The Night Strangers

by Chris Bohjalian

In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts.      The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain due to double engine failure. The body count? Thirty-nine.        What follow is a riveting ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling, award-winning novelist Chris a palpable sense of place, meticulous research, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply. The difference this time? Some of those characters are dead.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal, Thriller, Audiobook, Ghosts

401 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 11, 2011

About the author

Chris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 25 books. His 25th book, THE JACKAL’S MISTRESS, is now on sale. He writes literary fiction, historical fiction, thrillers, and (on occasion) ghost stories. His goal is never to write the same book twice. He has published somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 million words.

His work has been translated into 35 languages and become three movies (MIDWIVES, SECRETS OF EDEN, and PAST THE BLEACHERS) and an Emmy-winning TV series (THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT). He has two other novels in development for TV series as well.

He is also a playwright, including THE CLUB in 2024; MIDWIVES in 2020; and GROUNDED (now WINGSPAN) in 2018.

His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Bookpage, and Salon.

His awards include the Walter Cerf Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts; the Sarah Josefa Hale Award; the ANCA Freedom Award for his work educating Americans about the Armenian Genocide; the ANCA Arts and Letters Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS, as well as the Saint Mesrob Mashdots Medal; the New England Society Book Award for THE NIGHT STRANGERS; the New England Book Award; Russia’s Soglasie (Concord) Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS; a Boston Public Library Literary Light; a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for TRANS-SISTER RADIO; a Best Lifestyle Column for “Idyll Banter” from the Vermont Press Association; and the Anahid Literary Award. His short story, SLOT MACHINE FEVER DREAMS was a finalist for Best Short Story from the International Thriller Writers Association and the audio production was an Audie Finalist. His novel, MIDWVES was a selection of Oprah’s Book Club, and his novel, HOUR OF THE WITCH, was a Barnes & Noble Book Club pick. He is a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He has written for a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Reader’s Digest, and The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. He was a weekly columnist in Vermont for The Burlington Free Press from 1992 through 2015.

Chris graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College. He has been awarded Honorary Degrees as well from Amherst, Champlain College, and Castleton University.

He lives in Vermont with his wife, the photographer Victoria Blewer.

Reviews

[Madeline · Rating 1 out of 5]

Imagine if someone set out to write a ghost story that was a combination of The Shining and The Haunting of Hill House, with some forgotten-in-ten-years current events tied in...and then the movies The Wicker Man and The Craft came along and vomited over everything. The result is Chris Bohjalian's The Night Strangers.

I can't even do a The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly-style review, because it's all bad. Instead, I will now present the follow list of reasons this book failed me, in ascending order from minor to major offenses.

-False advertising. All the publisher-provided descriptions of this book make a big deal about how this family moves into a ramshackle Victorian house (+5 horror movie points) that has a creepy basement (+10 horror movie points) with a mysterious door that has been bolted shut 39 times (+25 horror movie points), and the house is in an isolated small town with creepy locals (+10 horror movie points), no cell phone reception and frequent power outages (+20 horror movie points). Also the father is a former airline pilot who recently crashed his plane into a lake, killing 39 of the passengers (+30 horror movie points). So with all that in mind, I was expecting a good, cheap haunted house story with some melodramatic family issues thrown in, a la American Horror Story. That's what the book jacket promised me. But instead, I got a load of bullshit about the pilot's PTSD and the creepy locals. The goddamn house wasn't even haunted at all, but I guess it's not Bohjalian's fault that the publishers didn't understand his book, which is why this is a minor offense.

-The people who buy the house have ten-year-old twin girls named Hallie and Garnet. What, you wonder, could possess two otherwise-normal people to name a child Garnet? Let the narration explain: "Garnet because her newborn hair had been the deep red it was even now". For Christ's sake. First, garnets are dark, dark red, which is not a hair color that occurs in nature. Second, I get that you want to give your kid a name that references her hair color (which has a good chance of changing before she grows up) so people can make tired jokes about it for the rest of her life, but why Garnet? Was RUBY too mainstream? The point of all of this is that although I was supposed to be rooting for the parents, I immediately hated them because of the stupid name they gave their child.

-Bohjalian has no idea how children talk or think. Remember Danny Torrance in The Shining? He was obviously an intelligent and sensitive seven-year-old, but that doesn't mean he talked or thought like an adult. Hallie and Garnet (ugh), on the other hand, talk like forty-year-olds all the time. At one point Hallie says, "Do you hear them? ...You must!" WHAT. And the narration never bothers to explain why these girls talk like no ten-year-olds I've ever heard of. It was an easy fix: "Wow, those girls sure do love reading Dickens novels! No wonder they talk like that!" But no - we are expected to believe that these average children talk and think exactly like the adults. And by "think", I of course mean, "don't think at all", because...

-Logic doesn't even make an appearance in this story. The pilot has PTSD, which means he's haunted by three ghosts of the people he killed - two of which are a man and his little girl. The ghost dad wants the pilot to murder his two daughters so his kid can have ghost kids to play with (obviously), and the pilot goes from "I'd never hurt my daughters!" to "Welp, guess it's time to murder my kids!" in the space of a chapter and it made no sense. Similarly, there's a coven of herbalists/Shamans (no, seriously) in the town, and they want to sacrifice the twins for witchcraft (obviously). And no, that does not count as a spoiler because basically the second we meet any of the herbalists they're like, "We looooove your twiiiiins, they're so...special" and their mom is like, "My, our neighbors are friendly! I love how they keep bringing my ten-year-old daughters over to their houses to learn about plants without my supervision, and the way they gave my daughters and me new names! This can't possibly have sinister implications!" and it's like WAKE UP, WOMAN. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

Similarly, at the end of the book after the mom and her daughters have survived the plant cult's attempts to sacrifice one of the girls so they can all be immortal (again, not joking), we flash forward ten years and the FAMILY IS STILL HANGING AROUND WITH THE CREEPY HERBALISTS, inviting them over for dinner even though they BOTH SAW THESE PEOPLE KILL ONE OF THEIR KIDS. Bohjalian's explanation for this is literally, "they forgot about it because of MAGIC!" and it. Is. Retarded.

