The Winter People

The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon.

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Doubleday;(February 11, 2014)
ISBN-10: 0385538499

From Booklist

*Starred Review* After a night of partying, 19-year-old Ruthie awakens to a world of impossibilities: her mother, an off-the-grid hippie who rarely leaves their Vermont farm, is missing, and Ruthie is left to care for her young sister. Ruthie desperately searches their old farmhouse for clues and uncovers a hidden compartment in her mother’s room filled with frightening artifacts: a pair of strangers’ wallets, a loaded gun, and a book entitled Visitors from the Other Side: The Secret Diary of Sara Harrison Shea. The diary reveals a 100-year-old mystery lending credence to the campfire tales about their farm, the nearby Devils’ Hand rock formation, locals who have gone missing, and her mother’s warnings that bad things happen in their woods. Ruthie begins tracking her mother with the information in the wallets and soon finds links between the diary’s horrors and her mother’s disappearance. McMahon has developed a subgenre of psychological mysteries that pit female characters with humanizing strengths and vulnerabilities against old secrets posing present dangers, forcing them to confront mystery and legend in creepily seductive settings. This mystery-horror crossover is haunting, evocative, and horrifically beautiful

When I heard about this book it sounded like a good mystery.  After all a 100 yr. old diary is found which contained a mystery!  Hey what's not to like?   However, I am not into "living dead" or "zombie"  books and this had some of the "living dead" in it.  That did not thrill me, and the fact that it covered 100 yrs was a bit confusing to me.

But... (there's always a but, right?).. the mystery was a good one and a number of twists and turns, right up to the very end,  all contributed to my not setting the book aside.  I will say, I liked it.  Not something I will read over again, but a change from my usual reading and obviously interesting and written well enough for me to read the entire book.

I think to most who don't mind a bit of living dead (and I know there are many out there) that this would be a really good read for you.

With this book it brought my count of books read in February to 7 !  Last month and this month were good reading months for me.  I doubt this will keep up but as long as I am reading something it's a good thing!

February...

10..Death of a Chimney Sweep............M.C. Beaton........(247 pgs)

11..The Pale Blue Eye...................Louis Bayard............(448 pgs)

12..The Black Tower.....................Louis Bayard............(352 pgs)

13..The River of No Return..............Bee Ridgway..........(452 pgs)

14..Touchstone..........................Laurie R King............(560 pgs)

15..Risking it All......................Ann Granger................(314 pgs)

16..The Winter People...................Jennifer McMahon...(336 pgs)

I think of the books read this month my favorite was Risking it all by Ann Granger.. however, Touchstone is right up there with it!