The Christmas guest is a novella perfect for Halloween, even though it is a Christmas mystery. It is a fast-paced read and interesting narrative structure. The novella opens up with a diary of an American student invited to stay with her friends family for Christmas in London. Ashley, the student, is drawn to Adam, the twin of her friend Emma instantly.. however, what she doesn’t plan is to get drawn into the families secrets and becomes an unknowing pawn in Adam and Emma’s twisted games. The second part of the book is adult Emma looking back at that period and facing the demons in the present. The novella has a touch of a ghost story within it as well, adding an element that will make it a perfect read for the fall. Peter Swanson is a master story teller. While this book does feel like it retreads some of his earlier ones, it is a fun, fast-paced, twisted holiday that will please his fans and fans of mysteries in general.

Thanks to the publisher for providing the arc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun, short Christmas murder mystery in the vein of classic British holiday tales. There were many Christmas tropes and a few twists (some that caught me by surprise) in this slender novel. Swanson aptly described the perfect moment to read this novella in the epilogue "For the Christmas Guest, I imagined someone on Christmas Eve, the dinner dishes cleaned, one last eggnog in hand, a comfy chair, and a dying fire." So if you have a few moments to yourself this holiday season, I recommend you get cozy and delve into this little tale of terror.

This starts out as a classic Christmas story when an American student is invited to a wealthy fellow student's stately home for the Christmas holidays. Not only does she think she has made a new friend, but she finds her friend's brother mesmerizing. But all, of course, is not as it appears, and the cozy Christmas tale turns cold and dark.
It was supposedly written for non-fans of Christmas, and certainly fits the bill. Well, it's not really anti-Christmas, just anti-warm and fuzzy. It's extremely well-written, both characters and plotting, and even expecting the darkness, you still won't quite see the twists coming. Very much a novella, but length was just right for the story. Very well done. Highly recommended.

A solid holiday thriller novella!

This is a frame story in which the main character finds an old diary from decades ago and thinks back to the holiday season she spent with a college friend in the Cotswolds.

Though veteran thriller readers will probably guess the final reveal, this had a lot of fun holiday vibes and an atmospheric British setting.

A fun read as you prepare for (or recover from) the holidays.

When Ashley, a lonely American college student studying in England gets an invite to join posh Englander Emma for Christmas at her family's estate, Ashley can't believe her luck. Her excitement starts to fade some when she sees the condition of the manor house and the unwelcoming attitudes of Emma's parents. However Ashley finds herself developing an attraction to Emma's brother Adam making her quickly forget the things that seem off about her England Christmas getaway. With a twist that is reflective of the author's previous work, this is a short mystery that makes you want to second guess accepting Christmas invitations this season. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book for an honest review.

The Christmas Guest is a short novel told in two parts that center on the happenings at an English country manor over the Christmas holiday in 1989. It’s acknowledged from the beginning that there is a murder, but even the murder victim remains a mystery to the reader for much of the story. There are some interesting narrative choices going on in this novel, particularly that most of the story is told via diary entries written in 1989 but being read in present day. I am afraid of saying much else and spoiling the twist!

Overall, I really enjoyed it! I found the narration engaging and easy to read. The bleak, wintry Cotswolds made for an atmospheric and memorable setting. I did start to struggle suspending my disbelief toward the end in the second part. And I couldn’t quite read it all in one sitting, as the author intended per the note at the end. It was my first Peter Swanson book, though, and I’d happily read more of his work!

Review posted on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5460658224

The Christmas Guest is a quick thrilling novella. When an American student gets invited to her college friend's manor house for Christmas, she is stoked. Ashley has no remaining family, so to spend the time is a wonderful manor away from school experiencing an English Christmas is a wonderful treat. Once she makes it to Cotswold, the manor has some secrets she is begins to unfold.

I enjoyed the story and felt eager to know how it ended. It was a super fast read, and I liked the amount of background and emotion that Swanson was able to achieve in such a short novel. I did not love the writing style though. Part of the story is written as a diary and the other is a person's reflection into the past so every suspenseful event was happening in the past tense. This took away a bit from the tension for me. I have read quite a few of Peter Swanson's books and they are not usually written in this format. Other than that it was fun to read a scary Christmas tale!

