A huge thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the eARC!

Sleepless night, forgotten memories, and an unknown illness. The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir taps into the deepest horrors of the subconscious during those precious hours of unawareness, sleep. Despite many trips to the doctor and leading a fairly healthy life, Iðunn is at a loss for what is causing her intense fatigue. That is until a pedometer reveals her nights are spent in motion, moving in a direction she cannot know. Combating this mobility proves to be detrimental, resulting in a downward spiral that is wrapped in suspense and darkness for Iðunn.

Horrors surrounding sleep are some of the most primal, relatable terrors imaginable. This has been explored through sleep paralysis, nightmares, and now the phenomena of sleepwalking. The premise of this story in and of itself is frightening before the details are made real. The loss of autonomy associated with sleepwalking, a journey that is made with the sole party wholly unaware, is incredibly unnerving. There’s a certain horror that thrives in the loss of control which is something that Knútsdóttir utilizes expertly.

While horrors surrounding sleep aren’t a new facet of horror, The Night Guest does explore this propulsive sense of suspense and mystery quite well. Iðunn’s mysterious illness eventually spins out into something much larger, much more personal for her. This is only compounded by the increasing atmosphere of dread created by Iðunn’s multiple unsuccessful attempts at seeking help from a medical professional. Women in particular know this dismissal, the feeling of knowing there’s a possibility that no cure exists, or that no one is listening. It’s dark material that expands into a volatile atmosphere of isolation with feelings of desperation and mistrust running awry.

The Night Guest is a story that capitalizes on the most primal aspects of the human experience. The need for rest, the possibility of insanity, and the looming question mark of your own actions combine to form a tale of immense mistrust and bleak dread. Hildur Knútsdóttir pens a propulsive, dark story following Iðunn that utilizes the characteristics that work best in the realm of sleep related terrors. It may just keep you up at night.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an ARC of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

The Night Guest is about a woman named Iǒunn suffering from constant fatigue and is waking up with disturbing injuries. After falling asleep wearing her step counting watch, she wakes up to discover she walked over 40,000 steps in the night. We follow Iǒunn as she tries to figure out what happens when she’s asleep. This was a fast paced horror novella that kept my interest the entire time. I liked the main character and her sense of humor. I also like the way the book was written. What messed this one up for me was the ending. It was so abrupt and way too vague. I needed more! I still recommend it for a short, creepy read. Just check the triggers if you’re a fellow animal lover. 3.5 stars rounded down.

4.5 stars really. (I’m begging you to get half-stars, Goodreads!)
I apologize in advance for butchering any and all Icelandic names.

Iðunn wakes up every morning exhausted without any idea why. She also notices weird bruises on her body, but figures she just bumps herself while she’s tossing and turning at night. That is until she gets a Garmin pedometer and accidentally leaves it on at night and logs more than 40,000 steps while she’s supposed to be sleeping. As she tries to figure out what’s going on, her injuries get worse and the people around her begin to notice her strange behavior. Will she ever discover what’s going on at night? Or is she doomed to forever wander in her sleep?

This is a very quick read, as it’s a short book/long novella, coming in at just over 200 pages, which will fly by as you get sucked into the story. It’s really intense and just ramps up as the story as the progresses, from a curious habit, to what becomes a dangerous pattern. I don’t really want to say too much, because the less you know the better. This is a story that is best left to unfold in front of your eyes.

And it’s worth the wait to see the reveals as they unfold.

But let’s talk about that ending. That’s the only thing really taking away from a five-star rating. It feels rushed and it’s confusing. I had to read it a couple times before to see if I could understand it better, then I read some people’s thoughts on it- and I think I have it…. But I wish it was a lot better laid out. It’s kind of heartbreaking to have such a great story end on a sour note.

But I still recommend the book. See what you can make of the ending. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

I look forward to reading more from this author!

Woah, this was an intense horror novella!

Iðunn has been having medical problems and doctors can't seem to figure out what is wrong with her. While trying to find out what is happening, she experiences a quick descent into madness. This was my first book translated from Icelandic and possibly first set in Iceland? It was a flawless translation and the setting was great!

The pacing, the atmosphere, the absolute horror! I thought this was so well done and I just really need to talk to someone about the ending please!! I wish we had more of an explanation but the mystery and confusion of it puts you in Iðunn's shoes.

This was a fast easy book to read, I enjoyed it! The ending felt like it left me hanging. I was a little confused. But overall the book me want to continue reading to find out who the guest was.

The short chapters attempt to build up suspense but I am still left wondering what the hell was going on.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a delightfully disturbing, creepy horror novella. It immediately sucked me in - as soon as I started it, I couldn't stop, and finished it in one sitting.

The way this novella gets creepier and creepier with each chapter is masterfully done. There was such a distinctive unsettling feeling throughout the whole book that gave me goosebumps. I loved the different lengths of the chapters; the extremely short, one-lined chapters really added to the story's impact. The ending was confusing and hard to understand, but I kind of enjoyed that - it left us with a mystery even after the book was over.

This short novel broke my brain in the best possible way. It is mysterious, dark, and the prose is excellent.

Iðunn isn’t sleeping well. Convinced sleeping pills are the answer she’s disturbed to realize she’s not more rested with their help. She begins to realize she is sleep walking. When she tries to ensure she stays in her apartment, she wakes up injured. Where is her night guest taking her?

The book is chilling and enigmatic. I loved it. I hope more of her work is translated to English.

A spine-chilling horror novella. The author keeps the reader guessing along with the main character. At the same time she creates an eerie atmosphere that keeps you turning the pages. I highly recommend this book for all lovers of horror.

"I come to the realization that it's not just twinkling stars ahead of me. There's also the dark between them."

