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.

Do not read before bedtime. I repeat: Do not read before bedtime.
‘The Night Guest’ is a super suspenseful, intense and fast paced horror story.
Some of the biggest advantages of this novella, in my opinion, are the short chapters and definitely the beyond eerie ambiance, which is very nicely done. 👏🏽
Although I found the ending a little predictable and unreal, along with the fact that I really needed more explanation; I genuinely enjoyed this book!
— Rating: 3★

The Night Guest will hit the shelves in September.

Thank you @tornightfire for providing this book for review consideration via @netgalley. All opinions are my own. 🩷

I wanted to love this book, however the ending felt so abrupt and incomplete. This felt like a first draft of a novel and needed more development.

This was a creepy little read! This novella tells the story of Iðunn, a woman experiencing extreme exhaustion despite being relatively healthy. She tries everything from exercise to supplements to sleep training to fix her problem but every morning she wakes up and feels like she hasn't slept at all. The exhaustion escalates to scratches and bruises on her body, making it clear she's going somewhere at night. I think the first 75% of this book does an excellent job ramping up the tension and stakes for Iðunn. I'm not sure if it 100% stuck the landing but it's a quick, entertaining read. I don't think I've ever read a book that takes place in Iceland either, and the setting is perfect for this kind of story.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher, I loved this book so much and I highly recommend. It’s a 4/5 stars for me! It was very suspenseful and had me pleasantly surprised.

This nasty little novella mesmerized me over the two hours I read it; at under 200 pages, the hook is a killer: Iðunn is exhausted despite sleeping all night. No one in the medical industry is taking her seriously. What's happening to her at night?

Despite some overt scares and blood, this is a restrained little book: its conclusion is eerie, unexplained. Some readers may find it underbaked. I did love how it didn't explain everything - but oof the animal violence (cats! I love cats!) was tough to take.

The animal death was a bit much for me, but the vibes were on. Kind of combines my normal weird girl genre with my love for horror.

As a fan of horror I was so excited for this one. And it delivered on every front. It was creepy, unsettling and I had a general sense of dread the entire time! If you are a horror fan like me definitely give this a try. Thank you to the publishing company for sending this ARC