I loved The Invited. One of my favorite reads so far this year. Jennifer McMahon sets a tone and atmosphere that lures you into a generations old curse on a family and the town that condemned them. In the present, one girl seeks out the truth behind a mystery surrounding the family in hopes of mending her own; while outsiders, planting their own roots, start stirring up memories the town would rather leave forgotten. McMahon creates likable characters and a rich and alluring history that draws you in page after page until the thrilling end.

I was attracted to this book because I always love a good story with a haunted house and ghosts. This did not disappoint.

Helen and Nate are school teachers in Connecticut and begin to feel dissatisfied with their lives. Helen longs to live in the country and simplify by having a garden and canning food. Nate is fascinated with nature and often spends his weekends observing birds and other creatures. Helen's father has recently passed and left her with a small inheritance. Nate convinces her that they could start over somewhere else. They could find an old house and fix it up. When they find nothing that suits them, they decide to buy some land and build their own house.

Olive is fourteen and lives with her father, Dustin. Her mother disappeared several months earlier and the town is abuzz with gossip that she ran off with another man. Rather than put up with the whispers, Olive often skips school and searches for Hattie Breckinridge's treasure. Hattie was hanged as a witch decades before and rumor has it that she buried a treasure in the bog. Olive believes that if she finds it, her mother will surely come back or else she could hire someone to look for her. She hopes the flatlanders who bought the property will soon give up and go back to their soft city lives.

Strange things start happening to Helen and Nate. Things go missing only to reappear days later. Strange noises come from the woods. Helen becomes obsessed with the legend of Hattie while Nate spends all of his free time searching for a white deer that only he has seen. Helen begins bringing home items to incorporate into their home-a beam made from the tree where Hattie was killed, bricks from a mill where workers died in a fire and a mantle from an old farmhouse that was the scene of a murder suicide.

Helen sees the ghost of Hattie in her new house and believes that Hattie wants her to find someone. "Save her." she is instructed. Olive finds her mother's necklace in the bog and begins having dreams that suggest that her mother may not have run away at all.

I liked this book and didn't even suspect who the villain was until just before the end. All the loose ends were tied up and Hattie was able to find peace.

The Invited by Jennifer McMahon is actually the first book I have read by the author, although I have heard really good things about The Winter People and Burntown. I enjoyed the author's writing and the story itself. I also really liked all the history of everything that previously happened on the land. The characters themselves I didn't really get to invested in and when that happens, I usually lose a bit of interest in the story. And although I knew going into this that it was a ghost story, I am not a huge fan of the paranormal genre, but because I have heard great things about this author, I thought I would give it a try.

Overall, it was an interesting story and I really did enjoy the author's writing, the characters just were a bit flat for me. I do, however, look forward to reading more from the author in the future and if you are a fan of paranormal, I would add this one to your TBR!

Thank you to the publisher, Doubleday, for sending me an ARC of this book.

<b> Short summary</b>
Beautifully written ghost story filled with intriguing and tragic fictional history.

<b>My thoughts</b>
This story begins with a bang. The back story about Hattie Breckenridge—who died a century ago—is so interesting, it grabbed my attention right away. The book slows down a bit as it comes back to the present, alternating from the POV’s of Helen and Olive. Once things pick up, the book is hard to put down! Every once in a while we get a chapter that goes back in history—to fill in some missing details—and those chapters were my favorite!

I didn’t consider this a horror or super scary. It was more of a steady-paced ghost story. It’s full of mystery, ghosts, multi-generational tragedy, intriguing and horrifying history, haunted objects and much more. McMahon’s writing is outstanding!

<b>My Rating: </b> 4.5 ⭐️’s
<b>Published:</b> April 30th 2019 by Doubleday <b>Pages:<b/>384

<b>Recommend:</b> Yes. If you like your thrillers with a twist of supernatural and history, you’ll love this!

Thank you to NetGalley / Doubleday / Jennifer McMahon for providing this digital ARC, in exchange for my honest review!
#TheInvited @doubledaybooks #JenniferMcMahon

<b>Book Blurb<b>
A chilling ghost story with a twist: the New York Times best-selling author of THE WINTER PEOPLE, returns to the woods of Vermont to tell the story of a husband and wife who don't simply move into a haunted house, they start building one from scratch, without knowing it, until it's too late...

