Have you resolved to read outside your normal reading tendencies? If so, and you would like to read more scary stories, I can suggest a good book to dip your toe into this genre. The Invited by Jennifer McMahon (2019; 353 pages) is marketed as a ghost story, but don’t let this scare you too much. I would not expect to laugh while reading a scary story and that happened several times in this book. There are times in the story in what could be a tenser situation where the author placed a phrase that made me chuckle. This helped break up some tension. Even the scenes you could tell were supposed to be creepy did not get very dark and they were over rather quickly.

Behind the premise of a ghost story lies an intriguing story about a couple moving to a small town outside Connecticut and buying a land with a chilling history. As the couple build their dream home, they get more and more wrapped up in the town and its history. The husband is a scientist and loves nature but keeps running into a white doe that may or may not harbor ill intentions. The wife is a historian and feels a love for old objects, so she begins bringing in pieces to incorporate in the house that have had an unsettling past of their own. Their next door neighbor’s child has also had a tragic past involving her missing mother and as they get  closer to her and her family more weird things start happening. This all merges together to make for an enrapturing tale.

So, if you’re looking to branch out a bit and want a not-too-difficult ghost story, this could be it!

Pick up this book if you like thrillers like:

— Meghan V.