Twisted and absolutely gripping. I was drawn in and couldn't read fast enough. Wylie is complex. I was unsure at first about the dual timelines and the mysterious child and mother trapped sections but the author weaves the tale expertly. There are plenty of surprises to keep you guessing. I got things completely backwards and was shocked by the reveal. I loved it!

This is the type of thriller I love! There are multiple timelines, and you know that they're all directly connected to each other, but not sure how exactly. The timeline in August 2000 was definitely my favorite, but they are all pretty thrilling, but for different reasons.

I was able to predict most of the story, but there were moments where I was seriously questioning my predictions. For me, being able to predict the ending isn't a bad thing. At the end where all the stories come together, all the story lines meet in a really satisfying way. And there were definitely some tears shed when some details were revealed to me.

I also really liked how one story takes place in the brutal summer heat, and one is during a dangerous snowstorm. I thought those two extremes were really interesting to go back and fourth between, and the huge extreme weather conditions were tied to these two life-changing events for the characters.

Overall, I would definitely recommend to anyone who wants an interesting thriller!

Thank you to NetGalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing, and Park Row for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

The winter months are the perfect time to read The Overnight Guest, Heather Gudenkauf’s newest thriller teeming with suspense, shocks, and plenty of snow. Throughout her career, Gudenkauf has proven herself adapt at crafting complex storylines that rarely proceed in traditional manner. The Overnight Guest is just the latest example of her ingenuity.

The first half of The Overnight Guest is actually a rotation of three distinct storylines which Heather Gudenkauf will masterfully weave together in unexpected ways right around the middle of the novel – setting up a second half that is virtually impossible to step away from until all the answers are revealed. Those storylines include:

• a summer of 2000 sleep-over between two girls – Josie and Becky – does not go as expected, resulting in the children becoming witness to a horrific crime taking place on an isolated farm in Iowa. By the time the night is over, two people are dead, Josie is traumatized, and several people are missing – including Becky.
• in present day, Wylie Lark, a true-crime writer who prefers to immerse herself in the location where the crime she is covering took place is staying at the farmhouse during a harsh snowstorm. As the storm rages around them, Wylie’s dog discovers a small boy lying on the ground in danger of freezing. Knowing there is no hope that emergency services could get to their location, Wylie takes the boy in as her guest for the evening.
• meanwhile, a third storyline is less coherent, involving a mother and daughter living an isolated existence as the husband and father comes and goes.

Crime readers will immediately begin the work of connecting these storylines in their minds as they read, but Heather Gudenkauf has some tricks (and twists) up her sleeve, making that more challenging than it might seem. Because of the three simultaneous storylines, there are many characters to keep track of, but after just a few chapters, most readers will be able to follow the events without any trouble.

The turning point comes right around the halfway mark in the novel and from there, Heather Gudenkauf shifts gears to a more traditional thriller plotline in which it is not clear if anyone will escape with their life intact. The groundwork this author has placed in the early chapters helps to ratchet up the tension and the blustery-cold setting will have readers reaching for a blanket and hot tea.

The crime writing genre has seen countless examples of past crimes leading to present danger, but Gudenkauf is not afraid to take chances with her narrative – luring readers into her complex web of events before taking some unexpected detours that delight. It is hard to imagine any crime fiction fan coming away from The Overnight Guest disappointed or unsatisfied. In fact, most will be anxiously awaiting Heather Gudenkauf’s next novel.

Heather Gudenkauf is a genius. What a fabulous heartpounding thriller.

The book starts off with a bang and doesn't let up until the last page.
The story has three POVs and can I just say all three narratives have you hooked. One story is in the past and the other two are in the present. All are linked inextricably.

The plotting and the pace of the book is gripping. The author has done a great job in character development which is a feat considering there are many characters. Despite the many characters each one is distinctive from the other.

The setting of the book is phenomenal. You can almost feel the cold with the evocative writing.

I don't want to give more details but suffice it to say this book is a perfect thriller which has you hooked from start to end. It has you thinking about it after you have finished the book.

A solid 5 star read! Highly recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you net galley for the advance ebook of THE OVERNIGHT GUEST by Heather Gudenkauf. This book was awesome. This was a 'whodunit' that kept me guessing. While I had figured out a lot of it, I was wrong in my thinking of who did the deed. I enjoy books that go back and forth between timelines/characters. It made the book very suspenseful and made me want to hurry up and get to the next chapter to find out what had happened.