In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate abandon the comforts of suburbia and teaching jobs to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this charming property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. As Helen starts carefully sourcing decorative building materials for her home - wooden beams, mantles, historic bricks -- she starts to unearth, and literally conjure, the tragic lives of Hattie's descendants, three generations of "Breckenridge women," each of whom died amidst suspicion, and who seem to still be seeking something precious and elusive in the present day.

Middle school teachers, Helen and Nate, living a comfortable, sane life in the city, decide to ditch their jobs, new condo, and city life, after Helen's father dies and has her rethinking what she wants to do with her life. They buy 44 acres in the Vermont woods, with it's very own bog. In line with their new way of life, they are building their house themselves and Helen goes about finding things that are related in some way to Hattie Breckenridge, a rumored witch who lived on that property a century ago. Helen has trouble finding anyone willing to talk about Hattie and in fact, a lot of the local townsfolk seem to be suspicious of Helen and Nate, for buying and living on Hattie's property.

This is not a horror story but it is a ghost story. The scares are subtle and the story is a slow one, building quietly, as we get to know Helen and Nate, in their new surroundings and also get to know a their 14 year old neighbor, Olive and her dad. Olive's mom disappeared the year before and rumors have it that she ran off with a man, much to her husband's utter grief. Olive's aunt Riley watches over Olive and her brother when she can but mostly Olive is on her own, skipping school to look for clues to her mother's disappearance.

Strange things are happening in the tiny town and on Helen and Nate's property, causing friction between the couple as Helen keeps looking into Hattie's haunted past while Nate seems to be on his own supernatural quest, as he tries to follow a white deer through the woods. Then there are some townsfolk who seem to be up to no good, with their seances and secret meetings.

I enjoyed this slow book, especially spunky Olive and her sad father. Thank you to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for this ARC.

Ghosts, curses, haunted objects -- this is a fantastically spooky ghost story. I loved the writing and the way the story unfolded. The characters' connections were intriguing. And, best of all, the ending was a complete surprise. I am a giant scaredy cat, so this book was right up my alley. Nothing gory happens - it's just a lot of atmosphere.

However - and this is a big however -- the book is extremely slow. It took about a week to finish and I didn't find myself rushing to it in my free time. I was very close to quitting about halfway through - I had lost patience wih the pace. I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did. Just be forewarned that it's a slow build!

Were they really invited? Or were they lured into making irrational decisions, becoming uncharacteristically obsessed with fanciful creatures and inatimate objects? Various people have tried to untangle the mystery and find the treasure left by Hattie, who was blamed for deaths and hung as a witch, but no one as determined and resourceful as newly wed Helen. She and her husband bought land next to a bog where Hattie was buried by irate townspeople.
The couple start to build their dream home on the property together and end up at each other's throats, due to each of their obsessions. Is Hattie reaching out to them to help the young girl, Olive? Or is she sending Olive to scare them away?

This is a creepily entertaining read about a sad family legacy.
However, some of the hints to the mystery are a little heavy handed and obvious - and the characters are very dense when it comes to figuring out anything.
p

In The Invited by Jennifer McMahon, we meet a married couple looking to get away from their hectic city life and start fresh in the country. Little do they know, this move will open them up to a ghost story spanning generations.

After receiving an inheritance, the couple in question, Nate and Helen, find a lovely 44-acre plot of land — complete with a bog shrouded in mystery — on which to build their dream home in a small town in Vermont. The land also comes with a history that’s appealing to the historian in Helen. The more she uncovers about the land’s original owner, Hattie Breckenridge — who was hanged for being a witch in the early 1900s — the more she is drawn into a mystery involving the spirit world, buried treasure, and tragic family secrets.

As Helen fills their home with artifacts from the lives of Hattie and her descendants, a connection is made between Hattie, Helen, and Nate — one that at times seems threatening, both physically and to Helen and Nate’s relationship as they begin to keep secrets from one another.

Into this comes a teenage neighbor, Olive, whose own mother has gone missing. Convinced that finding a secret treasure — allegedly buried on the property by Hattie — will help bring her mother home, Olive is not pleased with Helen and Nate’s interfering presence.

After a somewhat bumpy first meeting, Olive is befriended by the couple and agrees to help build their home. As the three work, the mystery surrounding the Breckenridge name deepens and it soon becomes more and more evident Hattie is reaching out directly to Helen… and Helen needs to know why.

