The Invited

A Novel

By: Jennifer McMahon

Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Justine Eyre

A chilling ghost story with a twist: The New York Times best-selling author of The Winter People returns to the woods of Vermont to tell the story of a husband and wife who don't simply move into a haunted house - they build one....

In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on 44 acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams.

When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. With her passion for artifacts, Helen finds special materials to incorporate into the house - a beam from an old schoolroom, bricks from a mill, a mantel from a farmhouse - objects that draw her deeper into the story of Hattie and her descendants, three generations of Breckenridge women, each of whom died suspiciously.

As the building project progresses, the house will become a place of menace and unfinished business: a new home, now haunted, that beckons its owners and their neighbors toward unimaginable danger.

©2019 Jennifer McMahon (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Entertaining. . . powerful. . . supplies a plethora of frights that emerge from believable characters trying to navigate normal lives. McMahon again proves that the modern ghost story is more than things that go bump in the night. It hinges on reality, slowly building to a terror that seems real and sometimes personal, as it does in THE INVITED.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“McMahon blends her historical tale of rural Vermont with some crafty ghost stories and makes it impossible for the reader to turn away.”—Suspense Magazine

“[The] blend of ghost story and modern mystery is flawlessly compelling and evocative. A masterful twist on the haunted-house story.”—Booklist (starred review)

Horrible narration

The story is just as amazing as every McMahon book but the narrator is terrible. Her word inflection is so strange and almost whining. The story was so good but the narration took so much away from the enjoyment!

Awful Nasal Narration: Justine Eyre

I should’ve read the reviews the one narrator is so hard to get past! I love the story so far (CHAPTER 1) but might need to throw the towel in because I cannot get past her Newscaster nasal voice. I can’t even pay attention to what’s going on & the thought of going back a few seconds is the worst. I wish we could pick narration. Ugh.

Such a wonderful listen

I am an avid audio book listener and I’ve got to say this book was amazing. The story kept me engaged and the ending was very satisfying! My only issue was the narrator, at first I found her voice very harsh and distracting, however I learned to ignore it because the story was just so wonderful. Highly recommend!

You won't have to leave your lights on

Ack! I wanted to LOVE this book but like the last Jennifer McMahon book I read, (The Winter People,) the author just gave too much away to keep it really suspenseful or spooky. I feel like she gets so close in this modern day "ghost story" about a couple that move out to the Vermont woods and strange events start happening as they build their dream house on a haunted property. McMahon is so good at doing her research and always weaves a story that is historically worthy of a haunting. She also can portray the Vermont woods like an oil painting. And, she does really well at flipping back and forth in time to slowly release the past and present in a way that you can follow and clearly see a relationship developing until they eventually intersect. In this book, there was a witch, Hattie, who came to an untimely fate (first chapter - not a spoiler alert) a hundred years ago and a history teacher, Helen, who inadvertently stirs up Hattie's ghost when she buys the land where Hattie lived. There are SO MANY opportunities for this book to be "thrilling" "terrifying" and "chilling" as I've heard other reviews claim, but it fails to deliver because the author explains away every single disturbing event almost immediately by identifying what it actually was and where it came from and why it happened, etc... There is a saying in creative writing, "show don't tell" ~ I wish McMahon would leave a little bit to the imagination - at least until the ending. I don't want to be friends with her ghosts. I want to be spooked by them! That being said, I would still probably recommend it as it was a decent read. It just wasn't nearly as scary as a modern day ghost story should be in my opinion. However, the characters are well written and the storyline really flows seamlessly and there is a surprise at the end. So read it, but you won't have to leave your lights on.

Great Book!

Haunting story and very interesting. The narration was just fine idk what the other reviewers were complaining about.

Hard to stay with it.

The narrator, as one other person commented, had a lilt or something in her voice that ended every sentence and it was really hard to get past this to actually be able to pay attention to the story. I did. It finish the book because I narrators voice was really tough to get around.

Good read

A very good read. I had it figured out way before the end but I didn’t mind. There were still enough little twists to make it worth it. A good book!

excellent! suspenseful! couldn't put it down!

i read the winter people recently and thought it was okay But I LOVED this book! I just could not put it down!

fairly interesting if not a tad predictable

[mild spoilers- read w caution] I was very interested in the story until the halfway mark when I guessed the baddie and had to wait for hours for the protagonist to catch up. It irks me that female lead characters are written so stupid and weak that they seem to always need saving by others.

The ghost story was sweet albeit a bit confusing. leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Like if this ghost just wanted 'closure' what abt all the stories of people dying/going missing? for fun?

The narrator was Ok but her attempt at differing voices was confusing. She for some reason made the Riley character sound like a man so you have to pay close attention or you might confuse her with the actual men in the story.

Kept me entertained!

I went thru this book pretty fast, it was a good story! Believable characters, good drama and some creepy bits! Not as scary as I was hoping but it did give me the creeps at times!