A last minute invite from a popular student at her boarding school has Ashley very excited. Ashley can't believe her incredible luck, she thought she would be spending this holiday alone. She soon meets her friend Emma's family at their charmingly large home and looks forward to the coming days. She soon learns that the local police are investigating Emma's brother over the violent death of a village girl. Thirty years later that horrible time is being looked at again. Follow along to see what answers will be revealed all those years ago.

If, like me, you’ve never found the time to squeeze in a Peter Swanson novel, "The Christmas Guest" is a great way to sample his work. This 100-page holiday whodunit can be read in a few hours, and it’ll give you a good feel for whether you jive with his writing style.

The first half of the story is told through the 1989 diary entries of an American art student living in London named Ashley Smith, who is invited by classmate Emma Chapman to spend Christmas with her family in Cotswold. Once arrived at the home of the Chapmans, Ashley is not only taken with the cozy manor house but also with Emma’s handsome brother, Adam. Ashley soon wonders what sort of mess she’s gotten herself into, though, when she learns that Adam is a murder suspect and then sees a creepy stranger prowling the woods.

After you read through the diary, the story switches to the present day when Ashley reflects back on the murderous events of 30 years ago. This is when the real games begin, with Swanson throwing in a few twists that you hopefully won’t see coming. I sure didn’t.

I’m even more motivated now to read Swanson. He’s got writing chops, because his diary entries are convincing. I totally believed they were written by a twenty-something female, and this is coming from a reviewer who doesn’t impress easily.


My sincerest appreciation to Peter Swanson, William Morrow, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.

A huge mansion in the Cotswolds at Christmas time and there is a murder - I would be all over this book even if it wasn't written by one of my favorite authors, Peter Swanson. I love reading holiday themed murder mysteries although, with its October publication date, this one fits Halloween more than Christmas. It is a short but very dark read and written in two parts, each one equally grim. If you're looking for a good, spooky read with a Gothic feel to it, this one is for you. Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

From my blog: Always With a Book:

Peter Swanson has become a must-read author for me when it comes to crime fiction and I love that his books are so thrilling and binge-worthy and this latest one is no exception – especially as it is a holiday novella! It’s totally a one-sitting type of read and in fact, in the author’s note, that is exactly what Peter Swanson was hoping this would be.

This is a dark read that is completely atmospheric. It’s twisty and has characters that you just can’t be sure you can trust – all hallmarks I’ve come to love in a Peter Swanson book. I loved the format, where the first half brings us back to 1989 and is told using diary entries and the second half is told in the present and fills in the blanks. There is a sense of foreboding throughout, and I could not read this one fast enough. It certainly kept me on my toes and I was quite surprised when the final twist happened.

While this is a holiday novella, I loved the strong gothic undertones that are woven in, which makes reading it right now during spooky season perfect. This is the type of book that I could totally see being an annual reread each year to get you in the holiday spirit, bridging you from the dark, spooky reads to possibly more cheerful holiday reads. It’s definitely one I recommend reading and I’m glad to now have it as part of my collection!

A good English holiday mystery sounded appealing when I received this book and I was looking forward to reading it. I didn’t expect a light cozy Christmas mystery but I was disappointed it was almost completely unpleasant.

The mystery is set up right at the start with someone reading an old diary. The action then moves back in time 30 years to Christmas week in a small English village. The possible solutions to the mystery don’t seem too complicated and it feels like it will be just a matter of time to assemble enough clues to solve it.

