The Night Guest

De: Hildur Knútsdóttir, Mary Robinette Kowal - translator

Narrado por: Mary Robinette Kowal

This program is read by author and narrator Mary Robinette Kowal, winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards.

Hildur Knútsdóttir's The Night Guest is an eerie and ensnaring story set in contemporary Reykjavík that’s sure to keep you awake at night.

Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause.

When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same—have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps.

Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . .

What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.

©2024 Hildur Knutsdottir (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Surreal and spectacular. . . . This is psychological horror at its finest.”—Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

"Like the flashes of a waking nightmare, Knútsdóttir’s artful spiral of terror will have fans of Ling Ma, Paula Hawkins, and other flawed female narrators demanding more."—Booklist

"From its opening pages, Hildur Knútsdóttir's eerie and elegant The Night Guest wraps its icy fingers around you and pulls you in. It's so atmospheric, so well-crafted, and so truly, deeply unsettling that by the end, you feel every bit as haunted as its sleepless heroine. If you're a horror fan—or just a fan of great writing in general—you need to have this one on your radar!"—Rachel Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs

kept me listening

it kept me listening and interested and then splash, it was just over. I rewound thinking I had skipped a chapter somehow. So much build up. This book is a pre-mature climaxer that let me unsatisfied.... but the build up was great.

Interesting & creepy

It was an interesting, entertaining and creepy read. The ending was ambiguous and thought provoking — however, I hate the trope of killing cats 👎🏻

Excellent writing to maintain tension

Excellent writing to maintain tension. Keeps you wanting more. Wish it was longer and I could read more story in the life of the protagonist

Keeps you guessing…

… even after the end, which failed to make horror/fantasy genre sense. Decent writing, good narration, and a unique story but the author just didn’t manage to pull it all together in the end.

well read, focused propulsive read!

once I started it had me in its very strange grip! great job by the narrator Mary Robinette and I enjoyed the focused drive of the story.. still wondering a bit about that ending, but that’s probably a good thing — leaves some room and space for one to come to one’s own conclusions.

Really good, perfect mini-novel

Horror, or in this case, horroresque fiction should not be overly long. This book has these tight little chapters that make the whole thing very digestible. I started this while driving, and ended up listening to the whole thing. I hope we get some more from Knutsdottir. This is the second Icelandic book I’ve read this year and they have both been great. Dark country, dark ideas ☠️.

Great premise but a head scratcher

It’s an engaging, quick listen with an excellent premise, but it ultimately leaves way more questions than answers. I’m excited to see how this author evolves, since I’m new to her work and icelanic writers et al, but I was fairly disappointed with how many loose ends weren’t tied up.

A tight story, worth the listen.

Although I didn’t love the ending, I also recognize good endings are hard and I get what the author was going for. It’s ultimately a tragic tale about unresolved grief, loss and trauma but, that also doesn’t wrap it all up in a bow like you would expect it to either. That alone doesn’t explain it all.

I love the pacing! A tight story you can make it through in a very reasonable amount of time - which I love.


THE CAT STUFF FROM A CAT LOVER (A SUMMARY WITH NO SPOILERS)
Yes, the cat stuff you read about in other reviews is there but I personally wasn’t as disturbed by it because you will not be forced to listen to any acts while they are occurring - you are told about the after effects. In other words, you will not be lulled into a situation a sweet cat interaction that slowly or suddenly turns into cat torture. I was actually waiting for that to happen in this book and was relieved when it did not.

I have read and been forced to listen to much, much worse than what is revealed in this character’s story. In many instances I was unknowingly thrown into animal torture of the most horrific kind (I’m talking to you “The Troop!”) and I don’t appreciate it at all. I would be forced to quickly skip forward if listening or skip pages if reading. But in either situation the damage has already been done and I’m in it and have already seen/heard too much that will take me days to get over.

All this is to say I personally was not as affected by “the cat incident” and for someone that is somewhat sensitive to these things (I’m sure others are even more sensitive), I feel this was pretty tame-ish given what I have read and heard before in other books. I was certainly not pleased with it but it was fine. It is fiction after all so that’s how I can be okay with it in my mind. You get to decide for yourself how you feel.

GREAT CONCEPT & has a lot of creepiness, lots of tension !!! Also is a very quick listen!

Loved the whole thing until we “find out what’s been happening,” which is in quotes because we really, really, do not. I’m used to ambiguity when it comes to horror novel endings, and maybe it’s because this is a short story, which are typically even *more* ambiguous… but COME ON! We could’ve been given SOME explanation of what is actually going on here ay yiy yiy! So the ending & somewhere between I’d guess the 75-80% mark made up the 3% of the book that I strongly disliked… come onnn the ending was just a waste of the SHEER POTENTIAL of this short story as far as I’m concerned… I feel like horror screenwriters would enjoy this book because of the ambiguity, though! lol. Hopefully someone out there gets the reference :-P BUT THE REST WAS SOSOSO GOOD & had me GLUED which I can’t ignore! Except ugh part of the 3% I didn’t like had to do with cat deaths, so if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, I’d be very, very careful if you choose to read this (which I am, but I went in knowing this & that if it was really intense I could walk away, but I made it through that part & it’s definitely nothing compared to some of the horror books I’ve read!); Thankfully it’s not just the main plot, but the details as well that are ambiguous lol…. Read at your own risk & don’t be afraid to walk away if it does happen to be a very serious trigger for you or it is just not something you can manage to read about! No worries— it’s valid & nothing to be ashamed of!

Creepy and Disorienting

I really liked the audiobook performance. It was a short and creepy story. I glad I listened to this story as an audiobook book for the Icelandic names and words.