The blurb:
Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause.
When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same — have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps.
Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night...
What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?
This is a novella, which is normally a format I'm pretty comfortable with — I like a good creepy story that doesn't outstay it's welcome. So, when I say The Night Guest is too short, I'm not complaining about it being a novella; it's more that the novella finished before the story did. It has a really effective buildup of creepiness, with Iðunn's realisation that something is wrong but when the denouement comes around, it just doesn't stick the landing for me. I'm obviously meant to draw a relationship between Iðunn, whatever's going on and Iðunn's mysteriously dead sister...but things are left just too mysteriously. It felt unfinished to me; the story just stopped rather than coming to a natural conclusion, especially in contrast to the steady tightening of tension for the first 7/8ths of the story.
I will also say, I managed to somehow miss any content warnings for animal harm. If that's a trigger for you, avoid this one.
Started: 22 March 2025
Finished: 23 March 2025
Back home.
More books.