Title: The Invited
Author: Jennifer McMahon
Pages: 353 pages
Published: April 30th 2019 by Doubleday
Source: NetGalley
GoodReads Description: "A chilling ghost story with a twist: the New York Times bestselling author of The Winter People returns to the woods of Vermont to tell the story of a husband and wife who don't simply move into a haunted house, they start building one from scratch, without knowing it, until it's too late . . .
In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate abandon the comforts of suburbia and their teaching jobs to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this charming property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. As Helen starts carefully sourcing decorative building materials for her home--wooden beams, mantles, historic bricks--she starts to unearth, and literally conjure, the tragic lives of Hattie's descendants, three generations of "Breckenridge women," each of whom died amidst suspicion, and who seem to still be seeking something precious and elusive in the present day."
MY REVIEW:
I'm a little bit conflicted about how I feel about this book.
I liked the story.
I liked the history that was incorporated in the story.
I liked the idea of the haunted bog - a place where people could hide things and people could easily get lost. I liked the idea that a "witch" was hung there in the past, making the bog even more ominous as it is believed to be haunted.
I liked the story of Olive and her dad and his continual renovations to avoid his heartbreak. It somehow reminded me of the Winchester Mystery House... but more romantic as well as more destructive.
The things I didn't like were...
I felt like the characters fell flat. Their backgrounds were unique and should have meant that they would each be unique themselves with singular voices and goals and opinions. But they all just kind of felt the same to me. Conflicts were easily resolved, almost everyone had each other's best interests at heart, people admit when they were wrong... Blah blah. Sorry, but that just doesn't ring true to me. When people get caught in real life, they get defensive. Not everyone has the same moral code or cares about other people or apologize when they are wrong. In my experience when people are proven wrong, they will dig in their heels against the evidence. People suck sometimes.
At least one of the women that we were supposed to feel sorry for was actually really a bad person. *SPOILER*
I mean kind of a spoiler? You find out pretty early on that Hattie's daughter set fire to the school which kills three children. This is not her only incident.
I prefer a witch story where a woman is accused of being a witch for being too unwieldy - too smart, too unconventional, too unwilling to conform. These women were literally witches. However, I was aware of that from the start, I just always feel like historical witch stories would be so much better if they were realistic.
So....
MY RATING:
Entertainment Value: 3.5-4
Characters: 3
Voice: 3
Plot: 3.5-4
Overall: 3.5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!
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