This was such a good Christmas mystery. I just loved it. I did not see the twists coming. I loved the build up in the story. The way the story is laid out just pulled me in and made me need to know all the things. I also loved the cover of this one. Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

This was a quick read. I unfortunately figured out the plot before the reveal so I was a little disappointed but overall it was an enjoyable read.

This was a very creepy and successful novella!

Ashley Smith is an American girl studying art in London for her junior year. She has no family after the death of her mother. Not having many choices, Ashley is prepared to spend the holidays alone when a classmate, Emma Chapman invites her to stay at her family home, Starwood Hall.

Ashley is more excited about the trip after meeting Ashley's twin brother, Adam. The days spent in Starwood Hall are full of family, games, food, and the local bars. Ashley finds herself falling for Adam. He is charismatic and spending time in his company is exciting to Ashley until she discovers that Adam is the prime suspect in the murder of a local woman who looks like her.

In the blink of an eye, this goes from being a romance to becoming a horror novel.

The Christmas Guest is an atmospheric novella with engaging characters and I couldn't wait to see how it all ended.

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by William Morrow via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this and didn’t see the twist coming too far in advance. The explanation for how things worked out did go on a little bit too long however. A fun read particularly around Christmas time.
3.5 stars
Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for this e-arc.

Peter Swanson surprised me with The Christmas Guest. I didn’t think he could top his other works, but he took this book to a new level of suspense and plot twists that will have you spinning in your reading chair!

This novella it is a refreshing break from sweet Christmas stories. Typical for the author twisted plot and interesting characters guarantee the reader a memorable time with this book.
Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for the copy.

I think this was a solid novella by Peter Swanson. It made me want to try other books by him, as I have had bad luck in the past. Novellas can be hard for me to dissect because I love alot of plot development in my story lines, but Peter definitely packed in a punch!

I loved the switch in POVs. I wasn't connected to the characters, but this was a nice palette cleanser to have as one of the last books I read in 2023.

Does Peter Swanson ever disappoint? This was the only "holiday" read I finished during the 2023 season and it was classic Swanson, with its shadowy tale and twists. I saw another reviewer refer to it as a tale that puts you in a "jolly murderous spirit"--funny and true! Thoroughly enjoyed this one, and it fit the mood of this year's season quite well.

My thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the opportunity to preview this title in exchange for my honest review.

This was an atmospheric Christmas read with strange characters, a surprise death and eerie happenings that chilled me to the bone. A perfect Christmas mystery! Peter Swanson is so good at creating creepy dread and throwing in red herrings to divert the reader's attention. Is this a romance? A murder mystery? A gothic thriller? A horror story? It's all of those.

Told primarily in the first-person from diary entries, The Christmas Guest initially finds us in New York City to the apartment of a woman with no family and who spends Christmas alone. Every year. When she was in college in England, you see, there was a house party over the holidays, and what happened there changed the lives of everyone involved forever, and severed the ties of those left standing.

Well-written (odd, coming from a male author writing from the POV of a teenage protagonist) and full of ambience, The Christmas Guest takes the reader through every girlish emotion and silly sidenote while never letting you forget that there could be a very real danger lurking under all of the angsty nonsense. Not a festive read, but definitely seasonal.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

𝘼 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙖𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙮 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙚-𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙖 𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙖𝙣 𝘼𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙇𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙣𝙫𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙖𝙩 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙬𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙃𝙖𝙡𝙡, 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮’𝙨 𝘾𝙤𝙩𝙨𝙬𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙧 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙗𝙚𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙨, 𝙨𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙪𝙣𝙧𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙡, 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙮 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙫𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙜𝙚’𝙨 𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙢 𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮.

This was such a quick and simple holiday novella. I haven’t read too many holiday thrillers so I was excited to pick this one up.

I’ve only read one book by this author before and I enjoyed it, unfortunately, this one was just okay. I don’t know if it being a novella affected it. I did, however, enjoy the atmospheric and gothic feeling the story had.

