Iðunn has trouble sleeping, or more accurately, she has trouble waking up. Every morning she finds herself exhausted and with countless bruises and cuts covering her body, yet she has no recollection of how they could have gotten there. She seeks out a doctor who prescribes her sleeping pills, but even those don't seem to help. When she buys a step-counting watch, she starts to get an inkling about what might be going on, but is she really ready to face the truth?

The Night Guest is a fast-paced novella with a witty and relatable protagonist that makes for an entertaining read. Some of the chapters were as short as one-sentence and I enjoyed this format. It left me turning the pages faster than I imagined and while The Night Guest isn't perfect and certainly has its weak spots, I would still recommend it.

I do have to warn that there is mention of animal deaths (cats), so it might not be for everyone.

What would you do if you realized that your nighttime step count was higher than your day time step count?
Such a quick read! Definitely a little more descriptive in some of the scenes and gore descriptions than others I've read, but that made a nice break up from other books I've read recently. I'll be looking for more by this author and see what else they come up with (in between some more light-hearted books of course).

It’s Labor Day weekend, 2022, and my son Eric and I are attending our first Worldcon, in Chicago. We’re going hard, attending panels from early in the morning until late at night. And then this happens (taken from a post I wrote soon after the con):

“We attended a panel with horror authors reading from their work, and—you heard it here first—there’s a writer from Iceland who’s going to be big. Her name is Holder Knutsdottir, and back home in Iceland she’s won a bunch of awards, but her first novel in English won’t be out until sometime in early 2024. She was funny and charming, and the excerpt she read (translated by Mary Robinette Kowal, no idea why she knows Icelandic) immediately grabbed our attention.”

Wouldn’t you know it, that novel that Knutsdottir read from, The Night Guest, is coming later this year, and I was lucky enough to get an ARC. I’m going to say it again—she’s going to be big.

As The Night Guest opens, we meet Iðunn after yet another visit with a doctor. Iðunn is overcome with fatigue, as if she hasn’t slept at all, and none of the doctors she’s seen can explain why. Her bloodwork is fine—in fact, everything seems fine. Then she starts waking up with unexplained wounds, and blood beneath her fingernails. She wears a pedometer to bed, and realizes with horror that she somehow walked 40,000 steps during the night. And the neighborhood cats are beginning to disappear.

That’s the intriguing setup for The Night Guest. Knutsdottir writes with an easy confidence, drawing you into the novel’s world with short, inviting chapters narrated by Iðunn. Iðunn is frustrated by her situation, but there’s humor, at least at first. All of a sudden I realized that I was turning the pages anxiously, totally engrossed, sucked in by the escalating tension. Knutsdottir does something truly amazing here—she ratchets up that tension in such a way that she’s dug the hooks in deep without you even feeling them, and then lets them rip. This is a lean, fast-moving book that doesn’t waste a word.

The Night Guest is set in Reykjavík, a city Knutsdottir clearly knows and loves well. The novel make me want to visit it, although I might stay away from the harbor late at night.

I’m still curious why Mary Robinette Kowal knows Icelandic.

The Night Guest releases September 3, 2024, and is available for pre-order now. Don’t sleep on this one (see what I did there?).

I really enjoyed this!! It wad captivating and keot me interesting in the story the entire time! I also loved the characters and their development throughout

The Night Guest was such a fun read!! It took me a little longer than it would have normally, but I also had a lot of outside projects going on. There were a lot of chapter, but they were incredibly short. I read this on my Kindle, and the chapters were either a couple of pages to only one sentence.

The main character, Iðunn, lives in Reykjavik and is suffering from fatigue. No doctor can give her any insight to what is wrong. When she gets a smartwatch to track her steps, she is surprised to find over 40,000 steps when she wakes up. So what is going on?

I did find this book a quick and thrilling read, the chapter length really made it fly by. There was some gore, but it wasn't over the top. I always worry with translated books that it won't keep the integrity of the original work. This book was beautifully put into English. My only issue was that there was no closure. The ending was left to interpretation so there's no resolution and that bugged me. Other than that, it was fantastic!

Thank you to @tornightfire and @netgalley for my copy!

AHHHHHHHHHH! GIVE ME ALL THE NOVELLAS!!!! Especially the translated ones...

I am so thankful to Tor Nightfire, Hildur Knútsdóttir, and Netgalley for granting me advanced digital access to this horrific tale before it hits shelves on September 3, 2024.

Iounn, our main character, is feeling restless after a whole night of sleep and is waking up with random bruises all over her body, only to be told it's nothing by her doctors and medical professionals. She obtains a smartwatch that tells her she's hiking thousands of steps overnight, and she has absolutely no memory of these endeavors. On her nightly trips, she makes the same routes to the same place each night, and if ever her awake self tries to take preventative measures for her unconscious self, the outcomes get bloody and violent.

