This felt… unfinished? Started very strong, a young woman with fatigue and possibly sleepwalking, waking up with mysterious injuries. The idea of your body being out of your control while sleeping is scary in itself, but the last 20% left me with a lot of questions. You need to go into this for the nightmare vibes and be OK with some open ended plot points. It’s gory at points and features one of my least favorite horror tropes: animal cruelty. I would be curious to read from this author again but might not recommend this book widely

This was a fun one! It’s more of a novella as despite the 200+ page count, there’s many super brief chapters. If you struggle with ambiguity with endings and major unresolved plot points, this likely isn’t the book for you. It’s a super fast read and addictive. We have Iðunn who’s inexplicably waking up exhausted every morning. She eventually is able to link it to sleepwalking and things get weird.

Definitely check trigger warnings as there is significant mention to animal death in this book. It’s nothing super graphic, but still may bother many.

I really enjoyed this one. Iðunn’s mother had me laughing and the bizarre nature of the book really hit the mark for me. The ending is speculative but I like going with my own interpretation at times.

It’s a very witty horror book and one that is absolutely a page turner. Recommend to those fast paced horror lovers.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC, I loved this book.

This had this overall doom feeling while reading it.

Iðunn has been feeling extremely tired lately and has been seeking advice from friends, colleagues, family, and quite a few doctors. Everyone gives her the usual advice of eating this or exercise like that, but nothing has been working. Every morning, she wakes up more and more tires but starts to notice dirt or bruises forming while she has been asleep. Even her smart watch is tracking insane amounts of steps. Is she sleepwalking, or is something else calling to her?

This is creepy and smart as hell. The MC has these inner thoughts you get to read, and it really broadens her character.

I need to read more by this author. 5☆

I was very intrigued by the beginning of the story, but was very disappointed in the ending. I felt like a lot more could have been done to develop the story and explain things in more detail. It felt more like the outline of a story.

The Night Guest brings you right into the action as we meet our main character, Iðunn, at the doctor's office seeking help for strange symptoms. She's increasingly exhausted everyday no matter how much sleep she gets. When she wakes up, her whole body aches and she is often covered in bruises. What is happening to Iðunn during the night and how can she fix it?

Iðunn must navigate the health system which is both confusing and frustrating as no one is able to give her answers. Friends and family weigh in with their ideas for remedies: stay active, don't be stressed, stop drinking caffeine, try essential oils, etc. I enjoyed some of the commentary that this book was able to provide on such topics - especially the way women are often treated within the medical field and are often dismissed by (male) doctors.

As things progressively get worse, the reader is strung along for a bloody ride while Iðunn tries to solve the mystery and loses more and more of herself each day. I think this could easily be compared to movies such as 𝘙𝘢𝘸 or 𝘑𝘦𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘉𝘰𝘥𝘺 or novels like 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘊𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘳 by Sara Gran - in which a woman is dealing with a gruesome scenario causing bodily/mental changes that she does not fully understand.

I enjoyed the writing, our main character is very likeable and easy to sympathize with and I liked the narrative style. This involves a lot of dark themes but also has its moments of humor and moments where Iðunn's personality shines through.

I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. It was extremely abrupt. I got to the end of the book and flipped the page to find out what happens next only to be hit with a page titled 'Acknowledgments' and I found myself asking out loud "Wait what? That was the end?" There are a lot of things up for interpretation and some things within the story that I wish we got more clarification on which means I have to lower the rating on this one a bit.

Overall, this is a short book that is easy to get into and definitely delivers on the horror.
*Content Warning: there is mentions of animal cruelty/death*

This is a very unusual book. I've finished it and I'm still not sure what to think. The main character is a woman whose older sister died sometime prior to the beginning of the story and we are led down a twisty plot of mysterious journeys at night and odd bruises and injuries. This is a short book, often terse, and that adds to the slow simmer of tension that builds in the book. It's well written and I find myself thinking about it all the time. Psychotic break? Spirit possession? The book itself is haunting, read it!

This ARC was provided by the publisher and NetGalley; the opinions expressed herein are strictly my own.

I did enjoy THE NIGHT GUEST. The beginning started off great! I had suspected what was happening but, after the last chapter, I was totally lost. The novella was spooky but not scary to the point you wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

Many thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for my gifted ARC.

This review will be shared to my Instagram (@coffee.break.book.reviews) in the near future.

The Night Guest is a super short horror novel. This is what happens when sleep is lost then found. You might hear warnings of dead cats, which there are many, but very brief descriptions so that if that’s a trigger you can skip it. Your narrator is alone throughout the tale except at the end where their twin’s body of grief is found. At the heart of the tale, there is grief and if you’re not accustomed to it then you may miss it. The horror of the story is the loss of something that can never be found. ARC provided by Tor Nightfire via NetGalley.

So this wasn’t what I thought it was going to be and it sounded so interesting! It started out well and then it just went disturbingly odd and I’m wondering if something was lost in translation. Also there should be trigger warnings on this, it caught me off guard and I wouldn’t have read it if I had known certain things. This has no real ending and you don’t really find out anything. I still don’t know what to make of it and I was really looking forward to this novella.

*Provided a DRC (digital review copy) from the publisher for review. All opinions are my own.

I liked the first part of the book. The uncertainty and build-up were enthralling. The novella lost a star with me because of the cats. It wasn't graphic, mostly inferred. Also, the book didn't really end. My mind went to a couple of different possibilities. That was kind of cool but I kept circling to Why? Minus the cats, I wanted a fuller story.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for this ARC.

