Ashley Smith was planning to spend a quiet Christmas alone. She is a California native studying art in London with no family ties after the death of her mother. She receives an invitation from a classmate, Emma Chapman, to join her and her family for Christmas at their county manor, Starvewood Hall. Ashley does not consider herself to be close friends with Emma and is surprised by the invitation but finds herself intrigued by spending Christmas at the cozy manor outside the village of Clevemoor. Upon her arrival, Ashley soon becomes enamored with Emma’s brother, Adam, who she learns is a suspect in the recent murder of a girl from Clevemoor. When Ashley spies a mysterious stranger on her walk back to Starvewood Hall from the pub, she begins to wonder if she has stepped into a gothic mystery, although she would much prefer to be in a Christmas romance.

The story is told in alternating perspectives and timelines that allow you to get to know each character. I love that this novella was written so it could be enjoyed on Christmas or Christmas Eve! If I hadn’t gotten an advanced copy, I would have loved to dive into this to get into the Christmas spirit. The story was very atmospheric, and I loved the gothic feeling portrayed by the house. I could really picture what it would have been like to spend Christmas at Starvewood Hall. I really enjoy Peter Swanson’s work and I will continue to be a lifelong reader :)

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not usually a fan of novella, but I’m a fan of Peter Swanson so I had to check this out! It’s a typical Peter Swanson story, with darkness. We hear from Ashley as she travels to an English countryside home from Christmas with a peer. Enjoyable read!

I received an advanced copy through Netgalley, but all thoughts are my own.

I was given The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. This is the perfect Christmas mystery. It has all the trimmings: manor house filled with a dysfunctional family, roast dinner, and murder. I really enjoyed that this is a novella, and you can read it in one setting.

The story follows American student, Ashley Smith, as she is spending her first Christmas in London alone. But fortunately, she is asked to spend Christmas break with a charming classmate, Emma Chapman. Emma's attractive twin brother, Adam, leads a romantic spin on the holiday festivities. What could possibly go wrong?

An excellent read for Christmas or whenever you are craving a surprising mystery.

The Christmas Guest is a captivating novella. Definitely worth the couple of hours it takes to read and definitely a page-turner. The payoff in Part Two is a WOW moment. Highly recommend this novella.
Thank you for an ARC of The Christmas Guest.
#TheChristmasGuest#NetGalley#PeterSwanson#WilliamMorrowPublishing

Ashley Smith is an American student studying art history in London. She’s invited by her friend Emma to spend Christmas with her family. She meets Emma’s brother Adam and instantly falls for him. But Adam us under suspicion for the murder if a local girl. Did he actually kill her?

This was a really good novella by Peter Swanson. He’s done a great job at really making the reader feel like it’s Christmas (despite the fact that currently it’s July and I’m reading on the beach). Overall, the mystery/thriller aspect is there even without it being a full length novel. I definitely did not expect the twists in Part 2. This is a nice read in one sitting.

Thank you to the author, William Morrow Publishing, and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. I’m leaving my honest review voluntarily. 4⭐️. Publication date Oct 17, 2023.

The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson is a very twisty mystery set in a manor house in the countryside of England. The American student guest, the school friend and her handsome brother all combine to make an engaging story.

This Christmas will be killer.

This book begins with a woman reflecting on her life and how she doesn’t accept invitations to people’s houses for Christmas. Instead she cleans, and comes upon an old journal from many Christmases ago.

We follow Ashley Smith as she is invited to pretty, more popular Emma’s house in the Cotswolds for Christmas. She diligently recounts through a series of journal entries her arrival at Starvewood Hall, meeting Emma’s parents and charismatic brother Adam who she immediately falls for.

But a darkness follows Adam, who has been accused of murdering a girl he was involved with some months earlier.

This book was a fast, interesting read that held my interest to the very end. It has a twist halfway through that the reader may or at not suspect but is still thrilling nonetheless followed by a second half that seems to explain the behind the scenes of part one.

I honestly did love it. This was my first read by this author but I will definitely check out his other books as I have been meaning to for a while.

For anyone wanting a seasonal read filled with murder and mystery, I definitely recommend The Christmas Guest!

