Jennifer McMahon-a-Thon

The Winter People
by Jennifer McMahon
Hardcover, 317 pages
11 February 2014, Doubleday
4 stars

I love supernatural mysteries - and this book by Jennifer McMahon was the fantastic kind that makes you wonder the whole time if there is a supernatural answer, or just an evil human behind the horror.

Ruthie is 19, feels trapped in her tiny rural home outside a small town in Vermont.  Her dad has died fairly recently, and her mother Alice doesn’t want her leaving for college yet, claiming she needs help with Ruthie’s little sister Fawn, and that they just can’t afford it - both totally plausible answers, but Ruthie is resentful and wants to leave - but then she comes home too late one night and finds her mother is missing, and while looking for clues to her mothers disappearance she finds out that their old farmhouse has a dark history.  She then becomes immersed in learning what happened to her mother - and could it have anything to do with the horrible things that have happened in this house in the past.

The pacing on this book was perfect, keeping me turning pages as fast as I could to learn the answers as Ruthie did.  The book bounces between the past where the dark history begins, and into present day, where that history still resonates.  This is one of those books that you’ll want to devour in one sitting - it’s too good to stop.

AND - as it was too good to stop, I continued on to...

Dismantled

by Jennifer McMahon

Hardcover, 432 pages

16 June 2009

4 stars

In this supernatural or not story we are set in the summer rather than the winter.

The backstory is set only 10 years ago, while four friends at an art college create an art movement they name Dismantlement, where true art is found in the destruction of the thing.  Henry, Tess, Winnie and Suz do a little damage and then drop off the grid to art and destroy from a remote lake cabin.  At the end of the summer Tess is pregnant, Suz is dead and Winnie leaves while Henry and Tess marry.

Ten years later Tess and Henry have a marriage on the rocks, and an imaginative daughter named Emma who wants her parents to get back together, so she and her friend create a plan to get their old friends together so that Tess and Henry will remember what brought them together in the first place.

McMahon again weaves together a story where there are plausible explanations for the weird happenings, but said happenings are awfully creepy and also really point to ghosts and demons.  The twists and turns in this one keep you turning pages, guessing and ultimately surprised me in the end.  

Then, on to...

The Night Sister

by Jennifer McMahon

Hardcover, 322 pages

4 August 2015, Doubleday

3 stars

This tale bounces between three periods in time, two families and two sets of sisters.  In the 1950’s Sylvie and Rose live in a hotel in London, Vermont with their parents.  Their father has built his own Tower of London for his British bride Charlotte, and the two sisters have a rather idyllic life, performing a circus for guests, playing together and meeting the people who stay at their family’s hotel.  Sylvie wants to be a Hollywood star and writes letters to Alfred Hitchcock, telling him as the years go by of an amazing story that he would be very interested in.  She disappears after her 18th birthday, and everyone believes she’s gone to Hollywood to follow her dreams, but no one hears from her again…

In 1989 Rose’s daughter Amy being raised by her Grandma Charlotte and is friends with another set of sisters, Margot and Piper.  While playing in the now decrepit tower, they discover a suitcase that they believe to be Sylvie’s and open their own investigation into her disappearance, discovering way more than they anticipated.

In present day, Margot is 8 months into a high risk pregnancy, and her policeman husband Jason has to investigate the grisly murder of Amy and her family…and the only clue is a picture that Amy wrote “29th Room” upon.

This story bounces between  the times and characters very well, holding its mystery close and revealing the truth in a measured fashion.  Another great story by McMahon, who created quite a reading monster in me.  

Cheers,
- Karli