The Invited is a well-conceived, solid ghost story, with enough tension and surprises to keep you intrigued through to the end. The overall atmosphere of the book is spooky, with a classic ghost story vibe. At times the story feels a bit slow in the early chapters. However, the time allowed to develop the characters early on pays off as you find yourself increasingly drawn into their lives and genuinely fearful for their well-being.

If stories of a paranormal nature are up your alley, The Invited by Jennifer McMahon is well worth a visit.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book for review purposes.

I just finished Jennifer McMahon's book The Invited and, whoa! I did not expect that. The book started a little slow, but I got so into it that I read every chance I had all day to finish it.
There were great lead characters with long stories and well established secondary characters as well.
It's a mystery, a little spooky and full of details about animals and paranormal things.

DNF.

I absolutely despise when I can’t finish a book, but sometimes it just isn’t worth it to me. The Invited by Jennifer McMahon is one of those.

Helen and Nate are excited to build their own home on a piece of land they’ve purchased. But the land has some dark history, namely, a hanging that occurred a hundred years earlier and left behind a ghost. It’s a great premise for a horror novel indeed.

First, the good. The book is well written; I enjoyed the prose and descriptions. The pacing was very steady. It does a good job of raising questions to which the reader wants answers. And I like the premise.

The premise holds a lot of promise, but in my opinion, failed to deliver due to the slow pace.

And that’s really the only negative I have, but it’s a huge one. So huge that it’s the reason I had to quit: The SLOW pace.

Granted, I typically read thrillers, which are faster paced than horror novels, so maybe the biases of my own preferences have unfairly skewed my opinion of the book.

Regardless, it was just too sluggish. Things happened, but not fast enough, and I felt there weren’t enough significant events between plot points to hold my interest. Sure, there were questions to which I wanted answers, but I eventually decided I didn’t want them badly enough to keep reading.

I quit at the 46% mark.

It seems like a good book. It’s just too slow for my linking. If you like horror novels and you don’t mind a slow pace, then you’ll probably enjoy it. But if you prefer a moderate or even fast paced novel, it’s not for you.

If you're the kind of person who likes the idea of watching horror films, but then ends up watching most of them through the spaces between your fingers, then this is the book for you. I would call it "horror lite." Plenty of spooky paranormal ghostly stuff going on, but not enough that it's going to keep you up at night. Plus, while there is creepy stuff throughout, most of the story is driven by good old fashioned genealogical research and the need to understand the past.

The premise of this book immediately intrigued me. I love a good creepy book. I enjoyed the different points of view between Helen and Olive and the story kept me interested the whole book. I didn’t think this book was scary, it wasn’t as creepy as I had anticipated, so it should appeal to readers who don’t like scary books, but also appeal to the readers who do. I would read more by this author in the future.

The Invited is described as "a chilling ghost story with a twist", which captured my attention completely!

Helen and Nate are tired of their comfortable yet exhausting life in suburbia.  When Helen inherits money after her dad passes away, she and Nate decide to build their dream home - with their own hands - in rural Vermont.

As luck would have it, there is a highly motivated seller ready to unpack a forty-four acre property.  When Helen and Nate place a low offer, they're surprised when it's quickly accepted.

Helen becomes fascinated with local history, namely the legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman suspected of being a witch who lived and died on their property almost a century ago.

"This land--their new home--was meant to be; it had been waiting for them, calling to them. But the thought was not entirely a warm and comforting one; no, it was more like a prickle on the back of the neck. It both drew her to the place and made her want to get in the car and race all the way back to their condo in Connecticut." *

While building their home, Helen and Nate discover that a local teen named Olive believes Hattie Breckenridge left behind buried treasure near the bog on their property.  Olive has been trying to scare away the new owners with some creepy late night antics but once caught, she offers to help with work on the home to pay back damages.

We learn through alternating chapters that Olive's had a rough home life recently because the small town gossip mill is churning out stories about her mom's disappearance.  Everyone thinks she ran off with an unknown man she was rumored to be having an affair with.  

Olive introduces Helen to her aunt Riley, a local historian who knows quite a bit about the history of Hattie Breckenridge.  While the two women are researching the mystery of what happened to Hattie's daughter, Helen is searching for locally sourced building materials for her home when she finds a header beam at the salvage yard that is connected to the story of Hattie Breckenridge.