It’s a short novella (only a little over 100 pages), I felt like the mystery itself wasn’t as interesting nor did the characters bring too much to the story. Also, there are quite a few diary entries throughout the book, I personally wasn’t the biggest fan of them. Overall, this short novella set in a small English village was a quick read.

Thank you so much NetGalley and William Morrow for the review copy in exchange for my honest review!

I love the idea of novellas for Christmas-themed stories. It's a busy time of year, so being able to sit down and finish a book in an evening is an unexpected delight!

Ashley Smith, an American at a London university, finds herself with no plans for Christmas, when classmate Emma Chapman offers to have her for the week at her family's Cotswold house. Ashley is excited, a proper British Christmas in a manor house! She is a little surprised, she didn't really think Emma liked her, but obviously she misjudged her.

There is an air of foreboding as Ashley goes to the Chapman family house, with the disagreeable parents, and Emma's twin brother a suspect in an unsolved murder. But none of this really dims Ashley's enthusiasm for her English Christmas adventure!

This was a fun and quick read, and I really enjoyed it, in part because of it's length! Thank you to NetGalley, Peter Swanson, and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 ⭐️s rounded up

A bite-sized Christmas thriller at ~100 pages!

Okay so I thought this was really odd at first and I had to put down my audiobook version (hated the accent) and pick up my e-galley because I was committed to buddy reading this and it’s super short. I stuck with it and it got me way more suspenseful and intriguing! I kinda loved how most of the story was told through journal entries. The ending did feel a little unsatisfying and I wanted more! I also purchased a physical version of this book.

Thank you to William Morrow, the author, and NetGalley for the e-galley!

I really enjoyed this story! It was a fun, suspenseful, quick read. I loved how the sorry unfolded throughout Ashley's diary entries. I did NOT expect that ending, but I liked it. If you're expecting a lighthearted Christmas story, this is not it.

This book was definitely a rollercoaster for me for sure! I felt that the beginning of this book was very slow and kind of hard to get into at first because of all of the filler scenes. I also didn’t really care for the storyline at the beginning and had a hard time connecting with the characters at first. However, towards the middle of the book, the plot definitely started to pick up for me and the plot twist halfway through the book had me shocked. Overall, I loved how short and quick paced this Christmas murder mystery book was, even though the beginning felt kind of slow for me, and I thought it was a nice short book to close out my 2023 reading with!

Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for a review!

The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson was a fun, murderous Christmas novella. I recommend it to anyone who wants a Christmas book, but not looking for a romance. A Twisty, fun read.

Thank you to #NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed this Christmas novella! I didn't know where it was going when it started in NYC, but I loved the journal entries as a plot device. The dark, gothic house in rural England really added to the atmosphere and even though it was Christmas which should be jolly, it still had a very creepy feeling. I need more Christmas thrillers next year!

Thank you @williammorrowbooks for the gifted ebook.

Thank you NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.

This short book is more of a novella. Turn off the TV and phone for an evening and you will be able to begin and finish this book in one sitting. It is interesting enough to keep you reading.

American student, Ashley, is studying in London. Having no close family left in the U.S. she intends to stay in London for Christmas. That is until her new friend and fellow student, Emma Chapman, invites her to spend Christmas with her family in the Cotswolds at their ‘manor house’.

This is where things become a Gothic horror story. Nothing is as it seems.
The first part of the story is told from Ashley’s point of view. The second half is from Emma’s perspective.

This is an interesting story and I think you will enjoy it.

A perfectly fine holiday read. This one went quickly and was page-turning. I will say that the second half was darker than I thought a holiday read would be, but the mystery was solid.

Swanson packs a lot into this atmospheric Christmas mystery. The story has two parts, a present and past, with the past told via a diary and surprisingly I liked the story told in a diary format. This is a solid delivery with an unexpected twist and well-defined characters for a short story. Highly recommend to Swanson fans and suggest reading in one sitting to immerse yourself into the tale.

ARC was provided by NetGalley and William Morrow in exchange for an honest review.