You've heard the phrase "I can't put it down!" but that is exactly what happened to me. Every chapter pinned me to the edge of my seat with a "what the heck is happening." This story is DARK and scary so just know that going in. But the concluding scenes are so rewarding. This is a stellar novel. Thank you, Netgalley, for my arc.

I’m rating this book 3 stars, which to me means it was good while it lasted but not great – it’s just another average thriller that I’ll end up forgetting about.

First off – when stories are told like this, you already know the three parts are all related, so it wasn’t a big jump to think that the mystery woman was Becky, and she Wylie was Josie writing her own story. Was this supposed to be a plot twist? Also the reveal of Randy was just bleh – and we just never heard from Jackson again after Wylie locked him up in the shed. Since I already knew everything was connected, I wish the author didn’t drag the ending out for so long. I also think there should have been more included about Wylie being an author. It’s an afterthought that really only gets brought up again in the epilogue, but by the time I got there I didn’t care anymore.

And I’m sorry, but theres no fucking way that Josie and Becky wouldn’t recognize each other lol. Now that I wrote all this, I’m thinking 3 stars is generous.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Heather Gudenkauf delivers yet another shocking blockbuster thriller that needs to be added to the top of your to be read list!

Point of view told in a present timeline that is going through an unbelievable winter weather storm and also told from a 20 year old past in the summer sweltering heat.

How these timelines intermix and correlate to each other had me flying through the pages trying to discover the answer.

A true disturbing treat of a story!

Thank you @htpbooks and @netgalley for the gifted copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Holy cow! I LOVED this thriller!! I read half of it in one sitting and had to slow myself down so it wouldn’t be over so quickly.

This book has three different storylines. Wylie’s present day, Josie’s family in 2000, and an unknown captive woman and child.

Every single one of those POVs were page-turning stories in and of themselves. I honestly just could not stop reading!

What I loved most about this was the eerie atmosphere of a big snowstorm, all of the unknowns of the overnight guest, and how it all falls into place at the perfect time.

There were a couple twists, but I had figured them out beforehand, with the exception of one, which made me gasp!

Honestly, this is just such a riveting story! I have already started recommending it to all of my reader friends. You won’t regret picking this up.

This was quite a chilling thriller! 😉

It was incredibly atmospheric and I throughly enjoyed this suspenseful and tense story!

Gudenkauf masterfully plotted this one and flawlessly executed three separate narratives that were mysterious and all seemingly unrelated. I was completely entertained and satisfied with how it all unfolded and came together!

I also tend to love when the protagonists are authors or if there is a book within a book aspect and I relished in the fact that Wylie was a true crime writer!

The Overnight Guest is told by three narrators: Josie (the past), Wylie (the present/20 years later), and an unnamed child.
-Josie should be enjoying the summer in her sleepy small town; however, murder makes her life take an unimaginable turn. I kept wondering - who committed these murders and why?
-Wylie is a true crime writer who is working on her latest work while holed up in a farmhouse during a raging winter storm. Wylie's situation is the stuff that nightmares are made of - isolation in a creepy old house, a disturbing discovery in the snow, no power or phone.
-The child, who is mainly cared for by her mother, has a story that becomes increasingly disturbing as more details are revealed.

The Overnight Guest was a solid thriller! As each story unfolded, the tension continued to build. I love reading the evolution of multiple stories and seeing how they eventually intertwine. Time to add more books by this author to my list!

Sometimes I like to be scared and this one terrified me. Maybe it's a fear of being in a rural place (*sidenote- I live in a rural place*), being trapped and feeling helpless. The only hiccup here was in the description of Wylie's personal relationships.....I felt like it was not as fleshed out as I'd prefer. I understand why, after reading the whole thing, but I still felt like that was lacking a bit. However, this was scary and unexpected! I love to try and figure everything out and I did not get it all this time. That's a plus! 4 stars, recommend!

The Overnight Guest will pull you in from page one. It will keep you guessing as to who done it. The characters will stay with you for a long time.