"She reached up, touched the header beam in the doorway. She imagined it had a pulse like a living thing. A living thing with a memory of its own. And maybe, just maybe, the power to call someone back. A historical artifact turned talisman. What if objects didn't just hold memories, but held traces of the people who'd touched them, threads that connected them still?" *

With each new item she brings into the home they're building, Helen seems to be conjuring Hattie, who is leading Helen to something ...or someone. 

"How could she explain it? This feeling she had, uncovering little pieces of truth about these women and the lives they led. It was like Hattie wanted her to find them. Hattie was guiding her, helping her to bring them all together like this, these generations of Breckenridge women. And now, to save one of them." *

Helen is building a haunted house that gets her closer to finding out what Hattie wants while Olive is searching for clues into her mother's disappearance. They are seeking answers that could lead them to each other in surprising and unexpected ways.

The Invited was not what I expected but in a great way!  I was expecting a horror story about malicious spirits in a creepy house and was surprised to get a paranormal mystery covering several generations of women.

When Helen began to collect the "talismans" for her home, I was rolling my eyes and thinking, "Oh Helen, what are you doing?  Bless your heart, you're just asking to be haunted and possessed."
Imagine my surprise when I realized that was definitely not the direction this story was headed after all!
While most of the plot twists were obvious, I was unsure of one until the very end.
This was an atmospheric gothic mystery that held my attention from start to finish.  The history of the Breckenridge women was compelling and the present day stories of Helen and Olive and how they tied into the past were well done!

Thanks to Doubleday and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.  The Invited is scheduled for release on April 30, 2019.

*Quotes included are from a digital advance readers copy and are subject to change upon final publication.

Jennifer McMahon’s gothic novel, The Invited, is a suspenseful and atmospheric ghost story that lures the reader in like the haunted bog that provides its setting. The book opens in 1924 Vermont with Hattie Breckenridge on the day of her death just as she had predicted it – hunted down and hung by the townspeople accusing her of witchcraft. The novel then flashes forward to the current day with Helen and Nate, a young couple who have left their teaching jobs to embark on a back-to-the-land endeavor. They try to dismiss the local rumors about Hattie’s ghost haunting their property, but they quickly begin to experience strange sights and sounds as they build their new home. Both disbelieve the other’s account, becoming obsessed and secretive as they follow their separate paths in order to provide proof. Meanwhile, their young neighbor, Olive, is seeking some answers of her own on the land. Olive is coping with her mother’s sudden disappearance and suspects it is possibly tied to a hidden treasure that Hattie may have left behind. Each chapter of The Invited is titled after a phase of construction, and building/demolition metaphors are threaded throughout the novel. As Helen and Nate work to erect a house that recalls the past, the surrounding town and its actual historical remnants seem to have been reduced to rubble. Salvaging both information and artifacts about Hattie and her descendants, Helen visits the sites that relate to their tragic lives. Just as secrets and mistrust have destroyed the foundations of these actual structures, they also are threatening to erode Helen and Nate’s relationship. The Invited is nicely paced and plotted, with some genuine surprises and interesting diversions. Fans of supernatural tales or meandering mysteries will find Jennifer McMahon’s newest release a chilling and satisfying addition to her body of work.

I received this book as a pre-publication galley with the understanding that I would read it and provide an unbiased review.

Jennifer McMahon's latest spooky read, The Invited, has the potential to be a stunner of a book, but unfortunately it falls a bit shy of this goal. I found the characters to be annoying at times and thought that the story was perhaps more complex than it needed to be. There was a 'gotcha' twist that I didn't see coming, but the ending felt rushed after such a long buildup and I would have preferred a little more follow-up after the book's climax. I wrestled with the scoring of this, but decided on 3 stars.

A young couple desire to make their dreams come true. They both quit their jobs and settle into a pathetic leaking trailer to build their dream home. Something happened years ago that have foreshadowed the bog and property for years.

As Helen and Nate find out more about their property the dark violent past of the land begins to consume their lives, especially Helen's. Helen is sent on a mission from the spirit of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived a century ago and died a violent death.

Hattie comes to Helen and is sending her messages. As they build their house, Helen finds a unique history of Hattie and her family.

A ghost story and a modern mystery all combined in one this is a good read. It kept my interest and kept me wanting to know more and more about Hattie. Throw in a teenager and her family that lead to the climactic end of the mystery.

Thanks to Penguin Random House and Jennifer McMahan for my advanced copy for an honest review.

