The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

Hello everyone. I hope you are warm and safe.

Holy cow it's snowing.  Not here of course, it's 70 here.  My sisters, however, are getting loads of ice, soon to be followed by lots of snow.  To be honest, normally I'd be laughing hysterically now, but the ice freaks me out.  The whole bit about no traction on roads, it raining trees knocking power out and having no heat seems just a tiny bit dangerous. When we were kids, we did "the snow dance" which we should have patented because it was often effective in bringing snow and the desired outcome of no school the next day.  We would perch ourselves kneeling on the couch, elbows on the back looking at the street in front of our house.  The hill it sat on could predict things like whether or not you should bother doing your homework, simply by denying cars passage upward.  If cars didn't make the hill, no classes.  The time a car slid backwards down the hill hitting our mailbox...no school for two days. Yep, the snow dance and our prediction center were mystical.  Poor kids now have home schooling on bad weather days, shame you're missing out on Frosted Flakes and hours of cartoons.

I recently read The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf. This is the story of Wylie, an author, who writes about true crime.  Wylie is in a rural farmhouse working on her latest book when a horrible snow and ice storm hits.  With power and phone out, she finds herself truly alone until she finds a hurt child, outside in the storm. As Wylie tries to find out the history of this child, the reader goes back in time to learn about a terrible crime.  Twenty years earlier two people are brutally murdered, and a girl goes missing.  Gudenkauf does a great job at pulling these two timelines and stories together.  This fast-reading book is action packed and will have you bleary eyed giving up your sleep just to keep flipping pages.  If you are in the mood for a real thriller and a wild ride, this one is for you.

Get yourself a big cup of hot chocolate and the economy size eye drops for this one, you'll need it!