Thank you to NetGalley & William Morrow for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

All the Christmas cheer & nostalgia wrapped in a gothic murder mystery. I loved it! The story begins with a young college student who is invited to a friend’s manor house in the English countryside. Told through diary entries, we follow the main character as she reads novels by a cozy fireside, visits the local pub, and falls for her friend’s mysterious brother. Things begin to take a more sinister turn, as the girls begin to feel watched and followed. Holiday cozy, chilly and sinister this novella was a fun, twisty read perfect for the winter holidays!

Peter Swanson has written a gripping and chilling novella that had me turning the pages and wanting more! I loved the Gothic feel of this book with the old manor house with its cold rooms on a wooded estate. The home as well as the cold setting provided atmosphere as did the setting in the Cotswold's.

Ashley Smith, an American art student in London happily accepted Emma Chapman's invitation to spend the holiday with her family in the English Countryside. There she will meet Emma's family, fall for Emma's brother Adam, and enjoy nights out in the pubs in the village. There she learns she strongly resembles a local murder victim, and that Adam is considered a suspect.

This was a fast absorbing and gripping novella which kept me on my toes, fully invested in the tale and wanting more. I enjoyed Ashley's diary entries and her interactions with the Chapman family. I liked the fact that I had no clue what was going to happen or how the novella was going to end.

There was a jaw dropping moment that I did not see coming and I love when that happens. Like Ashley, I didn't know if this was going to be a Gothic mystery, Gothic horror, a Gothic romance, or a Gothic Christmas story set in an English village.

This was so well done. From the dedication of the book to the author's note, this was a pleasure. Peter Swanson fans are going to enjoy this and those new to Peter Swanson will become fans!


Plus, how about that cover?


#TheChristmasGuest #NetGalley #PeterSwanson #WilliamMorrow

Forget, for a moment, about the heatwave gripping much of the US - and other countries - as I type this. Turn the air conditioner on high, light a candle and pretend it's winter as you read the latest Peter Swanson under a blanket.

Are young college girls understanding when a friend hooks up with a boy they fancy? That's the first sign to the reader that something may be off - British Emma Chapman easily forgives American Ashley Smith, her college classmate in London, when Ashley is seen leaving the pub with Emma's crush. She's so forgiving, in fact, that she invites Ashley - who is without a family since her mother's death - to spend Christmas with the Chapman family.

Ashley's adventure plays out via her journal entries, entries astute enough to point out that she's in a gothic thriller, that something is off with Emma's family. She is, however, so charmed by Emma's brother, Adam, that she ignores all the small warning signs - such as, he's the suspect in a recent murder.

This novella is a one-sitting read if I've ever read one. Thank you Netgalley for the preview!

This holiday novella packs in a ton of character development, twists, and thrills into a short amount of pages.

About half of this Gothic thriller is told via diary pages, an interesting choice that I greatly enjoyed. The atmosphere is set perfectly using the writer’s descriptive diary entries, and I loved that the story was very one sided in this way, keeping me guessing what the other characters were actually thinking.

Go into this one blind, knowing that Swanson wrote a fantastic, creepy thriller set around the Christmas holiday and that it is a quick and engaging read.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Although described a novella this is too short for that but enough to be a Christmas story you wont soon forget. Ashley Smith, an American attending school in England is invited to spend a week at Christmas at the country home of her friend Emma Chapman, where she meets and crushes on Emma’s brother Adam. Keeping a diary Ashley describes her time there in detail and how much she is enjoying it. A gothic tale that is perfect.

3.5-4⭐️

The Christmas Guest was a short and er… not so sweet gothic Christmas read that can easily be enjoyed in one sitting. Told mostly through diary entries, it was fun, festive-ish, and a tad disturbing. So many secrects and surprises packed into this Novella.

If you’re in the mood for a different type of holiday read, definitely check out this one out. And how stunning is that cover!?

What I enjoyed;
🎄 Gothic Christmas Tale
🌲 Atmospheric Setting
🎄 Murder Mystery
🎄 Dark & Twisty
🎄 Quick, One Sitting Read

Don’t miss the authors note at the end.

Pub Date 10/17/23

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

A Gothic Christmas story? You bet! I love Peter Swanson! It's filled with wonderful detailed characters, red herrings and lots of twists, plus it's only 112 pages. I'm telling you, the perfect one sitting read. Loved it!