What a weird little novella this was! I really enjoyed the short chapters and the ominous tone throughout the story. This was my first read by this author and I’d love to read more from them in the future.

I definitely would recommend to The Night Guest to fans of creepy translated works!

Iðunn hasn’t been feeling like herself. Doctors and her family have no answers, yet every morning she wakes up feeling tired both mentally and physically. Fed up, she buys a watch to count her steps because everyone says exercise might help. So, why did Iðunn’s watch read that she walked over 40,000 steps even though she had reset it before she went to bed?

This eerie short story will leave you with goosebumps. I gravitate towards ominous storylines that leave you wanting answers, so you keep reading. What is happening when Iðunn falls asleep? That question will haunt you throughout this novel. One warning I will give is that cat lovers might not enjoy this one. If you want to read a creepy psychological short story, then pick this one up September 3, 2024.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novella drew me in right away as I kept finding myself saying, “just one more page, just one more page . . .” Is this story about Iðunn’s descent into insanity or is there something more nefarious going on? I have my opinions, but I believe one has to read The Night Guest and decide for one’s self.

It all starts out pretty normally but the next thing you know Iðunn is waking with inexplicable bruises and wounds, and she is completely exhausted. And the more she tries to figure it out and return to an even keel, the worse things get.

The next thing she knows, her beloved cats are disappearing. She is also dealing with the somewhat mysterious death of her sister. What’s going on?

Her friends and doctor seem to think she’s being a hypochondriac, a psychiatrist wants to institutionalize her, men are afraid of her as she continues to doggedly pursue the root cause of why she is sleep walking and blacking out every night with or without the help of alcohol.

It’s all very intriguing and creepy and weird.

I would first like to thank @tornightfire for sending me a physical ARC to read and review!

The Night Guest follows Iðunn, a young Icelandic woman, and her frequent doctor’s office visits after she lost her sister. Day in and day out, she experiences excruciating chronic pain that seems to be unnoticed by doctor’s as they all seem to ask her the same questions.

“Has this been going on for a long time?”
“Have you had the flu recently?”
“Have you been under a lot of stress lately?”


Though after a while, she notices that she walked 40,000 steps in the middle of the night after she fell asleep. This leaves her confused and unsure how this is possible since she went to sleep and didn’t wake up to take a walk.

I really enjoyed reading The Night Guest. Knútsdóttir’s writing style reminds me of Eva Baltasar when I read Mammoth back in January. Both characters and stories have a very deadpan approach, are quick to be snarky internally towards others, and the stories are heavily centered on their flaws. I enjoyed the pace of The Night Guest and its ability to be straight to the point with the layer of mystery added. Throughout the story, it's hard to acknowledge why these mysterious occurrences take place until the reader reaches the culminating climax.

Though, I was not particularly a fan of how the ending was left off. I like open and interpretive endings but this ending was a bit too vague even if you can assume what truly happened. It felt a bit empty and lackluster even though the rest of the novel was really fun to get through. Overall, I really enjoyed the novel though I wish more time was spent on the ending.

3/5⭐️

This was a creepy story. I love a book that makes you feel like you're descending into madness. It had a very unconventional and unsettling way of telling a story.

I FLEW through this book. Right off the bat, it is intriguing and engaging, and as a woman who has experienced unexplained health symptoms and struggled with doctors and healthcare, I could really relate to Iðunn. I think the writing style made this easily accessible, very to the point, detailing our MC's day to day struggles, and as the book goes on, and Iðunn tries various things to combat her chronic fatigue, you can feel the anxiety and tension, like a spiral into madness. Some chapters are so short, a simple line, which really adds to that effect. I will mention for other readers there is a trigger warning for animal death/cruelty (specifically cats) but it was not done in a way that was bothersome to me. This would've been a five star for me, but I personally did not love the ending, it felt pretty abrupt. I could see this as a movie in the future! I would definitely check out other books in this same vein or by this author.

*Content warning: cat death and off page cruelty* Overall a fantastic horror novella! I had goose bumps multiple times will reading! Very spooky and tense fast paced read. I was a smidge is a pointed by the ending, but it wasn’t the worst outcome. I took half a star off for the car deaths and the ending, but rounding up for a five star.

Thank you to Netgally for providing this ARC.

Iðunn has been grappling with persistent fatigue and decides to visit yet another doctor. Despite the usual tests and procedures, no new information emerges.

One night, she falls asleep while wearing her smartwatch and is stunned to discover the next morning that she has walked over 40,000 steps during the night.

What could be happening while she sleeps? Why is she waking up with injuries? And why does no one seem to believe her?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but I should mention that it contains discussions of animal death and abuse. While these events occur off-page, they are detailed, and a significant portion of the narrative deals with them, particularly involving numerous cats. Despite this, I found the book to be a captivating, short, and engaging horror read. The pacing was brisk, and I was quickly absorbed in the story.

However, the ending felt overly ambiguous. While I appreciate a touch of mystery, this one was left too open-ended for my taste. Although I've created my own ending in my mind, it doesn't have the same impact as a definitive conclusion from the author.

On a positive note, since this book is a translation, I want to commend the translator for their excellent work. As someone who reads several translated novels each year, I've seen varying levels of quality, but this translation was flawless.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for a free advanced copy of this ebook to review. All opinions are my own.

The Night Guest is so unlike anything I've read before. It is quick paced, and enthralling.

This book kept me hooked from the start to finish, I'd definitely recommend it.

(enclosed link will go live on publishing day.)

I honestly cannot quite comprehend what I’ve just read. It was an absolute mind fuck, but in the best way. It was so dark, and had me gripped from the first page. What a read!