4.5 stars

This is a fast paced psychological horror novella following Iðunn, a woman that does what we all do when we think something's wrong: google our symptoms and come to the worst possible diagnosis. But is this a red flag that we shouldn't trust her, or should we because we've all don't this?

If you're not a fan of open-ended endings, this might not be the one for you. I recommend this to anyone that wants a quick read focused around an unreliable narrator, and a mystery looking to be solved.

The translator did a great job!

AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED THIS NOVELLA.

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC ahead of its publication for an honest review.

Iðunn never wakes up feeling rested. Instead she awakes with thousands of steps logged on her health app, scratches and bruises marring her body and blood caked under her fingertips. What happens when Iðunn shuts her eyes? Where does she go? More importantly, what does she do?

The Night Guest is a quick read and interesting character study that follows Iðunn as she journey's to unearth what she does under the cover of the moon. However, this novella ends abruptly without exploring possibly captivating stories and events from Iðunn's past and present. Iðunn mentions she knows who the night guest is, that this isn't their first encounter, and offers nothing else on the subject. Usually, not knowing or leaving the reader out serves as a device to further inspire dread and thrill within the reader, but here, it just simply feels like a missed opportunity.

This read was simply fine and did not feel like a thriler. Iðunn's interesting internal life kept it afloat.

I honestly don’t really understand what I read. Had this not been a NetGalley read and so short, I probably would have DNF’d as I really didn’t understand what was going on for a majority of the story. I think that was partially the point to make you feel as restless and disoriented as the main character, but it didn’t really work for me. And I have no idea what happened with the ending, so if anyone else has read this and can explain the ending to me, that would be great. What I did like about this book was the spotlight on women’s health issues and how women are often ignored by healthcare professionals or their complaints are pushed aside.

The Night Guest by Hildur Knutsdottir is a haunting and atmospheric novel that delves into themes of fear and isolation with chilling effectiveness. Knutsdottir’s evocative writing and eerie plot create a compelling and unsettling reading experience.

This book was hard to follow and just not interesting to me. I feel like it was all this build-up for nothing to happen. It wasn't scary, just long-winded even though the book itself is short.

Truly surprising debut novella. When a woman's strange symptoms (fatigue, bruising, unexplained injuries) aren't addressed by her physicians, she's left to figure it out for herself. She must be sleep walking, as her pedometer has her moving 40,000 step in a night. But where is she going? And what is happening to all the neighborhood cats? I loved the pace, but I found the ending was unclear. I'm still not exactly sure what happened, but the mood/vibes were so perfect I didn't care. Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the digital review copy.

Clearly based on a fairy tale (Twelve Dancing Princess vibes) mixed with adult horror, this is the story of a woman who for some reason cannot get a good night's sleep - no doctor can help, and her pedometer shows thousands of steps walked while she's supposed to be asleep. Thanks to technology she tracks her nocturnal journeys... and more would be a spoiler.

The bigger problem is that the ending doesn't match the rest of the book. What causes the walking is both rushed and has less thought in it than the earlier parts, which ruined the last few chapters for me. Maybe less about her search for answers and more about the cause might have helped.

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir is a first person-POV Icelandic psychological horror novella that plays with form. Iðunn has been to multiple doctors and still hasn’t gotten help for her sleeping issues. She’s exhausted and just wants to sleep but nothing has worked. On top of that, she runs into the ex-boyfriend of her deceased sister and a former flame is starting to bug her. But when she notices strange changes to her body or pedometer when she wakes up, she knows something’s wrong.

It’s very hard not to feel for Iðunn when she thinks about how a previous doctor wrote her insomnia off as hysteria. Many women can relate to not being believed by doctors and while one would hope it would be better in other societies, unfortunately sexism is alive and well in many places. Luckily, she winds up with a female doctor who is more willing to listen, creating some hope in Iðunn that maybe she’s finally going to get on track to healing.

A lot of chapters are only one or two sentences, which makes the novella feel even shorter until you realize that maybe the reason they’re so short is because that’s all Iðunn remembers. There’s something horrifying in time slipping away, in repeating thoughts again and again and again only to do it the next day and all you have to show for it is one single thought. A lot of the psychological aspects are in that formatting and in how much information is held back.

The build-up is both slow and fast; fast because it is only about 170 pages but slow in the actual pacing of the writing. The length feels perfect for the form and story. I can see the idea being drawn out for a hundred more pages, but it felt quite impactful at this particular word count.

Content warning for depictions of dead pets

I would recommend this to fans of psychological horror looking for a novel, readers of horror who want something playing with form, and those looking for a work from an Icelandic author to try

I was so fascinated by the concept of this story, I couldn't believe it was only about 200 pages long! I liked that the author made the plot so concise - no rambling on for the sake of length. I finished this in one day because it was such a captivating read. That said, I think there could have been some wiggle room to build out the story in certain areas.

The Night Guest is one of those stories where there is an equal possibility of two explanations. The ending was left ambiguous enough to make you ponder, but not in the way that leaves you frustrated. I loved the incorporation of an Icelandic backdrop, it's not something I've come across since rediscovering my love of books in the last few years.

I think the translator did a phenomenal job and I sing their praises. I picked up on some English idioms like "until I was blue in the face" and I couldn't help but wonder what the Icelandic equivalent was. The story was beautifully written!

This book was so creepy. I liked the fact that it was short, and explored deep concepts such as sleepwalking, mental health and sleep deprivations without getting too deep into them.

There is a trigger warning if you are a cat person.

I recommend the book, but not right before bed.

Well, goddamn.

This was a fantastic (mostly) one sitting read, and I would not have minded if it was twice the length, though I do find 200-300 pages is my personal sweet spot. The translation was great (sometimes if you're familiar with the translator's own work you can feel their voice bleeding through, but that didn't seem to be the case here), and I can't wait for everyone else to read this so I have people to talk about it with.