Would you intentionally invite spirits into your home? What about if you knew they had an important message for you? Jennifer McMahon explores these questions in her latest horror novel, The Invited, which comes out tomorrow, April 30. If you’re a fan of haunted houses, historic ghosts, and women who defy expectations, you won’t want to miss this one!
History-obsessed Helen and her nature-nerd husband Nate make the bold decision to abandon their comfy suburban lives and embark on an ambitious project: building their own home from scratch. After purchasing the perfect spot of land in rural Vermont, they learn that the bog on their property is said to be haunted by the spirit of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman hanged there for witchcraft almost a century before. Helen yearns to connect with Hattie, and it seems that Hattie is just as eager to get a message to Helen. Though she knows her skeptical husband will disapprove, Helen begins incorporating objects into their new home that will invite the spirits in. Meanwhile, Helen and Nate befriend a local rebellious teenager named Olive. When Olive’s mother disappeared last year, everyone said she had run off with another man. But what if that’s not what happened? While Helen chases after Hattie’s ghost, Olive searches for Hattie’s legendary buried treasure, along with any clues to what really happened to her mom.
The Invited brings elements of the Gothic into a modern story in some new and exciting ways. The most Gothic aspect of the story is its focus on setting. In this case, instead of moving into a home that is already haunted, Helen and Nate are constructing their own haunted house piece by piece. Even the story itself is structured like the house, with the title of each section reflecting a phase of construction, such as “Foundation,” “Framing,” and “Floors and Trim.” Moreover, the action of the story is deeply tied to its sense of place. Apart from the house itself, the bog around it is particularly spooky with its legends of ghostly animals and buried bodies. Helen studies the surrounding area’s local history in order to learn more about Hattie and her descendants, and she visits the physical locations of important events. Throughout the story, we see evidence that spirits become anchored to physical objects and that settings can hold onto history in a very literal sense.
One of my favorite things about this book is the way that it blurs the lines between different genres. At first glance, The Invited seems like a pretty straightforward horror story. It even appears to fit neatly into a particularly trope-filled subgenre: the haunted house story—even if it does so in an unusual manner. But as the book goes on, the reader slowly begins to realize that even though the ghosts are terrifying at times, they are not the true source of horror in the story. In fact, this isn’t a horror novel at all, but a mystery/thriller. Hattie’s spirit is here to warn Helen that someone is in danger—and not from the ghosts. Helen must follow the clues she’s given by the spirits in order to stop another tragedy from striking Hattie’s family.
If The Invited sounds like your kind of read, you can find it on the shelves of your local bookstore starting tomorrow! You can also order it online and support The Gothic Library in the process by clicking on this Bookshop.org affiliate link. Once you’ve read it, let me know what you think!