-Did I mention that the pilot has PTSD? Because Bohjalian would want me to mention that, judging by how goddamn insistent he is that we never, ever forget that the pilot crashed into a lake and killed a bunch of people. Until about 2/3 into the book, every single section told from the pilot's perspective is just a rehash of the same exact idea: "the plane crashed, people died, and I am sad about it." Nothing new is learned, aside from the fact that the ghosts want him to kill his daughters. It's just repeated over and over and over and over again, like Bohjalian is afraid we're going to forget about the crash. And this might be bearable, except for some reason all of the pilot's sections are narrated in second-person present, while the rest of the book is narrated in third-person past tense, and I cannot stress how annoying this was. It got to the point where I would cringe and consider skipping ahead every time one of the pilot's chapters began. "You pause in your work in the kitchen, replacing the paint roller in the tray and sitting back on your heels as you wonder: Where was He when Flight 1611 crashed?" *facedesk*

-The story is frequently ridiculous when it means to be scary. It has lines like "The child is losing blood fast and it's being wasted. Wasted! You're a New Englander, how can you abide that?" that I cannot imagine getting any reaction other than laughter. Towards the end, when everything is going off the rails and the cult is revealing their true crazy, the story becomes much more reminiscent of Hot Fuzz than The Shining. (honestly, towards the end, the herbalists might as well have started chanting "It's for the greater good!" "The greater good" and I would not have blinked an eye.

-The two main storylines have nothing in common with each other. So there's the pilot's PTSD-related ghosts, and the creepy herbalists. For almost the entire book, the two plots are kept completely separate, and at the end when they finally do intersect, it's in the most insignificant way possible. I think Bohjalian should have picked one story - either the PTSD or the plant cult - and committed to it wholeheartedly. Instead he tries to do both, and what results is a crazy mess of a book that fails at every opportunity: it fails at creating sympathetic characters, realistic and well-done prose, carefully crafted plot, and a scary atmosphere.

On the plus side, with all this evidence in mind, Bohjalian would make an excellent addition to the writers' team over at American Horror Story. He'd better hurry up and jump on that crazy train before it derails halfway through the second season.

(yes I am a little addicted to American Horror Story, why do you ask?)

[M A · Rating 1 out of 5]

DISCLAIMERS: I paid full price for this novel (and heartily regret it.) I read this entire novel (and heartily regret that, too.) This is my first (and probably my last) Bohjalian read. In terms of technical quality and professionalism, the book boasts interesting construction, but I still dislike it.

In a nutshell, the beginning took forever for this story to get anywhere, the middle featured some genuine chills and disturbing moments and the conclusion punched me hard in the belly and roused rare fury at the funds and hours I invested in the read. There are very few books I've ever found myself screaming, "Give me my time and my money back!" but "Night Strangers" makes that cut with aplomb.

In "Night Strangers," Bohjalian attempts to combine powerful family drama with psychological horror and supernatural horror a la Stephen King's "The Shining." Despite the scares (some genuine, others cliche to the point they annoy more than frighten,) Bohjalian's storytelling fails due to his inability to construct powerful (or even tepid) emotional dynamics within the Linton family. The family is so emotionally damaged and fractured from Day One and the characters themselves are too wooden and one-dimensional for attentive readers to feel invested in them. I found Reseda, a secondary character, somewhat compelling, but that's about it in a novel with a fairly large cast.

So, without good, strong characters or interesting relationships to engage me, I move on to the plot. This book features some of the most self-indulgent overwriting I've ever read. Bohjalian devotes a huge chunk of word count to describing the Lintons' new house, its oddities, and hints of its sinister history. I love lots of word-painting and strong establishment of setting, but Bohjalian failed to connect these elements with plot and/or characterization in any meaningful way beyond that I felt the house's eccentric construction and decor were as dysfunctional, disturbed, and ineffective as the Lintons themselves. This may have been B's point, but it was too overdone and did little to move the plot forward.

More "description overkill" is devoted to recounting the accident that ended Chip Linton's career as a commercial pilot, a tragedy involving 39 deaths and reducing Chip to an emotionally unstable, guilt-ridden recluse. I am not exagerrating when I say I got sick and tired of reading and re-reading these descriptions and they went on throughout the entire novel. Every few scenes Chip experienced a new memory, a daydream, or a nightmare regarding what he witnessed and experienced. It became distracting and intrusive and -- again -- served no purpose in expanding characterization or plot. Obviously Chip's sense of identity and self-worth were hampered by his accident, but the constant reminders reached a maudlin level. I felt like Bohjalian was more interested in describing every technical detail of how a plane crashes and what the passengers witness and experience than he was in telling me a good story. Am I impressed with his research and technical jargon? Sure. Did it make for a good story? Not so much.

Bohjalian's writing suffers awful transition. In one chapter, Chip wouldn't dream of murdering his daughters. A scene or two later, he's stalking them with a knife without any clear transition explaining the change. It may have been the author's intent to provide an inconsistent, schizophrenic feel to his work, but I found it confusing and distracting. Just one more annoying thing that made no sense.



NOTE: THE REMAINDER OF THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. PLEASE DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU WISH TO AVOID SPOILERS.


I was profoundly disturbed by Bohjalian's efforts to portray the herbalists and their objectives in a morally ambiguous light. To me, they were clearly evil people. Child murder, child abuse, premeditated murder, assault, manslaughter, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and poisoning one's neighbors and one's neighbors' pets are not "good" behaviors or indicative of moral consciousness.

Bohjalian's storytelling always conveyed (to me, anyway) that the herbalists were basically good, civic-minded, productive, respectable citizens and kind-hearted neighbors engrossed in a primarily harmless and beneficial hobby in horticulture. They feel free to manipulate, terrorize, and kill other people, though. And every so often, they just want children's blood for a special tincture to preserve and unnaturally extend their life spans. The author's tone and voice addressing the coven's wrongdoing is disconcerting because NO ONE in the story appears to object to the coven's actions because those actions are morally wrong.

Throughout the novel, several herbalists inform Reseda of their intent to use one of the Linton children in their tincture. Reseda voices mild objections and refrains from reporting these conversations to the police or taking any other steps to protect the Linton children or inform Emily of the potential danger to her children. When Reseda reminds her "friends" of their last murder, they defend themselves saying "The child died, but the tincture worked." The implication is that the child's death was accidental and unintended and the new effort will be non-fatal.

Later in the novel, the coven outright acknowledges their intent to kill Hallie. They need more blood from her than she can "donate" and survive.

The coven agrees to cease murdering/bleeding Hallie when Reseda offers her own blood as substitute. However, when Reseda is accidently killed, the coven does not hesitate to continue bleeding (and ultimately murdering) Hallie.

In brief, the coven had numerous opportunities to reconsider their actions and elected to proceed, knowing full well the price for their tincture was a child's life.

The epilogue's "happily ever after" assimilation of the Lintons among the people who terrorized them, took advantage of Chip's poor mental and emotional health, murdered their child with premeditation and malice, and cannibalized their child is far more upsetting and offensive than the previous, "fizzled out" haunted house and decent vengeful ghost story components. Most horrific is the concept that Chip is now a happy, well-adjusted man. THAT's Chip's miracle cure? His neighbors kill one of his kids and ply him with lots of herbal medication and now he's a happy man? Oooh, and don't forget to feed him and wifey their own daughter's blood so they, too, can enjoy the special benefits of the herbalist's special tincture. See, these herbalists really aren't bad.