Told through the POV of a burnout employee and short chapters, The Night Guest will keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering who or what could be possessing our FMC to traipse around Iceland at the wee hours of the night/morning. Don't sleep on this one yall.

I absolutely loved this novella. Just enough of everything: plot, creep factor, gore. Hildur knocked this one out of the park, in my opinion. Just make sure you check the TW as some content may disturb readers. Thank you NetGalley and Tor for the opportunity to read this early. Check it out when in publishes September 03, 2024!

A creepy little novella that will leave you scratching your head a bit. Set in Iceland (and translated to English for this release), the book begins with Iðunn seeing a doctor because she is tired every morning, with bruises and scratches all over her body. She eventually gets a step counter and wakes up one morning realizing she walked over 40,000 steps in the night without remembering a thing. A great hook right?

This book FLYS by. I read it in two sittings in one day. Not only is it a page turner, but the chapters are super short. Like, often one sentence short. And the story certainly didn't need to be longer. It's simple, eerie, and to the point. The ending left me a little cold (and.. confused?) but I don't think that should stop you from this fun and weird quick read.

This was such a WEIRD book. I love weird books

lounn wakes up absolutely exhausted every morning and starts to consider she may have a chronic illness. Nothing is helping. After wearing a new active watch (similar to the apple watch) she realizes her step count is increasing as she sleeps.
This leads us into watching as Iounn desperately seeks answers and suspects a mysterious “she” is the culprit. Madness ensues…

The chapters were short and punchy: This whole novel was so atmospheric and fast-paced. I really enjoyed… 95% of this book.

The last few chapters ruined the vibe a bit. The book ended so abruptly. It was like someone stole the pen out of the authors hands and yelled ‘times up!’ It seems unfinished.
These chapters turned a pretty straightforward plot into a “it means what you think it means” fever dream piece

I still believe this book should be read widely because it will be enjoyed for the 95%. I flew through it in a day.

Major TW: lots of dead cats

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for sending me an ARC of this book!

This was so fast paced and unsettling! It didn’t fully blow me away but i thoroughly enjoyed it, although im not sure i fully understand the ending.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to receive an ARC of this book!

The premise of this story is super interesting- the main character waking up every morning physically and mentally exhausted, only to find that it may be due to nightly activities that are playing out unbeknownst to her. It is a really quick read with great pacing, could easily be done in a two-hour window, and is surprisingly digestible for being a translated work! It was also written in a really engaging way, with some "chapters" simply being a stream-of-consciousness sentence from the main character. Despite not getting much time with them, I did find myself really invested in the main character... something just seemed so off-kilter about them right from the start, and the increasing intensity of their problem definitely drew me in and kept me wanting to turn the pages. However, I found the ending to be quite vague and abrupt. I have no issue with keeping the story brief, but I felt there should've been another few chapters (5-10 pages) to elaborate on the mental state of the main character in the ending for at least a little clarity and closure. Still, I think that the first 3/4 of the book makes it worth a read!

Idunn is unable to get any help for her physical exhaustion. She's sleeping well, but when she waked up in the morning, she's extremely tired, all of her muscles ache, and she frequently has unexplained bruising . Afraid she's developing a terrible disease, she visits her doctor, who does lots of tests but finds no explanation. Her family and friends are full of advice and suggestions, but nothing helps. One day she accidentally leaves her step tracker on at night and wakes up to find it shows she walked over 47,000 steps since going to bed. She sets up the camera on her phone to detect what's happening when she's asleep and is startled to see herself get up and walk out of the frame. As she tries to figure out what she's doing when she's asleep, she begins to worry about what this could mean and why she has no memory of her nighttime activities.

The book is really a novella or even a short story. It consists of quite a few chapters that are a single sentence, followed by a blank page, followed by another one sentence chapter, and so on. Not a lot really happens and the ending is a bit of a mystery as well. There are also some clues mentioned in the story that are never resolved or explained. So while the story was short and a fast read, it was ultimately not very satisfying.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC.

The Night Guest is ABSOLUTELY terrifying. This is PURE psychological horror akin to House of Leaves and The Blair Witch Project. A woman who blacks out every night comes to find she's been sleepwalking. But to where?... The brilliance is in the writing and the buildup. It's in the white space on the page, the abrupt cut tos, and the singular sentence revelations.

Read this in one sitting. I just had to find out what was truly going on. The ending is certainly abrupt akin to The Blair Witch Project, but its imagery will forever haunt me.

