The Christmas Guest

New York Times bestselling author Peter Swanson pens a spectacularly spine-chilling novella in which an American art student in London is invited to join a classmate for the holidays at Starvewood Hall,her family’s Cotswold manor house. But behind the holly and pine boughssecrets are about to unravelrevealing this seemingly charming English village’s grim history. Ashley Smithan American art student in London for her junior yearwas planning on spending Christmas alonebut a last-minute invitation from fellow student Emma Chapman brings her to Starvewood Hallcountry residence of the Chapman family. The Cotswold manor housefestooned in pine boughs and crammed with guests for Christmas weekis a dream come true for Ashley. She is mesmerized by the cozyfirelit housethe large familyand the charming village of Clevemoorbut also by Adam ChapmanEmma’s aloof and handsome brother. But Adam is being investigated by the local police over the recent brutal slaying of a girl from the villageand there is a mysterious stranger who haunts the woodland path between Starvewood Hall and the local pub. Ashley begins to wonder what kind of story she is actually inhabiting. Is she in a grand romance? A gothic tale? Or has she wandered into something far more sinister and terrifying than she’d ever imagined? Over thirty years later the events of that horrific week are revisitedalong with a diary from that time. What began in a small English village in 1989 reaches its ghostly conclusion in modern-day New Yorkmany Christmas seasons later.