I'm sure Bohjalian had some kind of important theme in this story. Perhaps this is all an allegory for stem cells research or something. Either way, the story left me high and dry and angry I ever bothered with it.

I would have been satisfied with the book if at least the epilogue included some suggestion the coven would pay for their unspeakable crimes. Perhaps Emily is not as "bespelled" by their herbal remedies as they wish. Perhaps Garnet is not so much a daughter of the coven as she is a would-be firebrand. Perhaps Chip's new wine celler is meant to harvest a very special vintage for his "friends." Heck, even Hallie's ghost hanging around and wrecking the coven would be fine. But nothing like that occurs. It's just a happy ending for the coven.

Don't read this book if you like the bad guys to pay for their wrongdoing. If, on the other hand, you totally approve of child murderers, this book is straight up your alley.

[B the BookAddict · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't read creepy; my imagination is fertile enough on it's own, thank you very much. So The Night Strangers threw me more than a just little. I actually had this novel listed for the New Life section of my Spring Challenge; a new life beginning in a new town, excellent I thought. But this is not the sort of new life I would like. One of the many Bohjalian books I have read and he's a writer who never cease to please. His prose always excels and the themes are well researched. Bohjalian is not a formula writer; each of his novels cover very different topics and are very much stand alone, this adds to his appeal, I feel.

Chip Linton is an airline pilot to which the worst has happened: on a routine flight, his plane is struck by a flock of geese and his attempts at a safe landing on a lake have ended in disaster – thirty nine passengers and crew dead. Understandably, he is wracked with guilt and depression. Unable to avoid public attention, Chip and wife Emily leave Philadelphia with their twin daughters and move to a small town in New Hampshire. The move is anything but restful; the new house has a strange cellar door with thirty-nine bolts and their daughters capture the attention of a strange group of women, so called herbalists. As Chip struggles with his sanity, Emily appears to succumb to these new 'friends'. Add in that the previous owners also had twins, one of whom died aged twelve in questionable circumstances and their mother a mentally unstable woman and you have a set of strange coincidences.

This story creeped me out; there was a writhing undercurrent of foreboding; strange things happening just below the surface. Bohjalian kept me captive with his deceptively slow pace; a suspense made worse by his use of Chip as a narrator, a man sliding into crazy. The novel has wonderfully descriptive passages, allowing you very easily to picture the scenes. Bohjalian never hurried; he metered out the unease a little at a time, increasing the tension slowly but keeping the reader captive. A 3.5 rating for a disquieting read.

[Rachael · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was utterly terrifying. Really, really just the most frightening thing in the world... if, like me, you are a nervous flier. Apart from that, there is not a single scary incident in the rest of the book.

In the first pages of the book you will be told that flight 1611, flown by Chip Linton, crashes into Lake Champlain. You will be told this time and time again. You will read it ad infinitum, ad nauseam on every other page. FLIGHT 1611 CRASHED INTO LAKE CHAMPLAIN. You are beaten over the head with this phrase, probably because the crash scene was spectacular and the rest of the book is about as exciting as pairing up your socks after laundry day.

I took two long haul flights in the midst of reading this and although I have flown many times I was extra nervous. I never used to be scared of flying, but in the last few years this intense fear of strapping myself into a tin can and catapulting myself across the ocean has developed. There is no common sense behind it, I'm well aware that it's the safest mode of transport and that turbulence is normal, but after reading the opening passage of this story I'm now bloody terrified of taking off too. Ask my son whose hands were crushed for a good 10 minutes whilst I tried not to cry and desperately wished I was anywhere else. I did calm down of course, drank a glass of red wine, tried to watch an awful film and eventually fell asleep for the next 3 hours of the flight, before being woken up by the child behind me who'd decided that kicking my chair was a new Olympic sport. You get the picture. A nine and a half hour, claustrophobic, noisy bit of hell, made all that much worse by reading the opening of this story (where, if you'll remember, flight 1611 crashed into Lake Champlain). That's praise, by the way. When a tale encroaches on your real life, makes you think, makes you worry or makes you want to swallow your own toungue out of fear, that is great writing. What the hell happened to the rest of the book?

Unfortunately the rest of this story was lacklustre, uninspired and incredibly dull. We do not properly see the effects of PTSD on Chip Linton (because, just in case you forgot, his flight 1611 crashed into Lake Champlain) or on his family. Instead we are introduced to supernatural elements disguised as PTSD and are met with a cast of unmemorable town people who love gardening. Ho hum. This is the most bland coven you'll ever meet and Chip's 'haunting' is somehow missed by everyone. The conclusion was curt and unemotional, the protagonist's endings, some cruel, were all neatly tied up with a sterile bow.

I gave this 2 stars for the plane crash scene, which will haunt me for a long time, and for the audible narration which was very good, despite having to listen to it at x1.25 speed.

Don't read this expecting it to be about Night Strangers, bizarrely the title and the story have nothing to do with each other.

Don't read this if you are scared of flying.

Don't read this if you are averse to repetitive, rambling stories.

Did I mention that flight 1611 crashed into Lake Champlain?

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Suggestions to the author:

-You do realize that your title kind of has nothing to do with your story, right?

-You had two storylines running through this book (that seemed to be estranged) and I think it would have been better to choose one and write it better. Lazy.

-As difficult as it is to make a story about a haunting completely non-scary, somehow you managed. So, bravo!

-Really? REALLY?!? You hate your readers so much you gave them that ending? I don't require happy endings, but come on.

-It's annoying to the reader to have protagonists that are so completely lacking in common sense and instinct. I knew it was dangerous to trust the locals about 350 pages before the main characters did...and it's only a 375 page book.

-I was so disappointed by this book, I no longer feel guilty about accidentally getting it wet. And that's saying something.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Halloween season, I went big with my seasons-readings. I chose It, Stephen King’s massive horror opus. One thousand pages of kids-verses-evil. It is a big undertaking to read, even with an effortless storyteller like King.

Surprisingly, when I finished, I realized there was still some October left. So I decided to pick a second spook-story to round out the fall. I wanted a palate cleanser, something different from the grand guignol excesses of It. I wanted a simple Gothic ghost story, a book along the lines of The Turn of the Screw, except enjoyable. I settled on Chris Bohjalian’s The Night Strangers for reasons that are too boring to explain.

In general, I’m not a horror junkie. I don’t look forward to getting scared for the sake of that rush. I’m scared enough as it is. Moreover, books and movies don’t really have the power to frighten. I’m too much of a pragmatist, worried about cancer and car accidents and student loan debt. I don’t know much math, but some simple probabilities assure me that my chances of heart disease are far higher than the likelihood of my demise at the hands of a demonic clown.

What I like from my spook-stories is subtlety. Every once in awhile, I’ll feel like Stephen King, and I’m always entertained by his over-the-top Stephen King-ness. Most of the time, though, I prefer the creeping dread and eerie chills you get from old fashioned ghost stories involving good old fashioned ghosts.