Helen and Nate are a young married couple who live in Connecticut. They have what many would consider to be a perfect life -- both are private school teachers, living in a condo, saving for their future. But when Helen's father dies and leaves her an unexpected inheritance, she and Nate decide to uproot their existence, buying a piece of land in Vermont so they can build their dream home. They quit their jobs, sell the condo, trade in their car for a pickup truck. (And this is before the book really gets scary.) Do either of them care that the land is allegedly haunted? Nope, it actually makes them love it even more. But as time goes on, it's Helen that gets really into the haunted stuff and Nate starts to think Helen is losing it.

I've read a few of Jennifer McMahon's other books and she really has a talent for terrifying me. It's much more subtle than, say, your usual Stephen King book. She has a way of setting up an atmosphere and pulling the reader into it and then making it extremely scary in a very realistic way. I still have a closet in my house that I'm afraid to open because of The Winter People, and I read that book YEARS ago.

I'm rating this 5 stars but would give it more if I could. But I'll be sleeping with a nightlight on for at least the next 3 weeks.

Easily 4.5 stars. This exceeded all of my expectations for a paranormal thriller. Helen & Nate sell everything and move out to the country after her father's death. He begins a weird obsession with a white doe that only he can see, spending thousands on night vision equipment and cameras, and she begins collecting items directly connected to the woman who previously owned the land they're building on. A woman that had the power of prognostication. This power would skip to every other generation in the family, to the next girl child and Helen is obsessed with finding objects to bring into their home to help bring the women to her so she can better find out what "Hattie", the first woman, is trying to tell her.

Masterfully written, there's an ever increasing feeling of dread and foreboding hanging over the tale from the very first page. From reading the description I was leery that it was going to be cheesy, it's anything but. It's creepy, a slow burn of heightened awareness, and just all around spooky fun. Great read.

I was given this book from Netgalley as an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. 2.5 stars for this book..
This was an interesting ghost story, in a small town with a haunted history. I enjoyed the history to this book, spanning generations, but not sure how I feel about the entire plot. The twist in the story was predictable and the villian obvious from the start. This is my first book from this author and I am not sure if I would try another.

Helen and Nate were ready for a change in their lives. Nate, a science teacher, and Helen, a history teacher, lived in the suburbs, but they both yearned to be closer to nature, more removed from city-life. So they bought 44-acre plot of land in Vermont and decided to build a house from scratch. Helen learns that the land they purchased used to belong to the Breckenridge family and comes with a spooky past. Hattie Breckenridge was said to be a witch and people still believe she haunts the bog on their property. This history only made Helen feel more connected. She wanted a place with a story to tell—and now she has it.

When Nate and Helen arrive to town, they feel a little out of place among people already acclimated to country life. Most people are welcoming, but some aren’t used to outsiders. 14-year old Olive wasn’t happy to learn about the couple purchasing the Breckenridge land. Since she was younger, Olive’s mother told her there was family treasure buried on that land. And ever since her mom left her and her dad, Olive has been desperately searching the property any chance she got for that treasure.

Although Helen appreciates the rich history of their new property, she doesn’t believe in ghosts. They’re just stories to pass down, add excitement to the past. But as soon as they arrive to town, weird things start happening to Nate and Helen. Their belongings are missing, odd “gifts” are left on their doorsteps, jarring sounds in the night. Nate is convinced that it’s nothing to worry about, but Helen isn’t so sure. Helen obtains every piece of information she can to better learn about Hattie Breckenridge. The more she learns, the more intrigued she becomes and she can’t help but start to believe the wicked tales of the past.

Helen wasn’t expecting to believe in haunted houses, but the longer she spends at Breckenridge, she can’t deny that there are definitely spirits living among them...

The Invited by Jennifer McMahon is a spooky ghost story that you surely won’t want to read in the dark. I got swept up in the atmosphere of this book. Jennifer McMahon surely knows how to create an element of suspense with her spooky atmospheric writing. I enjoyed the dual perspectives between Helen and Olive—they both provide something that the other cannot, helping us learn the full picture of Breckenridge. I’m usually not a ghost story fan, but this story had be intrigued. I wanted to solve the mystery of this family history. The pieces finally come together and I definitely wasn’t disappointed. Highly recommend if you’re looking to be equally creeped out and intrigued! 4/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Doubleday and Jennifer McMahon for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.