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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
"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.
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.
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