In the beginning, at least, The Night Strangers really hit that sweet spot. It begins as the story of a man unraveling in the wake of a tragedy. That man is Captain Chip Linton, an airline pilot who is at the controls when his Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet hits a flock of birds. Like Chesley Sullenberger, who is referenced several times, Chip attempts to ditch his plane in the water – this time Lake Champlain rather than the Hudson. Chip’s effort is not as successful as Sully’s, and thirty-nine people die.

Following the accident, Chip, his wife Emily, and their twin daughters, purchase a Victorian house in northern New Hampshire. Here, Chip begins to crack at the seams. He finds a door in the house sealed with thirty-nine (39!!!!) carriage bolts. He begins to see ghosts – dead passengers from his plane. The apparitions want something from him, and over time, Chip seems willing to give it to them.

Had Bohjalian stayed focused on this plotline, I would’ve been pretty pleased. He does not, unfortunately. At the same time Chip is cavorting with his dead passengers, there is a secondary plot involving a strange group of men and women who call themselves “herbalists.” This plot is not a subplot or a B-plot but a parallel A-plot that eventually overwhelms the ghost storyline. The herbalists are an irritating, witch-like group who call each other by botanical names and are by turns pushy, curious, and insistent. They show a profound interest in the Linton’s twin girls.

To dwell upon the herbalist narrative strand to much would be to venture into spoiler territory. Suffice it to say, the mythical mystical powers of twins, and the fortunes of a coven of plant-nuts interested in those twins, are quite boring to me. Accordingly, my enthusiasm for The Night Strangers waned with each page, as the herbalist plot took center stage.

The strangest thing about this book is how it feels like two separate novels happening in the same place, at the same time. The haunted house plot and the herbalist plot never really intertwine or inform each other. They both unspool simultaneously but independently. By the end, it simply seemed like Chip was the unluckiest sap to ever ski the slopes of New Hampshire. First he crashes his plane. Then he gets haunted by his dead passengers. And out of left field he has to deal with a bunch of green-thumbed jerks who act a lot like a coven.

Bohjalian is unquestionably an above-average writer. I didn't get much mileage out of his plotting or structuring, but I enjoyed the heck out of his set pieces. The scariest thing in the book isn’t a ghost or an obtrusive gardener but the depiction of Chip’s plane crash:

And then [the plane] is somersaulting, slamming down hard, that great metal underbelly facing the sun, and the passengers, who had been merely terrified into a prayerful silence, are now disoriented and screaming. You hear them through the metal door of the flight deck. Others are already dead, though you will learn this only later, because when the plane bangs back into the water the second time, it breaks into halves and the passengers in rows ten through fourteen are slammed headfirst into the fuselage as it collapses or are decapitated by the jagged metal edges. Others are starting to drown that very instant as the lake water…begins filling the two halves of the blackened cabin.

Bohjalian’s excellent descriptions of Chip’s final flight are heightened by his use of the second person, and also from Bohjalian’s own experience. In order to make the crash as authentic as possible, Bohjalian got himself simulation time at Survival Systems USA, which put him in a flight deck upside down and underwater. I didn't love this novel, but I love that kind of effort.

The Night Strangers also has a chilling and effective ending. I won’t discuss it here, but it was almost good enough to make me forget my reservations about the herbalist plotline.

The best way I can describe this novel, I suppose, is to say it is really average and forgettable, except when it was really great and memorable.

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine yourself a pilot of a passenger aircraft, a trip you have made hundreds of times something that you become so used to doing. On one occasion you are the captain of a particular plane and not far from landing to your destination, mid-air suddenly a flock of Geese hit your turbines and all driving power is lost of the aircraft. It nose dives and time is everything with no possibility of landing the plane safely on solid ground the only place to land is the stretch of sea beneath you. What can you do? Your best chance is to try to land safely on the sea, which is not something you have been trained for due to being a procedure of a rare occurrence.
It all ends devastatingly bad and the plane hits the water with deadly speed and impact, all is lost 39 people die and you survive. It great to survive but with the guilt of the dead on your shoulders you wish you were the 40th. The aftermath of this disaster comes with many sleepless nights and nightmares; you are bombarded with images in your mind and the press and newsreels showing the incident. The families only have you to blame as the pilot. This all becomes too much for you and you decide to uproot your wife and twins from the city to a village in New Hampshire and escape to a old home near the woods. This village was to be your escape from the city but proves to become an even more greater challenge and struggle to what you just tried to leave behind. With a close knit community where everyone knows your business and there are no secrets, you wish that you never stepped foot on its soil.
The new home the place that was to be your solace, turns out to have a strange hatch door in the basement with 39 bolts sealing the door closed, yes that is 39 bolts as in 39 dead in the airplane incident and if that is not freaking you out enough your twins love the greenhouse which you discover has had a shady past of being used to grow some strange herbs that a group of Shamans have been growing and using and seem to be still living in the village. The nightmares you tried to leave behind becomes ever so worse with noises that go bump in the night.

The author puts you in a really tense atmosphere of fear in this story that flows so well, you will be hooked and read through the pages in no time at all. This is a page turning psychological tale of the highest caliber as the author takes you into the minds of the pilot, his wife, twins and the shamans. A harrowing story that has the makings of a classic horror story just right for October!
Video interview with author in this link
http://more2read.com/?review=the-night-strangers-by-chris-bohjalian"

[Natalie Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so different from The Sandcastle Girls that it could be written by a different author, except the writing is so good in them both. This is more horror; with witches, ghosts, shamens etc but with a good story running through it that had me not being able to turn the pages fast enough. And that ending! Unpredictable, and not how I thought it would finish at all, which I loved.

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

OK, I've given this 75 pages, and I just can't bring myself to continue. So far, it's been a whole lot of repetition about how the main character was piloting a plane that crashed and ended up killing 39 people. I get that that would be traumatic, and that he'd have PTSD afterward, but there's literally been NOTHING else to this book, except for the very opening section which describes the house and the basement. Everything else has been about the crash and PTSD. Every character, every discussion, every perspective, every page. And worse is that every perspective has to go over the same ground again and again, as though we weren't there, standing in for the main character, and "living it" or whatever we're supposed to have done, via the 2nd person narration.

Why, yes, 2nd person present IS the narrative perspective used for Chip (am I supposed to take a 40ish year old man named "Chip" seriously, by the way?). Let me tell you how much I enjoy that:

Not at fucking all.

I want to experience the story vicariously through its characters. I want the writing to draw me in and make me feel as though I'm a part of it, but through description and skill, rather than a narrative style that basically shoves me into the story as a stand in for the main fucking character. I am not that character, so all I can think of every time I'm told that "I" do or think or say something via this nightmare of a narrative style is... "No I don't." I don't do or think or say any of those things. The CHARACTER is supposed to do or think or say it. I'm supposed to be one step removed from that, and instead, this awful choice of narrative makes it seem as though the character is the one removed from his own damn story.

