Jennifer McMahon

The Invited

Jennifer McMahon is one of my favorite contemporary horror authors, and her latest novel, The Invited, is one of her best. This time around McMahon inverts the traditional haunted house tale. Helen and Nate have purchased a plot of land in rural Vermont, unaware that it was so cheap because it’s believed to be haunted by the ghost of Hattie Breckenridge, who had been lynched for witchcraft.

We follow Helen and Nate as they take on the task of building the house themselves, learning as they go, and confronting numerous obstacles—from unwelcoming neighbors, gun-toting spiritualists and the precocious schoolgirl, Olive, whose story, for my money, steals the show.

The Invited is as much Olive’s story as Helen’s, and together they help each other deal with recently lost parents, the distrust of distracted male counterparts and share a love of history, justice and the otherworldly.

As the house takes shape, Helen fills it with artifacts from the many tragedies of Hattie and her extended family—and that’s when the unexpected house guests begin to arrive. Rather than buying a haunted house, they build one. But it turns out it’s not the ghosts Helen and Olive need to fear.

McMahon is a must-read author for horror fans, and The Invited is one of her finest books. I highly recommend this twisted little ghost story with a heart of gold.

I was first introduced to McMahon in 2014 with The Winter People, her first true horror novel after a string of thrillers.

It was a daring time for McMahon to make that transition. The current resurgence in horror literature (in terms of mainstream acceptance) was still a few years away, and despite the greatness of the writing, it wasn’t easy getting a book like that into people’s hands.

Case in point: Gillian Flynn.

I like to say that McMahon did a reverse Flynn. Whereas Flynn wrote two fantastic horror novels, it was a thriller/mystery novel, Gone Girl, that brought her mainstream success. This is not a knock on Gone Girl, but rather a critique of marketing. (See Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix for a deeper discussion of the shift from horror to thriller in the early 1990s.)

So what had changed? Only the design of the book cover and the book’s marketing. Unlike her titular character, Flynn’s dark subject matter hadn’t gone anywhere. But to get it into the hands of more readers, it was packaged differently than her first two books.

It’s refreshing to see Jennifer McMahon take the reverse course. Her first five novels were marketed firmly in the mystery genre, complete with nursery rhyme-ish titles (Promise Not to Tell, Don’t Breathe a Word) and cover art with imperiled girls.

However, the marketing belied the content of these wonderful novels, which were not about young girls being rescued but rather girls finding their strength and courage in terrifying circumstances. Despite the mystery packaging, these novels contained McMahon’s signature blend of spooky no matter the cover art.

It’s delightful to now see her books proudly displayed in the horror section, as I don’t think I’ll ever tire of reading New England ghost stories. Certainly not when they’re as well-written as The Invited.