Ashley, the American art student and writer of the diary, is invited to spend the holidays with Emma and her family. Ashley seems desperate, gullible, naïve, not too bright to begin with. She already kind of lives in a make-believe world and her diary entries are not particularly cute or charming, and more suited to a younger girl. Emma is vain, rude, selfish and until recently mocked and tried to humiliate Ashley whenever she could – and Emma appears to be the most normal person in her family. Their estate is run down and a cloud hangs over the family because her brother is suspected of murdering a young woman. There are a lot of comings-and-goings through the woods, encounters at bars, cryptic comments and eccentric behavior from family members and Emma runs hot in cold in wanting to spend time with Ashley or abandoning her. There is a sense that something horrible is going to happen but it doesn’t feel suspenseful; rather, you just haven’t put the clues together in the right order yet.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance copy of The Christmas Guest via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Unfortunately, I never could lose myself in the story and I was disappointed by the end. I leave this review voluntarily; all opinions are my own.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher/author for providing me with an E-arc of this book. The following is my honest opinion*

3.6⭐ of 5⭐

I totally did not see the plot twist coming. I pride myself on being able to do that and that author really had me guessing. I really enjoyed the ambiguous voice that the author used in the first part of this book. The only "problem" I had with the book was the format of it. Some dialogues between the characters were conveyed through the main character with no indication that a character said it, for example using quotation marks, and other times it was shown as like text message format.

Other than that, I really enjoyed this novella and would recommend to others to read.

An entertaining quick read to get you in the holiday spirit if you’re a fan of holiday mysteries, though the quality of the story here would likely have been greatly improved had it been a full length novel.

I enjoy a novella or short story for the holidays, and this one gets a lot of the elements of that format right. It’s snappy and well paced, and manages to create good atmosphere (both of the holiday and the murder mystery variety) in a condensed format.

The premise is a good one, and a fun spin on the isolated country house trope. But it also feels rushed, and the length keeps the more revelatory components from unfolding naturally as they should in a mystery of this style.

The end too is a bit of a dud. It’s not that the solve itself isn’t satisfactory, it’s that the story seems to fade out with a whimper, and I was expecting something more akin to a clever twist to close it out, particularly because Swanson has demonstrated a solid ability to do this in other work.

In all, a bit on the half-baked side, but worth a read for the holidays.

The Christmas Guest is a thriller novella that will keep you up on Christmas Eve. An American orphan and student in London heads to the Cotswold home of her friend's family to celebrate a cozy and charming holiday season. But, this Christmas is anything but that. She learns that a woman died and few months earlier, and her friend's brother is suspected of foul play. There's also a creepy stranger lurking around as they venture out on Christmas Eve. And just like that, a joyous holiday becomes life-threatening. To me, this novella played out like all of Swanson's books I've read -- it becomes really sinister (almost too sinister), then ends really satisfyingly. Swanson said he envisioned the reader indulging in it with a warm beverage late on Christmas Eve, and I wholeheartedly agree with this -- if you are in the mood for a real thriller.

What a fun twist on a Christmas story! This was a quick read and I will recommend it to anyone looking to read a mini-mystery story with a Christmas setting..

The holiday season is the time of year when people curl up on the couch to read sappy holiday stories about snowy small-town romance. But you won’t find another sweet and charming country holiday story in author Peter Swanson’s haunting Christmas novella, The Christmas Guest.

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery.

As a novella, this story must quickly build a story, characters and the crime, then gives us the investigation and solution while still holding our interest enough that we will tell all of our reading circle.....you have to read this book!!! Guess what? You have to read this book!!!
Told in two timelines with the same characters, we learn the 1989 details, including a murder investigation and some unusual suspects through the diary entries of a young woman who lived the story. Then we come back to present day where the reveal comes twisting it's way to surprise us all.

This is truly an excellent story, no matter the length, it's sure to have you talking about it for awhile.

"The Christmas Guest" is the perfect short story to pair with a cocktail and unwind after those chaotic Christmas moments before slumbering to sleep, if you can sleep after reading it, of course. It's an immersive, twisted story set partially during 1989 in a cozy English countryside manor with a cold family, secrets, young blooming love, and murder. Also, the cover is worthy of displaying with your holiday decor year after year.

Get ready to purchase, wrap, and stick this short and sweet story under the tree for that special thriller lover this Christmas.

Thank you Netgalley, WilliamMarrow and Peter Swanson for the gifted eARC for review considerations. All opinions expressed are mine alone.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #WilliamMorrow for the ARC #TheChristmasGuest by #PeterSwanson. This novella is a great read including Christmas, murder and family. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it, especially if you are already a fan of Peter Swanson.