And I just have no patience for another couple hundred pages of that. This is supposed to be a ghost story, and so far, the only ghost around here is what's left of my interest in this book.

[Kelli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would give this book two & a half stars if that were an option because it wasn't terrible...but it was terribly drawn out and at times terribly boring. I agree with other reviews that the "witch" element was stereotypical and the constant references to flying got boring after a while. I also thought it felt a little too much like The Shining. It probably doesn't help that I found Midwives spectacular, so my expectations were high.

[Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Night Strangers was not Bohjalian's typical novel. In this one he combines fascinating details about witchcraft, mental illness and plane crashes within a chilling and sometimes gory framework. I can see how some reviewers might be disappointed as the different plot elements don't always mesh and the spooky atmosphere can get muddled within the plot. With that noted, however, I found the story itself to be captivating and highly enjoyed listening to the audiobook. The narrators brought the characters and dialogue to life.

We are introduced to Chip and Emily and their 10 year old twin daughters Garnett and Haley. Chip was an airline pilot whose plane crashed in a lake killing 39 passengers. Chip was one of the few survivors. Racked with survivors guilt and a raging case of PTSD, the family opts for a fresh start in an isolated house in a small town. Unbeknownst to them, there are a group of people who live in this town known as The Herbalists. They all seem to be named after plants, have exceptional greenhouses and are feared by other townsfolk who go out of their way to avoid them. The herbalists take notice of and immediately befriend Emily and her twins while Chip starts his downward spiral and obsession that is exacerbated by the tragic and haunted history of their new home.

True to Bohjalian form, the story is exceptionally well written with all characters springing to life. As the plot progresses, we are drawn into this family's plight and concerned about their safety. The suspense builds until we reach the unexpected and haunting conclusion.

I wavered between 3.5 and 4 stars throughout but the ending bumped it to a solid 4 stars for me. I recommend going into this read with an open mind, suspended belief and just going along for the ride!

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone suggested to me that Chris Bohjalian's Night Strangers is a mystery, No, no, no, my pretty. It is horror, it is psychological terror, it is evil, it is creepy, it is raw and it is the perfect book to read as Halloween approaches. I'm not afraid, after all, I keep telling myself, this is only a book. So why are my nerves so taught. I'm as tense as a wound spring and I find myself gripping the book for dear life.

Bohjalian is a masterful storyteller, one who makes his characters so real, you'll feel like they are you friends, but believe me, in this case, you'll be glad that most of them are not. Some readers state the book begins slowly. It might, but I was hooked as soon as I read the prologue. I can see the comparisons that some are making to Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Ira Levin and if you're a fan of any of these, I think you'd enjoy Night Strangers. It's the best of this genre I've read in a long time.

Some are saying Night Strangers is unlike any of Bohjalian's other books. I don't agree. I see all of what attracted me in his other book. A well thought out, thoroughly researched, believable story, with psychological undertones, vivid descriptions of both characters and location and even twins which seem to show up frequently in his works and always are intriguing.

A brief summation of the plot, better explained by reviewers than I can, but here goes...

Respected Pilot Chip Linton's plane is the victim of geese and he has to ditch in Lake Champlain. Over in over in his mind he sees a successful resolution to his plight as he pictures the miraculous survival of passengers of the ill fated flight rescued by Chelsey Sullenberg whose plane met a similar fate on the Hudson in January of 2009. Not to be. A giant wave from one of the rescue ferries swamps Chip's landing and 39 of his passengers die. Suffering PTSD, Chip, his wife and twin daughters relocate from Pennsylvania to upper state New Hampshire to Bethel, a small community where they hope for a chance to shrug off the past of the ill fated crash and go on with their lives. Not to be. Let's just say there's some strange happenings going on here. I love the way Bohjalian conjures up a tale blending the use of herbs, both medicinal and as potions, the greenhouses where they grow, the folklore of witches and covens in New England, damaged souls, the forces of good and evil to create a superior story that leaves us breathless.

I'd rather not tell you much more. Just read it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

[Jammies · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bleah. For a so-called "ghost story," this was terribly boring. The writing is technically proficient, but the characters are two-dimensional placeholders, which makes for absolutely no tension in the scary plot developments. Those plot developments are telegraphed loudly in advance, and there's no leavening humor or humanity to make a reader care enough to be scared on behalf of any of the cardboard figures populating the novel. Throughout the read I was irritated by the use of second person singular for chapters involving the main character, then ticked when the cat was killed for no apparent reason except to demonstrate which "herbalist" was the Big Bad and finally just bored right out of my little fuzzy socks

[Steven Walle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Night Strangers was a great book. I would recommend it to all. The story starts out with a small family of four in West Chester PA. The Father, the Mother, and two twin girls of ten years. The Father flies his air plain into lake Champlain and kills thirtynine passengers. The family moves to a small town in New Hampture and meets up with a haunted house and some herbalists who practice the art of witch craft.
The Father is haunted by the ghosts of three of the people who were killed on the plain crash.They end up loosing one of there daughters to a blood sacrifise for one of the herbalists/witches tinktures.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond

[Obsidian · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a letdown of what started off as an interesting ghost story. Instead this book combined two separate plots that never really merged well and for some reason only known to the evil book gods, the author chose to have one of the characters "speak" in second person present tense while everyone else was in third person. Ghosts, hauntings, a haunted house, and witches could maybe have been interesting, but this book as a whole was a massive fail to me. Maybe a better ending could have saved it, but it seemed like the author wanted to go for The Shining but try to change up the ending a little bit.

Chip Linton is an airline pilot, after living through a crash that almost killed everyone on board, Chip and his wife (Emily) and their two 10 year old twin daughters (Garnet and Hallie) move from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire. Emily thinks the family moving to an old Victorian home that has been on the market for several years, is just the way for their family to move on. However, it seems that someone else wants Chip and Emily to move and stay, and are going to do whatever is necessary to keep them there.

I have to say that all characters from the top down were not very developed. Chip is a passive person. I get that he was dealing with PTSD, but the things he was doing and what was going on with him should have been enough to have the man involuntarily committed. It didn't make much sense that he was also suspicious of their new neighbors, but didn't think to share that with his wife either. Considering how much his family seemed to mean to him, he didn't interact with them at all and seemed to save all his chatty time for the ghosts that were haunting him. Why the author chose to have Chip's POV written in second person present tense still baffles me.

Emily is not any great shakes either. Frankly I had a lot of problems with how Bohjalian portrayed her too. She finally after a while catches on that the people she has met may have some nefarious motives and she just keeps on keeping on.

