Goodreads asked Jennifer McMahon:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Jennifer McMahon The concept for my most recent book, The Invited, came about when my agent called me to say he’d just had a conversation with my editor and they said, “Wouldn’t it be great if Jennifer wrote a haunted house story?” It was something I’d never tried, even though I’ve had a lifelong obsession with haunted places and hauntings, so it piqued my interest! I thought about some of my favorite haunted house books -- The Haunting of Hill House, The Shining, The Little Stranger -- and wondered how I could take this idea that had been handled so brilliantly by some of my favorite writers and make it my own. The idea I came up with was: what if I have a couple who don’t move into a haunted house, but somehow, they build one -- this was especially intriguing because my partner and I actually built a house in the 90s, so I’d have some real-life experience to work from. But the next question was: how do you build a haunted house?? I brainstormed a bit, and decided -- by incorporating haunted objects into the building. But what would those objects be and what story would they tell? I had to write the book to find the answers!

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