Thank you to Doubleday Books, for the arc of this book.
I struggled with the beginning of this book, but I am glad I stuck with it, didn’t see the twist coming.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of THE INVITED by Jennifer McMahon in exchange for my honest review.***

3.5 STARS

Helen and Nate are building their dream house in the woods of Vermont, woods said to be haunted by generations of murdered women. Nearby young teen Olive desperately searches for her missing mother. Their stories intersect with ghosts, or hoaxes of ghosts, in ways nobody could imagine.

Jennifer McMahon always creates interesting, complex plots that leave no detail unimagined or out of place. THE INVITED takes a while to get going and for me to feel invested in Helen’s and Olive’s stories. About half way through my theories came and went quickly and I wasn’t certain whom I could trust.

The story of Hattie Breckinridge and her unfortunate descendants could have been their own book. I wanted to know more about the mothers, daughters and their tragedies, which interested me more than the present plot. I’d love to see a sequel from the points of view of Hattie and her family.

Anything McMahon writes is worth a recommendation. Readers of mysteries and thrillers who enjoy slow burns will particularly enjoy THE INVITED.

Helen and Nate have left the city and their teaching jobs behind to build the house of their dreams in the middle of 40 acres in Vermont. The stories about a witch being lynched there in the 1920’s and her ghost roaming the bog are intriguing and a little unsettling, but they won’t let that stop them. Olive is a high school freshman who lives nearby. She has been searching the land Nate and Helen now own for the legendary treasure that Hattie the witch supposedly buried somewhere in the bog. Olive’s mother was obsessed with the treasure too, until the day she disappeared. When Hattie’s ghost makes itself known to Helen, it appears there is something she wants Helen to find. Is it the treasure, or something far more sinister. McMahon spins a tale so fine, it’s like a spider’s web, before you know it, you are caught up in a story so tightly you can’t get away