The twins though they are written as different, did not feel like real 10 year old kids to me. If you are going to throw down some "The Shining" comparisons, at least have the kids actually act and speak like kids. One thing I always gave King kudos for, he wrote a realistic kid with Danny Torrance. The only thing that was interesting about the twins was the story of how they got named. And since that got repeated a billion times (being sarcastic) I quickly got tired of them.

The people the family meet may as well hold up signs saying "we are evil". I just don't get how in this day and age I could believe with as many warnings as they got they all just blithely continued. Whatever to them.

The writing was repetitive and boring. Frankly this book could have been cut by about 100 pages and nothing would have been lost. I really do feel bummed though because the first part of the story recalling the plane crash was well done (though I still hate the writing style the author chose to use for Chip) and then everything after that was not great.

The flow was pretty terrible from beginning to end.

The place the family lives sounds like it is full of greenhouses and practically on the Canadian border. You would think something more interesting would be going on. You would be wrong though. The family either hangs out with the new neighbors, or hears weird noises in the nighttime. Or random people won't tell them why they should be afraid.

The ending was actually an insult to everything else that came before it. Maybe if the ending had chosen to go full horror I would have given it at least a 3 star. But since the ending was a lot of well because of X, Y, Z, blah blah blah happened, it didn't work at all.

[☮Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pilot Chip Linton is no Sully Sullenberger, which he finds out the hard way when trying to land his commercial jet on Lake Champlain. 39 people die and Chip falls apart emotionally. He, his wife, and twin ten-year old girls move from their once idyllic life in Pennsylvania to Northern New Hampshire, to escape the well-meaning albeit annoying questions from their acquaintances, and hopefully to a fresh start and some anonymity.

So in NH there are some strange things going on, just to set up all the mysteries that might or might not pan out later. A group (cult??) of women known as herbalists/shamans/witches are a bit overzealous in trying to get to know this new family that's moved to their town. They are especially obsessed with twins, and did I mention these little girls are twins? One of the twins, and Chip too, has heard voices at night. Chip finds a door in the basement that has been sealed shut. In his mind the 39 bolts sealing the door must symbolize the sealed fates of the 39 dead. And what about the previous homeowners of this 150 year old house? How did their twin son die? Why leave behind odd possessions, including a pearl handled knife, a crow bar, and an axe? There's that abandoned greenhouse on the property the girls just want to play in. A playmate tells them this: Where there's a greenhouse in this town, there lives or lived a witch. Oh my.

Slowly, methodically, Bohjalian builds upon these mysteries as the tension becomes unbearable. He is as skilled at writing this genre as the best of them.

[Connie Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't ask me why, but I always thought that Bohjalian was the writer of stories for women. Imagine my surprise when the first one I read (Secrets of Eden) was a bit of a mystery. Then I chose "The Night Strangers" and became involved in a macabre story of hidden evil. What a delight!

I loved that he told this story from different viewpoints....and that the, shall I say hero?, of Chip was told in the 3rd person. It seemed even creepier when you felt that he was always talking to himself. The other narrations came from all the characters in Chips world...a world that was slowly falling apart. As a reader, I wondered right along with him if he was going slowly mad! Images of Stephen King's "The Shining" kept peeping out from the corners of my mind.

Saying too much about this story would spoil it. This family has moved to a quaint New Hampshire town following a tragic accident when pilot Chips plane crashes. They are ready to start anew. Little do they know that there was another tragedy in their new home, years ago, one that they will discover, or that Chip moving on may not be as easily done....and no one is who they seem to be. Who can they trust? Can they even trust each other?

I was so anxious to get to the finale....and boy what a jolt that was. Surprise, surprise!!!! I can't wait to see what is in store for me with his next read! This bogged down a bit for me in places, so not a full 5 stars, but an easy 4!

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never having read Bohjalian before, this was not what I'd expected! At first I found the Jodi Piccoult-meets-Stephen King vibe a little uneven, or queasy, although that didn't stop me from turning pages into the night. By the end, I had to know what was going to happen. The story, which involves a haunted & traumatized pilot who survives a dramatic crash landing, a creepy Victorian house with secrets of its own, a set of young twin sisters, a cohort of small town, New England herbalists, well . . . it's quite an intoxicating blend of Gothic elements. This would be a great fall read for someone who likes a good, literate (albeit not fast paced) ghost story, well told, with plenty of atmosphere. Plot rather than character driven, the ending didn't disappoint. All in all, I'm surprised to say: I liked it, though I imagine it won't be everyone's cup of tea. Like many stories in the supernatural genre, it requires quite a bit of willing suspension of disbelief, in the best Coleridge tradition. I'd classify this as creepy and fulfilling, if not a bit disturbing.

[Zoeytron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chip Linton, wife Emily and twin daughters Garnet and Hallie are recent transplants to the little town of Bethel, New Hampshire. Chip is recovering from PTSD after piloting a small commercial plane that crashed into Lake Champlain. Thirty-nine souls were lost in the crash, with 9 surviving. Unable to stomach the thought of flying again, Chip has his hands full dealing with survivor guilt and phantom pains.

Happily, the family is welcomed with open arms to the small community. Of particular notice is a preponderance of greenhouses, almost every house has one on the grounds. Gardening certainly seems to be the hobby of choice for the women of Bethel. They call themselves herbalists, and they have an inordinate amount of interest in the 10 year old twins, who describe the plant ladies as 'like hippies, but older'. That cracked me up. But what are they, really? Eccentrics? Witches? Shamans? Whichever it is, they certainly keep themselves busy making lotions, potions, and tinctures.

I see that Rosemary's Baby has been mentioned in several reviews here, and the interest by the adults in the two little girls does have that creepy factor. Even more to me, it had the feel of Harvest Home, by the excellent Tom Tryon. I liked the book, but didn't love it. It is repetitive enough in places that it almost becomes irritating. Wish I had a dollar bill for every time it was noted that there was no cell phone coverage in the area. Enough is enough, and too much is just foolish. It's a decent read, but I'm glad to have borrowed it from the library rather than having purchased it.

[Jeanette · Rating 1 out of 5]

In my history, never before has a book been "going to get" 3 or 4 stars until the last, say, three pages or so. And then it gets 1. Seriously. I guess I am not the kind of person that should read these kind of books; Gothic horror stories as some people describe them. Yes the writing was fantastic. Yes, the 400 some pages I did like were addictive and wet your appetite for more on the subject. (Yes, I was planning out which book by this author to read next.) Yes, a great many people seem to think this book is fantastic. And it was.... or at least had the potential to be. I don't consider myself a literary ingenue. I can handle the plot twists (I usually love em), the endings that aren't happy endings, and I can even sometimes accept when the antagonist doesn't get what he or she has coming to them because it is ironic, realistic, and or educational to have the book reflect life as it is; sometimes bad people don't get their dues, right? But when a book leaves such an unrepentant, sour, uneasy, and (dare I say) wicked taste in my mouth, I can chock it up to either my naivety that people out there actually like mental and existential contortion regarding what is or is not acceptable in our society, or the book is excellent snake venom; nothing to offer except it be a vital tool in the cleansing of itself.

