That's Perfect for Winter Reading
Creepy, goosebumpy, scary ghost stories aren't only for cool fall evenings. It turns out that the middle of January in remote Vermont when it's buried in snow is also the perfect setting for a psychological thriller filled with ghosts.

Written by Jennifer McMahon, this is two stories in one with the common factor the setting of an old farmhouse on a secluded road in the very small town of West Hall, Vermont. The stories alternate: One takes place in January 1908, including flashbacks about 20 years earlier. The other takes place in the present day, also in January. This thickly-wooded homestead includes an outcropping of giant boulders that looks so much like a hand, the area has always been called Devil's Hand. Wander too far into the woods, and you might not make it out alive. Something is going on here, and those who have seen it believe there are ghosts in this spooky forest.

It's January 1908. Sara Harrison Shea and her husband Martin Shea live in the farmhouse with their little girl, Gertie, who is 8 years old. One day she is found dead, having fallen 50 feet down a well. Sara collapses in grief, but writes her fears, anguish, and hopes into a secret diary. Sara comes to an untimely and gruesome death, which remains the stuff of legend in West Hall a hundred years later. She hid her diary in one of the hidey-holes in the old farmhouse, and many people want to find it because in it she supposedly left instructions on how to raise the dead to life.

Meanwhile in the present-day, Alice Washburne lives in the same farmhouse with her two daughters, Ruthie, 19, and Fawn, 6. Alice, who is widowed, has lived off the grid for about 20 years. No computer. No cell phone. No links to anyone in the world. Even in this small town, not everyone knows who she is. On New Year's Day, Alice disappears. More than anything, Alice dislikes the police, so Ruthie knows she shouldn't call the cops. (This is one of several plot points—some small, some big—that make the mystery work. If Ruthie did call the cops or someone didn't lock her cell phone in the car so she didn't have it when she really needed it, things would have worked out quite differently. A little cheesy, perhaps.) The two stories—past and present—converge as Ruthie discovers dark secrets about her own past and those surrounding this strange house.

This is one of the creepiest stories I have ever read, and while the plots from both time periods are rather farfetched, the book is a page-turner. It will keep you up past your bedtime, and if you read it then, you may very well have nightmares.

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Author Information

Jennifer McMahon Author Biography

Kathleen MacMahon is a writer and journalist. Her first novel, This is How it Ends was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Book of the Year award, as well as two Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards and was chosen by the public as runner-up in the RTÉ Liveline listener's poll for Book of the Year 2012. Her second novel The Long, Hot Summer, was published in 2015 with both critical and commercial success. A former radio and television journalist with Ireland's national broadcaster, Kathleen lives in Dublin with her husband and twin daughters.

Link to Jennifer McMahon's Website

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