Wylie Clark is a true crime writer escaping her ex-husband and son by working in Burden, Iowa. Years ago, at this isolated farmhouse she's renting, a horrible crime happened--two parents were murdered and a young girl disappeared. Wylie finds herself trapped in the farmhouse in a snowstorm, working on her book, when she finds a small child nearly frozen in the snow in her backyard. As she tries to figure out where the child came from, she quickly realizes neither she nor the child are safe--and that she's not as isolated and alone in the farmhouse as she thought.

I loved this dark and twisty thriller--it was a total page-turner. It's told from three different perspectives that intertwine perfectly. We have present day Wylie, a writer escaping her present by researching the past. We have the 2000s timeline that gives us the story of the farmhouse murder Wylie is researching. And we have an undated story told by a daughter and her mother.

So much of Wylie's story takes place in the snow and ice, creating an eerie and ominous setting. The snow feels oppressive and dark, mirroring how Wylie feels. The theme of darkness, in fact, threads superbly through the entire book.

"It isn't the dark you should be afraid of, the girl thought, it's the monsters who step into the light that you need to fear."

I don't want to give away too much about this one, but the story is excellent--full of twists and plenty that kept me guessing. It touches on family and friendship while offering a dark, creepy, and intricately plotted tale.

Many books are being written in dual timelines.  Usually there is one timeline that is much stronger than the other, but Gudenkauf has upped the ante!  Not only did she add a third narrative, but all three were riveting!  

Wylie Lark is a true crime writer.  When she goes to Burden to write about a crime that took place nineteen years previously, she immersed herself in the story and even finds herself living in the very house where the crime took place.  The past and present are interspersed as we read about the crime and what took place in 2000 and now in 2019 with Wylie.   Add the third narrative of a young mother and her daughter living  locked away from the real world and you’ve got yourselves an excellent read.  

It’s a bitter snowstorm and when Wylie finds a young boy outside in the cold she brings him in.  Later she discovers a car accident near her home and a woman that needs help as well, but when she vanishes, Wylie isn’t sure what to think, especially when the young boy refuses to talk.  As the storm rages and the power goes out, Wylie and her young charge are completely in the dark.  What’s the story of the woman and the young boy.  What are the secrets they are afraid to share?  They aren’t the only ones with secrets, Wylie has a some mighty big secrets of her own. While I guessed where the story was going, Gudenkauf weaves the narratives together expertly and The Overnight Guest was a difficult book to put down!

This is my first book by this author and I really enjoyed it. I liked how it hopped around between different points in time and character voices. I thought I had it all figured out about 30-40% in and while I was close, there were a few twists I didn't see coming. I loved the atmospheric setting of being stuck in a snowstorm (especially since it just snowed where I am!). Definitely recommend, and will read more books by Heather Gudenkauf.

The second thriller in today's post is about a crime writer who runs away from her family in order to get some "alone time" to finish her book. The house she runs to? The one that the murders about which she is writing took place. Talk about getting into the scene... Anyway, on a cold, icy/stormy night, a child appears on her front yard, followed soon by a woman who is beaten up and clearly hurt. The book bounces between the current events in the house, the past events in the house and a (seemingly) random pair of folks - mother and daughter who are clearly being held captive somewhere and it's well past the 1/2 way mark in the book before things start coming together. This could pose a problem for folks who like a linear storytelling style, but for those who aren't bothered by random time/place jumps, this is a thrilling novel with twists and turns and a satisfying ending.

I saw some mixed reviews about THE OVERNIGHT GUEST, so I went in very curious about this one. I was intrigued from the start and read this so fast! I liked the 3 timelines and wondered how it would all fit together. I wondered about Wylie and why she was where she was. Overall, I was very satisfied with the story and especially the ending. I will read this author again.

Not my cup of tea, but I imagine lots of readers will like this! Will most likely purchase for my library.

THE OVERNIGHT GUEST
by Heather Gudenkauf
Out next week!

This one is super creepy, has two disturbing and anxiety infused winter settings and dual povs.

This is my first book by this author but I know I’ll be heading back for more of her cozy, classic, structure.

This is the book you reach for if you’re looking to be transported by a frozen and chilling-atmospheric read.

Similar to Shiver, which I read late last year, the authors does a great job with tension and pacing, and as I already mentioned it’s structured like a classic thriller novel.

Great read for this time of year!

Four Stars!

⭐️ Atmospheric
⭐️ Two chilling settings
⭐️ Classic structure
⭐️ Great pacing

Thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this advanced copy!

Make sure to check his one out next week,
1.25.22