[Rhonda 🌒🌕🌘 🐈‍⬛ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 🌟 *rounded down
2/5 ❤️‍🩹
1/5 🥰
1/5 🌶️
3/5 🔎
3/5 😰😱
0/5 🎭😂
4/5 🎭😭
2/5 👻
2/5 🔬
1/5 🔫

⚠️⛔️TRIGGERS:⛔️⚠️

Blood
Gore
Death
Parent Death
Child Death
Animal Death
Grief
Murder
Violence
Self Harm
Suicide Attempt
Suicidal Thoughts and Ideations
Mental Illness
Injury/Injury Detail

🗯️💬BOOK BLURB:💬🗯️

From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Secrets of Eden, comes a riveting and dramatic ghost story.

In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts.

The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure. Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine – a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door. Meanwhile, Emily finds herself wondering about the women in this sparsely populated White Mountain village – self-proclaimed herbalists – and their interest in her fifth-grade daughters. Are the women mad? Or is it her husband, in the wake of the tragedy, whose grip on sanity has become desperately tenuous?

The result is a poignant and powerful ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian: a palpable sense of place, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply.

The difference this time? Some of those characters are dead.

🌎📖OVERALL REVIEWS📖🌎
Courtesy of Storygraph

COMMUNITY REVIEWS
SUMMARY OF 1,156 REVIEWS

Moods
dark 96%
mysterious 66%
tense 62%
sad 37%
emotional 33%
challenging 25%
adventurous 7%
reflective 7%
informative 3%
Pace
medium 44%
slow 40%
fast 14%
Plot- or character-driven?
A mix: 53% | Plot: 38% | Character: 7%
Strong character development?
No: 50% | It's complicated: 29% | Yes: 20%
Loveable characters?
No: 64% | It's complicated: 28% | Yes: 8%
Diverse cast of characters?
No: 86% | Yes: 13%
Flaws of characters a main focus?
Yes: 70% | No: 25% | It's complicated: 5%
Average rating
3.07 ⭐️

🤔🧐🤯MY THOUGHTS:🤯🧐🤔

This was a pretty good story. Unfortunately, it didn’t move me to tears or scare me at all. It was entertaining to an extent but the best of the book didn’t really happen till the end in the last few chapters. It was just sorta meh. I hate to say that but I don’t think this author is for me. This is only my second book by Bohjalian and I will try one more time but if the next book I read by him doesn’t floor me in some way then I’ll just have to give up on him. I can’t even really blame the author unless it’s the writing style. But, the character building and world building were fine. I don’t know what it is but so far I’m not loving his work.

If you are Bohjalian fan, please give me a great suggestion for my next book by him.

RATING KEY:

🌟 Stars - based on the overall plot and theme or idea of the book
❤️‍🩹 Emotions - based on how emotional I got while reading
🥰 Romance - based on how well I got invested in the love story aspect
🌶️ Spice - based on how the sex scenes were portrayed and written as well as the number of sex scenes
🔎 Mystery - based on how well it kept me guessing who, how and why
😰 Scared🫣/Anxious😱 - based on how scared or anxious the book made me while reading
🎭 Comedy😂/Tragedy😭
-based on if I laughed or if there was a tragic event and how it affected me. I will mark the Masks with either a C or T to indicate Comedy or Tragedy
👻 Spooky😵‍💫/Creepy🧟‍♀️ -based on if this had any occult or paranormal themes and if those elements creeped me out or gave me anxiety!
🔬 Sci-Fi -based on the Science Fiction in the book as well as the Dystopian elements.
🔫 Action/Thriller -based on if I thought this was more of a spy action type of thriller.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Chris Bohjalian isn't quite in my upper pantheon of favorite authors, he's rapidly working his way up the list. And his latest novel "The Night Strangers" just may be the book that puts him over the top.

It's interesting to read this novel while attempting to watch the new FX series "American Horror Story." On the surface, the two would appear to share the common theme of a haunted house story. And while I've only seen one episode of "Horror Story" so far, I'd have to say that Bohjalian's novel is the far more sinister, gothic type of experience I was hoping for based on the ads for "Horror Story."

Chip Linton is a commercial airline pilot whose career is on track and whose family life is going well. He and his wife Emily are happily married with fraternal twin daughters. During a routine take-off, Chip's plane encounters a gaggle of geese, taking out an engine in the plane and forcing an attempted water landing. A freak wave ensures the water landing isn't quite as successful as the one in New York a few years ago. Chip is one of the few survivors and is haunted by these moments, even as he loses his job with the airline.

Chip, his wife Emily and the two daughters buy a house in New Hampshire, hoping the change of scenery will help Chip's PTSD and give the family a new start. At first, things go well, but there is something more going on not only with the house but the community the Lintons have moved into.

While it would be easy to sum up "The Night Strangers" as a ghost story, doing so would be to overlook a lot of what sets this novel apart from other haunting stories. Bohjalian's ably swifts between third-person narrative for all the characters but Chip and second-person narrative to allow us inside Chip's addled mind. It helped keep me guessing as to what exactly was going on within the story for a long period of time without feeling like it was dragging out certain revelations. It also helps us to understand Chip's behavior not only from within but also to see how it impacts those around him.

The story is haunting, the prose is hypnotic at times. "The Night Strangers" pulled me and wouldn't let go at times. It's one of those books that you need to set aside a good chunk of time to get lost in. If you do, you won't regret it.

[Bonnie]

I was unfortunately unable to get into this one. I read almost half of this book and the plot was going so slowly that it failed to keep me interested. Plus, the local 'shamans' that kept talking about needing the blood of a twin that had been traumatized in order to complete the ritual? Sorry, you lost me with that.

[Melki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who could ever forget the sight of that plane floating in the Hudson River, passengers spread out on the wings like ants on a log... Such an absurdly comic image, yet touching and triumphant at the same time. Everyone on board, a survivor.

Things did not turn out so well for pilot Chip Linton. His attempt to land a jet on Lake Champlain resulted in the deaths of 39 people, and has left him a haunted man. He will live the rest of his life knowing that he is no "Sully" Sullenberger. To escape the pitying stares and well-meaning platitudes of friends and neighbors, Chip, his wife, and twin daughters move to Bethel, New Hampshire, a picturesque town with an extraordinary number of greenhouses. The theory is that an old, three-story fixer-upper might be just the thing to take Chip's mind off his sorrows, but soon the girls are hearing voices and Chip is seeing familiar faces. Then there's that mysterious door in the basement that someone used 39 carriage bolts to fasten shut. And let's not forget a Stepford Wives-like conspiracy brewing, featuring a creepy coven of horrid herbalists...

