Heather Gudenkauf

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf is a very highly recommended chilling thriller.

Wylie Lark, a true crime writer, is writing her latest book about a murder in Burden, Iowa. She is staying at the farmhouse where two people were murdered and a little girl went missing in 2000. Now a major snowstorm with ice and snow has moved in, cutting her off from the world. When taking her dog out she is shocked to find a child outside laying on her driveway in the snow. She brings the bleeding show more child inside to warm up and to care for his injuries. The young boy won't speak and appears to have experienced some trauma and abuse.

The storm has made contacting the sheriff impossible so Wylie braves the outdoors again, finding a truck in the ditch, and an injured woman. She leaves her coat with the woman, promising to return with a way to help her get back to the house. However, when she returns, the woman is gone and Wylie can only hope the woman makes her way to the house. In the meanwhile she needs to keep the fire going for warmth while trying to care for a child who refuses to talk.

This masterfully written, well-plotted novel follows three different narrative threads. The main story line is in the present day with Wylie trying to care for the child in the raging blizzard. The second is the story of the murders that occurred in Burden, Iowa, in 2000. The third occurs during an unspecified time and is told through a young girl's point-of-view. The three story lines feature characters with distinctive voices and point-of-views. They are developed as distinctive individuals reflecting their different ages and circumstances.

All three narratives are equally compelling, suspenseful, and riveting. They eventually converge in an unpredictable denouement that I found extremely satisfying after all the tension and anxiety present throughout the novel. The enjoyment is found in the excellent, engrossing, and absolutely gripping journey to reach the ending. 4.5 rounded up
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Park Row Books.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2022/01/the-overnight-guest.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4497000960 show less

4.5 Stars

Crikey, that was an excitingly tense roller coaster ride! The cold and isolated setting made for a good backdrop to this chilling thriller. The dual timeline was extremely effective in keeping us on the edge of our seats as, piece by piece, the horrors of the past fill in the present day mystery of how a young child came to be found by writer, Wylie Lark, curled up in the snow outside her writing retreat home. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and actually listened to it in one day. show more The audiobook was really well narrated and heightened the level of stress I felt towards then end. I look forward to reading more from this author.

CW: child abduction, child held in captivity and raped and beaten, gruesome murder scenes show less

I'm going to jump right on the fan-girl bandwagon and tell you I loved this book. The opening scene is a jaw-dropper, and from then on I was caught in an emotional whirlpool.

The writing style puts us right there with the characters, so we feel their emotions and experience events along with them.

This story has multiple adult narrating characters, as well as excerpts from Cora's diary and snippets of text conversations between the girls. This type of format can often be choppy and show more disjointed, but that is absolutely not the case here. Heather Gudenkauf manages the transitions with ease, maintaining an even flow throughout. I love that we get to see the events unfold from a variety of perspectives, which I think makes this story all the more powerful.

I noticed some readers are labeling this a YA novel. I personally wouldn't. Yes, the story centers around three young girls, and therefore will appeal to some young readers. Yet, much of the insight, depth, and struggles presented are very much adult. This story has broad appeal, and labeling it as YA runs the risk of minimizing the impact on adult readers.

*I received an advance copy from Amazon Vine.* show less

This is another Audible gem. They were having a "Buy One, Get One" sale, and These Things Hidden was my "Get One" book, chosen on a whim. But for that sale, I probably never would have read this. (I've been kind of unofficially avoiding YA lately, being sick of the love triangles and the YAPNR and the blah blah blah.) But had I missed this one, it would have been a shame, because this book is fantastic.

I almost don't want to talk about the plot of the story at all, because I'm afraid of show more ruining it. The way this is written, from four different perspectives, is perfect, and the story evolves in just the right way, at just the right pace. Each chapter reveals just a little more about what happened to land Allison in prison, and each chapter reveals just a little bit more about how one mistake in an otherwise perfect life can cause ever widening effect ripples in Allison's life, and her family's and community's lives.

At the point when the crime was revealed, I was shocked and dismayed. Not only for the nature of the crime, but for how early in the story the revelation came. I remember thinking, "Oh no... This is too early! The rest of the story is going to flop now that there's nothing left to wonder about."

I was so wrong.

Not only did those ripples keep widening and showing us more of the story of That Night, but the story was so compelling, so heartbreaking and so honest that I couldn't stop listening. I had to know what happened, and what would happen next.

This is a relevant and gut-wrenching story about mistakes and their consequences, about decisions we make, and how they affect us and everyone around us. It's a story of second chances, responsibility, and how sometimes things go horribly, horribly wrong just when we think that everything is going perfectly, but that life goes on anyway.

I feel like this is a book that needs to be read and re-read to really feel the full impact. My perceptions of the characters in the story kept shifting constantly, like mercury, but I never felt manipulated, which is the mark of a great writer, in my opinion. For an author to move me around like a chess piece but make me believe it's the board moving rather than my feet, they've made themselves a fan. This girl, right here.

If I had anything to complain about, it was that the readers sometimes sounded a little stiff and choppy, but I'm not holding that against the book, because almost as soon as I'd notice the reader, she'd be gone again and I'd be drowning in the story.

This book may not be for everyone, but for me, it was just what I didn't know I needed to pull me out of a summer long reading slump. This book reminded me why I love reading, and why sometimes the best things show up when we least expect them. show less