When I first started the book, I couldn't place the voice of the character - who they were. And then, the more I read, the more I became engaged by the journal, the characters, and Christmas at Starvewood Hall. Wow! Such a fun and creepy story. Loved it to bits!

This amazing cover lured me in to this short Christmas - Gothic horror novella. Quite a good, quick read.

As stated by the publisher: 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.

The Christmas Guest did not disappoint. There are lots of surprises along the way and quite a few incidents that make our Christmas guest joke to her diary about a gothic horror. Is it a romance or a gothic horror playing out here?

The diary is read years later, by a friend, and a few more surprises come about for that Christmas season as well. Well worth the time, and a perfect Christmas read.

I was given an ARC for review, all opinions are my own.

I read this book because it was a Christmas thriller / murder mystery as opposed to a Christmas romance. I love the "Lifetime Movie" novels centered around the holidays, but I wanted to read something different. This was a very entertaining read! The author states in his note that he wanted to do a short story because he was picturing someone by the fire, with their eggnog, reading a quick bit at Christmas. This definitely fulfilled that wish. Part One was nice and tidy, but when you get to Part Two, you get to the twist (and what a twist it is). I only didn't like one part (at 90% when you find out the meaning of the true "Christmas Guest") but it's more because I don't prefer that particular literary element than anything related to the book. If you're looking for something short and quirky to read over the holidays, this is the one.

From the publisher: 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.

The Christmas Guest is a small bite of a read, a little snack that can be read in one sitting. It’s immersive and fun and a bit disturbing. We hear from two voices: Emma Chapman, the English student who lives at Starvewood Hall, and Ashley Smith, the American classmate Emma has invited home for the holidays. Ashley speaks to us through the words she pours into her diary.

The author pulled me in right from the Dedication: “For two aunts – Pearl Taylor Moynihan, who disliked Christmas, and Sue Ellis Swasey, who doesn’t particularly like it either.” The dedication is followed by an Epigraph that calls out to A Christmas Carol.

The novella opens with our narrator, living in New York and alone on Christmas Day except for her cat, sorting through her crowded bedroom closet. She comes across an old diary, written by a friend thirty years ago. Although hesitant to “go back in time to that annus horribilis, that murderous year,” she cannot stop herself and begins to read.

The author pokes fun at himself and his “gothic” novella, with Ashley, the diary’s author, revealing that things are both exciting and creepy and almost willing herself into a gothic romance or thriller. (“Chance of gothic thriller murder mystery: Growing by the minute.”) There are a few twists, but in a weird way this is a comfort read for the cozy mystery reader. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out where the story is going, but the atmosphere makes it worth the read.

The cover is amazing – cute and cozy but also sinister. I read an advance reader copy of The Christmas Guest from Netgalley. It is scheduled to be released on October 17 and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library. (Although it comes out in October, I recommend waiting until Christmastime to read it. 😊)

This was a fun little novella! I like Peter Swanson and was excited to see this as a read now option on NetGalley. I was definitely surprised by the twists and how things wrapped up, and thought the way the title tied into the story was very clever.

In one weekend, I read two Christmas novellas that quoted Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Perhaps it’s appropriate that stories of people haunted by the past would quote from that story. It isn’t until part 2 of Peter Swanson’s The Christmas Guest that the narrator reveals why they’re haunted. And, of course, that’s a spoiler, so you won’t find the answer here.

Diary entries reveal that an American college student in London is invited to Starvewood Hall in the Cotswolds for the holidays. Emma Chapman warns her guest that the manor is nothing special, that her parents are strange, and that women seem to fall for Emma’s twin brother, Adam. But, the American is dazzled by the idea of a posh Christmas in a manor house. She isn’t prepared for the isolation. She isn’t prepared for a romance with Adam. She also doesn’t expect to learn Adam was a suspect in a murder a year earlier, a girl who was attacked and found in the nearby woods.

The diary entries don’t reveal the twist in the story. To be honest, I didn’t find the twist surprising. Swanson claims to love Christmas, saying he wanted to write a Christmas ghost story. I can’t say that The Christmas Guest will be on my short list of stories worth rereading during the holiday season. I didn’t care for the loathsome characters, and I found the story ugly. Just my opinion. If you’re looking for something short for the holidays, this might suffice.