The Night Strangers

A Novel

By: Chris Bohjalian

Narrated by: Alison Fraser, Mark Bramhall

Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2011 Chris Bohjalian (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"A page-turner of uncommon depth. Guilt, egotism, and fear all play parts in the genre-bending novel." (Booklist)

“The Night Strangers boasts all the trappings of a classic Gothic horror story, reminiscent in places of the spousal secrets in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown,’ the thrills of ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ and the psychological frights of Daphne du Maurier. . .A perfect book for Halloween. . .That thump thump you hear as you read is only your heart leaping from your chest.” (Keith Donohue, Washington Post)

"Echoes of Rosemary's Baby and The Shining. . .Read if you dare, but keep an extra light on, and make sure your seat is in the full upright and locked position.” (USA Today)

Just plain awful

I was expecting a horror story! This book is so boring that I found myself dozing off. The readers both male and female are dull and annoying. The storyline is choppy and has nothing to do with the title. Worst book I've listened to this year.

Thirty-nine Bolts

Not my usually genre for books, but since it was Chris Bohjalian I decided to read it because I have enjoyed many of his books. Bottom line - I didn't care for it. Seemed contrived. This author has written many other better stories.

Sadly disappointed

After reading some reviews of Bohjalian's new novel, I was looking forward to an eerie story to ease my work commute. Unfortunately, halfway through the story I am bogged down by my extreme dislike of the second person point of view that pops up in every other chapter. Each time the story switches to Chip Linton's point of view, I am distanced from the story because I hear the narrator saying "You" when he's talking about Chip. I find it so distracting that I've actually taken to fast forwarding through these chapters of the book. It's a shame because I think I would have been drawn into the story if the author had chosen to use the first person instead.

Not what i would expect from this author

I would not recommend this book for anything but a last resort kind of read. I found the book simple and overdramatic. The storyline was too unrealistic to keep me interested. Thankfully the narrating was top notch so I was able to hang in there and finish the book. I was initially very impressed by this author after reading skeletons at the feast, light in the ruins, and the sandcastle girls. (all books I highly recommend). I wasnt a fan of Midwives, finding it, like this book, a bit over dramatic and hard to stay with.

A poor choice!

Very dark and horrifying. There was no redeeming quality. So many better books to read.

Awesome until the epilogue.

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

People who enjoy an ending with no emotional resolution.

Would you ever listen to anything by Chris Bohjalian again?

Nope. He punched me in the gut at the last minute. I have no desire to repeat that experience.

What does Alison Fraser and Mark Bramhall bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

They both bring excellent characterization in their reading. Each do a wonderful job with accents and give a different tone for each character they are vocalizing.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Anger and disappointment. No real resolution, no punishment for several truly, profoundly vile characters. The heroes of the story instead drink the kool aid and join the parasites. That's not deep writing, that's simply infuriating. There is no catharsis.

Any additional comments?

This would have been an excellent book if Anise had exploded in slow motion with graphic description. Ditto for John.

Just OK

Too frenetic. There are a lot of interesting and creepy things going on in this story line, but they tend to take away from one another. For one thing, I got the impression this was going to be a haunted house type of story, and I don't think it succeeded in being one. Sure there are "ghosts", but it seems like Capt. Chip is the only one haunted by them. The house itself has secrets, but no real ghosts, even with the body of a 12 year old boy buried in the basement. It felt like the author tried to cram too many ideas into one story. The beginning started off great with the plane crash, and the plane crash was a great reason for the family to move to Northern NH, however, it may have been better for me, if their new house was haunted because of the previous incident with Sawyer Dunmore than just by the spirits that attached themselves to the Capt. There was just too much going on for any of it to get intense enough to actually be scary. I was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected non-happy ending. I would not recommend this book to a fellow reader.

A difficult read

I have loved all the other Chris Bohjalian books I have read, but I could not get through this one. The airplane crash scene is understandably tough, but the plot of the story kept forcing the reader to go through it again and again. I finally had to stop reading, it was too dark and depressing, which probably means the writing was good, but I needed something with a little more life to it.

Boring

I lost interest in it really fast. I thought is was going to be something different then what I read.

Really really bad

In 3 years of loving audible books, this is the first one I literally could not finish. It sounded so creepy and I am a twin, so I thought I would love it. The story got off to a very slow start, the twins are very hard to relate to, and the chapters with the male narrator were told from a wierd perspective ("you realize the plane is out of control"). I thought only the plane crash scene would have this 2nd person voice and that it was a way to distance the character from the events, but when that perspective continued into the present-day narration and the wife and twins continued not to develop, I finally gave up.