This is not a BAD book. The story held my interest and ended the way I wanted it to end. It's a fairly decent, run-of-the-mill haunted house tale with a few twists. As far as I know, this is Bohjalian's first attempt at the horror genre and it shows. The book is a bit derivative, and it seems as though he was trying a bit too hard to shock and awe the reader.

Since I'm a white knuckle flyer, the desriptions of the plane crash were enough to scare the crap out of me.

[joyce g · Rating 2 out of 5]

It could have been a bit less fragmented. I was left when the book was closed feeling very unsatisfied after all the turmoil Hard for me not to like a horror story.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why is it that every book I read lately is, at best, a 3 star? It’s like I’m trapped in a Cosmic Latte sitting room and my only form of entertainment is deciphering vanity plates. Seriously. I need to be roused! Vivified! Medicated! Perked! I need… pizzazz (That's right, I said it.)

Chris Bohjalian is to Vermont what Jodi Picoult is to New Hampshire. What Robert James Waller is to Iowa and so forth. I mean, look at the man…




Exactly.


I’ve read a few of his books… Midwives and The Double Bind --- they weren’t bad… I actually enjoyed the Gatsby thingamajig he does within The Double Bind… but I’m not all ‘Oh no, let’s go crazy!’ over him. But, I was listening to VPR and they were talking about his newest book and how it was a mysteryish, ghostish kinda story so I said, what the hell… I even liked the first line description… “In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts.”

First of all, it’s set in NH. I kind of felt ripped off, you know? I mean… he’s OURS. Let Jodi write about NH. No fair. Then I learn that the point of convergence that spurns the story actually happens on Lake Champlain (an airbus tries to pull a Sullenberger-on-the-Hudson type move but tragedy ensues…) so I’m thinking… okay… at least we got that.

So, as I said.. the main character is this pilot who crashes his plane into Lake Champlain, killing 39 people. He has survivor’s guilt, he’s obsessed with that Sully Sullenberger dude, he’s plain miserable… so, the family decides to move from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire (????) and worse… 'Bethel', New Hampshire. That’s like not even in existence! Keep it real, Christopher!!! There are enough scary remote NH towns; you don’t need to fictionalize one! Okay, whatever… So, there are these ‘herbalists’ (female, of course) that live in ‘Bethel’ and they all have… get this… plant names. Names like Reseda, Sage, Tansy, Anise, Verbana (Christ… enough already). Well, these ‘herbalists’ are taking a special interest in the pilot’s twin daughters (twins… never a good sign, right?) and don’t think that those 39 carriage bolts aren’t connected to the 39 passengers who died… okay? Just don’t go there. From there… much, much, more crap ensues.

Yes, I’m rambling. I’m rambling because I’m disappointed. I wanted a good ‘scare the shit out of me’ book---they’re like my Twilight Porn when I’m not reading Twilight Porn, okay? And what I got was a bunch of stupid plant women who want to Ponce De Leon up their lives. Why? You live in rural, northern, NH? What’s the point? It’s fucking New Hampshire.

[Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. Bohjalian's characters largely fall out as two-dimensional. The pilot, arguably the main character, appears unconvincing and unrealistic. At the outset, he seems to be a thoroughly practical man and a competent pilot. A terrible plane crash results in PTSD (and something more sinister...), but the transition from father/husband/pilot to creepy, psychotic threat is too jarring to be believable. One redeeming point is Bohjalian's second-person narration, which drops the reader into the pilot. Although the pilot remains an unsympathetic and unconvincing character in the larger narrative, these second-person bits are done quite well in the regard that the sense of dislocation, loss, and trauma is communicated in a visceral way to the reader. Emily, the pilot's wife, is also fairly unbelievable and sketchily presented. On the one hand, we are told that she is a successful lawyer who doubles as a "single mom" to her twin daughters, as her husband the pilot is largely absent; however, Emily's naive trust in her new "friends" in Bethel runs counter to this characterization, and she seems more like a flake than any form of competent. The last thing I will say about characters is that the most compelling ones, Garnet and Reseda, resolve in unsatisfying ways. These two characters are the most human and dynamic (if I may stretch and use that word when describing the characters in this book) in The Night Strangers, but in the climax and epilogue they are both thrown away. And that brings us to the epilogue, the giant turd at the end of the book. A generous review would perhaps state that Bohjalian is presenting a cynical view of society and his protagonists. This review will simply say that the epilogue is a piece of shit that unnecessarily damns the entire book. With little effort, Bohjalian could have written a more realistic, and more human, ending. But we are presented with something that feels like an evil cartoon laugh fused to a black-and-white horror flick. Fizzle, plop, fail.

Two stars for a good beginning, pulling off second-person narration, and a couple of almost strong characters. Missing all the other stars because of everything detailed above.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Usually I love this author, but this novel continued to become stranger and stranger, and more and more disturbing. Initially intrigued, I became quite wrapped in the story. But by the end, found it chilly and eerie, and a little unsatisfying. Perhaps as a champion of resilience, and a lover of magic, I wanted to see those elements tie together toward more transformation, rather than the way the book leaves you in distance and discomfort. The characters you once cheered for, you want to weep for, despite that they seem to some degree perfectly fine with their outcome. It makes a reader hold the emotion alone, which experience tells us, is never quite a good thing. When held together in meaningful relationship, we can actually carry and process a great deal more, and do something with the awareness of the past - breathe life into something painful. Bohjalin's "Night Strangers" leaves you feeling the opposite of the one promise or gift of pain, that one's empathy has no place to land, and one is left to bear it alone, without the characters awareness or joining in the process. How very unlike Bohjalin's earlier works, where many characters are so traumatized, that you get a sense both that they'll never let it go, but at least the horror is bourne, and the process is begun, but the relationship with a meaningful other. I longed for that to be a part of this tale - as I enjoy magic as a plot element. But connection and resilience is our magic, and the outcome left me rather chilled and quite unsatisfied. Not a not to be missed.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be more of a mystery than a thriller. It is about a pilot (Chip) who has to ditch his plane in Lake Champlain due to a bird-strike resulting in the death of 39 of his passengers. Afterward, Chip, now dealing with PTSD, moves his wife and twin daughters from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire where they purchase a creepy victorian home complete with a sealed coal cellar with buried human bones, ghosts from the doomed flight that visit him and witches (herbalists) who become suspiciously interested in his twin daughters. Really enjoyed the first and last part of the book, but found the middle a bit slow.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read 50% then my book club filled me in on the rest. A bit interesting in the beginning but really slow. The ending didn't really shock me when they told me. It was a strange and crazy book. Not my usual read which is part of why I didn't like it. That's the fun of book club though is to get out of my comfort zone and sometimes I do end up loving something I would have never read on my own. This one was paranormal and kind of along what I read but the writing style was weird and slow. I can see why many dislike this ending but I think it fit with the story.