Night Strangers (Bohjalian) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Bohjalian has been a reliable bestseller of literary and historical fiction, earning praise from critics and a large audience, but The Night Strangers represents a more sinister turn. It 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


After losing passengers in a forced landing, a pilot seeks respite by moving his family to New England. But the house is haunted and local witches won't leave them alone. Good 'n' spooky.
Good Housekeeping


Put a haunted man in a haunted house. . .and you have a Halloween hair-raiser. But it's more than that. Bohjalian, with a dozen well-received novels to his credit, understands trauma: how long it takes to recover from unimaginable pain, and how people who have never experienced it rarely understand.
Tim Clark - Yankee Magazine


Bestseller Bohjalian’s latest novel (after Secrets of Eden) is a gripping paranormal thriller set in a remote New England town. Airline pilot Chip Linton is beset by survivor’s guilt after crashing his plane upon takeoff, killing all but nine aboard. His family moves to Bethel, N.H., to escape the media glare while Chip recovers from PTSD, but they soon discover that the sleepy village harbors evil things. Their new home, once the site of a young boy’s suicide, contains mysterious passageways, hidden weapons, and a secret crypt. And their neighbors, New Age gardeners and homeopaths, soon reveal themselves to be occultists with designs on the Lintons’ twins. Chip begins receiving visits from his dead passengers, including an eight-year-old and her bloodthirsty father, who demands Chip find her a friend—at any cost. Meticulous research and keen attention to detail give depth and character to Bohjalian’s eerie world, but the spookiness consistently gives way to silliness, and the Lintons’ typical response to the strange goings on, an uneasy mix of suspicion and credulity, is a problem. Still, Bohjalian is a master, and the slow-mounting dread makes this a frightful ride.
Publishers Weekly


(Stared review.) Chip Linton, an airline pilot suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after a tragic crash from which he is one of only nine survivors, retreats with his family to a Victorian house in New Hampshire, but peace proves elusive. Why do the town's "herbalists," a group of gardening women who all have the first names of plants and flowers, take such an intense interest in the family, particularly Chip and Emily's ten-year-old twin daughters? And what is behind the mysterious door bolted shut in the basement? Verdict: Bohjalian (Secrets of Eden) has crafted a genre-defying novel, both a compelling story of a family in trauma and a psychological thriller that is truly frightening. The story's more gothic elements are introduced gradually, so the reader is only slightly ahead of the characters in discerning, with growing horror, what is going on. Fans of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones and Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye and The Robber Bride will find similar appeal here. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., MN
Library Journal


Bohjalian's (Secrets of Eden, etc.) latest effort finds its dark magick in a coven of herbalists, ghosts from an air crash and the troubled history of a derelict Victorian house.... A practical magick horror story with a not-entirely-satisfying resolution..
Kirkus Reviews