5 Mysteries You'll Want to Finish in One Night
Cold
cases, Danish detectives and Laura Lippman—what else could a reader
want? Besides, that is, the flawed yet lovable detective and the killer you
never saw coming.
5 of 5
The Winter People
By Jennifer McMahon
336 pages;
Doubleday
Moving between a present-day disappearance of a small-town mother in
Vermont and the diary entries of a turn-of-the-last-century farm wife, The Winter People tells a ghost story that is both all
too human and
supernatural. In 1908, Sara Harrison Shea's world falls
apart after the death of her 8-year-old daughter Gertie. Soon she's convinced she can bring her child back to life
using a ritual passed down by a mysterious woman from her past. This same
ceremony drives the contemporary story, after Alice Washburne's daughters, 19-year-old Ruthie and 6-year-old Fawn discover pages from Sara's diary—and
find out the violent lengths others in
town are willing to go to obtain them. Divided by a century but united by loss, all the characters
are, in their own ways, like Sara: imagining killing themselves endlessly in their
dreams only
to "wake up weeping, full of sorrow to find [themselves] alive" and alone. A hauntingly
beautiful read.
— Jordan Foster
Published 03/23/2014