I bow to you, Hildur. An absolute must-read.

This one was such a fun read that I couldn’t put down - I finished it in one sitting. The Night Guest starts out weird and spirals into downright terrifying.

Imagine waking in the morning feeling like you had run a marathon the night before…. While you were sleeping.. This is how Iðunn has been living for weeks, and despite her desperate pleas with her doctor - she hasn’t gotten any answers.

I have woken up dog-tired before but not like this. The idea of my body running away with me is soooo terrifying and I found this one to be dripping with dread. I got Come Closer vibes from this one but with a better protagonist that I admired and cared about.

Definitely check this one out if you love horror, suspense, dark thrillers, and hate cats (lol.)

A couple great quotes from this one that I had to read more than once..

💭 “Everyone will be having a good chat until I say something wrong and feel as though I’ve been exposed as the alien in the group. Ta-da! Did you think I was one of you?”

💭 “I come to the realization that it’s not just twinkling stars ahead of me. There’s also the dark between them.”

**Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the eARC of this amazing title!**

WHAT?

okay, i feel like i don’t know what just happened, but in a GOOD way. this book was faaaaast. i’ve been struggling a bit with reading lately, but this one just kept kept kept moving. i usually feel too unsettled in fast paced books, but this one had enough, for the most part, to ground me.
the mystery of it all was good! i had some theories but largely kept an open mind. i gasped a handful of times and yelled a bit too.
i will say that, while i felt the side characters and subplots were supposed to feel underdeveloped, i was certainly left with a lot of questions. i love an open ended thriller, but i breezed through the end and hit the acknowledgments so abruptly, i wasn’t sure what happened exactly. i had to go back and reread.
but so good and so quick! easy and suspenseful. enjoyed very much. hearty fuck you to stefan.

Smart, fun read!

I devoured this in one night. It helped that some chapters were only a sentence but the main character, Iounn, was so engaging. I loved her humour and interiority.

Iounn is constantly tired and doesn't know why. She discovers the she sleepwalks and that she could be up to no good during her sleep walking escapades.

Great, quick read that delves into exhaustion and sleepwalking.

This is a slow burn plot that builds up to a rather predictable and unsatisfactory conclusion. I found the characters to be rather unlikable.

Rating 3.5

Readers of Come Closer by Sara Gran will enjoy this delightfully fast-paced thriller.

Every morning, Iðunn wakes up more exhausted than when she went to sleep. All her doctor’s tests are coming back normal, but still she feels fatigued. She’s tried all the tricks - her nights remain restless. Iðunn buys herself a pedometer hoping that adding more steps into her routine will tire her out some. All seems normal until one night she falls asleep with her tracker on and in the morning notices steps that shouldn’t be there. The path she walks at night is unfamiliar but it doesn’t deter her from tracking down where it leads.

Iðunn seems just as confused as the reader as she unravels the mystery of her late-night walks. The formatting of the chapters adds to Iðunn’s spiraling. The reader starts to feel entangled with Iðunn’s suspicions as she discovers more details. While I prefer fast-paced novels, the conclusion to The Night Guest did feel abrupt. More of the backstory of one of the supporting characters would have provided more context to Iðunn actions. The story does not have an unsatisfying ending by any means, it was just sudden. The Night Guest was a good first entry for Knutsdottir into the horror genre.

I binged this horror novella in a day and it was good. I don’t know if I would classify it as horror but more like psychological suspense. It definitely shows what the power of sleep deprivation can do to a person which is eerily creepy. The author has definitely mastered the ability to get under the reader’s skin.

A woman who wakes up exhausted with a watch that says she walked 40,000 steps in her sleep. What is happening to her? Why is she always exhausted? And how can she explain her sleepwalking? Where is she going? What would you do if you walked 40,000 steps in your sleep with no memory of it?

It truly is a bizarre concept that was executed well, I just felt the ending left me with more questions than answers. I can guess as time what happened but I honestly don’t know 100%. If that’s how you like your books to end then you should definitely read this, I just am selfish and want more lol.

I find that if an author ends the book like this they usually want it to stick in the reader’s mind which is 100% going to be the case with me after reading this. If you need a quick less than 200 paged book to read, this is the one for you!

_The Night Guest_ by Hildur Knutsdottir is a fast paced, dark, and nightmarish horror read. It follows Iðunn, who is suffering from immense fatigue and mysterious wounds when she wakes in the morning. She seeks medical help to no avail, and then discovers she is walking vast distances in her sleep. Strange and disturbing things plague Iðunn until she discovers the truth behind her night journeys. This short and engaging read will leave the reader delightfully disturbed.