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The Winter People

A Novel

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The Winter People

By: Jennifer McMahon
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Kathe Mazur
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About this listen

The New York Times best-selling 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, 19-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.

©2014 Jennifer McMahon (P)2014 Random House Audio Detective Ghosts Horror Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Haunted Scary Fiction

Critic Reviews

"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)
"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 )
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Really enjoyed this book. It’s a little bit of a different mystery, but I quite enjoyed the twists and turns. Liked that it’s a bit of a creepy, but just the right amount!

Quite interesting

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Very different to my usual listens but I was hooked. Unique story line. It did leave the ending open for interpretation which I usually don't like, however with this book it suited that ending.

Loved this

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The details are left like bread crumbs to piece together. As the clue link, the foreboding builds.

Intricate details

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One of the worst books I have heard. Badly developed plot. Implausible ending. Do not bother

Poor plot.

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Heard a lot of hype about this book but it slips very comfortably into the young adult genre which I was trying to avoid.

A bit overrated

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