📚 The Winter People Book Review: A Chilling, Slow-Burn Ghost Story (4 ⭐)
Genre: Horror / Domestic Thriller / Supernatural Fiction
Author: Jennifer McMahon
Publication Year: 2014
⚠️ Trigger Warnings
Before we dive in, let’s get the heavy stuff out of the way. This book deals with some intense subject matter:
Child death (major plot point)
Pregnancy loss and infant death
Graphic violence
Death by suicide (referenced)
Anti-Indigenous racism (the text uses outdated language like "Indian" for Indigenous Americans)
Murder and gore
If any of these are too much for you right now, maybe save this one for later. But if you're ready for some creepy folklore and grief-fueled horror, let’s get into it! 👻
📖 The Overview: What’s This Book About?
The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon is a supernatural thriller that flips between two timelines: 1908 and the present day. It’s set in the quiet, snowy hills of West Hall, Vermont—a town with a history of strange disappearances and dark legends. ❄️
At the center of it all is Sara Harrison Shea. In 1908, Sara’s daughter, Gertie, dies tragically. Consumed by grief, Sara performs a dark ritual to bring Gertie back as a "Sleeper"—a reanimated corpse that lives for seven days... unless it kills someone, in which case it lives forever. 😬 Spoiler alert: things don’t go well.
Fast forward to the present day, and we meet Ruthie, a 19-year-old living in Sara’s old farmhouse with her agoraphobic mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. When Alice suddenly vanishes, Ruthie discovers Sara’s hidden diary—and realizes the town’s creepy legends might not be just stories. People are looking for lost loved ones, and some of them are willing to do terrible things to get them back.
The novel builds slowly, layering folklore, family secrets, and the devastating effects of grief until it all comes to a head in the caves beneath the Devil’s Hand—a rock formation that is basically the setting for the book’s terrifying climax. 😱
⚠️ SPOILER WARNING! Full Plot Summary & Ending Revealed
Turn back now if you haven’t read the book! Seriously. I’m about to spill all the tea. ☕
🧵 The Past: Sara’s Story (1908)
Sara grows up on a farm outside West Hall. She’s raised by her father and an Indigenous-Quebecois woman she calls Auntie. Auntie teaches Sara about the "Sleepers" and even writes down the instructions for the ritual for Sara to use later. But the townsfolk think Auntie’s a witch, and they convince Sara’s father to banish her. In revenge, Auntie kills Sara’s brother. Sara’s father shoots Auntie and burns her cabin down. Sara believes Auntie is dead and never speaks of her again.
Years later, Sara marries Martin Shea, and they have a daughter, Gertie. Sara has suffered multiple pregnancy losses, so Gertie is her absolute world. One day, Martin finds Auntie’s ring in the fields. Sara freaks out and tells him to rebury it, but he keeps it instead. 🚩
During a heavy snowstorm, Martin goes out to kill a fox that’s been raiding the chicken coop. While he’s out, Gertie follows him and disappears. Her body is found at the bottom of a well. Sara is devastated.
Unable to cope, Sara performs the Sleeper ritual to bring Gertie back. Gertie returns through her bedroom closet, but she’s... different. She can’t talk, and she’s always hungry. Sara starts finding messages she thinks are from Gertie, saying she was murdered and that there’s a clue in her pocket.
Sara becomes convinced Martin killed Gertie. Martin thinks Sara has lost her mind. He and his brother have her bound to her bed. But Sara plays along, gets untied, and finds Auntie’s ring in Gertie’s pocket. She confronts Martin with a gun. He denies killing Gertie, they struggle, and the gun goes off, shooting Martin in the chest. He flees into the woods.
Then Auntie shows up. She survived the fire and reveals she killed Gertie to get revenge on Sara’s family. She leads Sara outside at gunpoint. Martin returns and Auntie starts beating him. But Gertie sneaks up behind Auntie and kills her with an axe to the head. 🪓
Sara skins Auntie so the body can’t be identified, making people think it’s her body. She hides her diary in the house. Then, Sara and Gertie flee to live in the caves under the Devil’s Hand. Gertie becomes an immortal monster who survives on the blood of humans who wander into the caves. Yikes.
📅 The Present: Ruthie’s Story
Decades later, Alice and James Washburne are living in the farmhouse. They’re contacted by Bridget and Thomas O’Rourke, the current owners, who found the instructions for the Sleeper ritual. They want to sell them. The group goes into the caves under the Devil’s Hand, and Gertie kills Bridget and Thomas. Alice and James adopt their daughter, Ruthie, and stay at the house to keep Gertie company and protect others from her. They live off-grid. James eventually dies of a heart attack.
Years later, Gary, a photographer who lost his son to leukemia, finds the ritual instructions in a box of old photos. He goes to West Hall to talk to Alice, who tries to stop him. On his way back to Boston, Gary dies in a car crash. Alice steals his camera with the photos of the instructions so no one else can use them.
Gary’s wife, Katherine, goes to West Hall to find out what happened to him. She gets pulled into the mystery. Meanwhile, Alice is kidnapped by Gertie (she’s feeling lonely). Ruthie and Fawn find the O’Rourkes’ driver’s licenses and track down Thomas’s sister, Candace. Candace seems nuts, but she turns up at the house and holds everyone at gunpoint, demanding the instructions so she can sell them. Katherine breaks in, finds the camera, and everyone heads into the caves.
In the caves, Katherine performs the ritual to bring Gary back. They find and free Alice. Gertie kills Candace. Everyone else escapes.
Alice tells Ruthie the whole story and encourages her to stay at the house to take care of Gertie and warn people away. Katherine goes home, where she hears scratching at the door... 👀
🌟 What Worked For Me
✅ Beautiful Writing and Atmosphere
McMahon’s prose is gorgeous. She paints a picture of rural Vermont that feels so real you can almost feel the cold. The slow buildup is masterful—it’s not a jump-scare fest, but a creeping dread that builds and builds until you can’t put the book down. The atmospheric tension is chef’s kiss (okay, I said I’d stop making jokes, but seriously, it’s good).
✅ Well-Developed Characters
The characters are the heart of this book. Sara’s grief is palpable and heart-wrenching. Ruthie is a solid protagonist—you root for her as she uncovers the secrets of the house. Even the secondary characters like Alice and Katherine are well-drawn.
✅ The Sleeper Concept is Terrifying 😨
The idea of bringing a loved one back as a hungry, violent monster is deeply unsettling. McMahon explores the dark side of grief: the lengths we’d go to for more time with someone we’ve lost, even if it means turning them into something monstrous.
💔 What Didn’t Work For Me
❌ The Ending Was a Bit... Messy
I loved the journey, but the ending felt a little rushed and confusing. Some questions are left unanswered, and the resolution feels a bit too neat given the chaos that came before. I wanted a bit more closure (or at least a clearer explanation of how all the pieces fit together).
❌ The Modern Storyline Wasn’t as Strong as the Past
Like many readers, I found the 1908 timeline way more compelling than the present-day one. The historical mystery and Sara’s tragedy were more gripping than Ruthie’s search for her mother.
💭 Final Verdict: 4 out of 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Winter People is a creepy, atmospheric, and beautifully written novel that will stay with you long after you’ve finished it. It’s a slow burn that pays off in spooky, horrifying ways. If you love ghost stories, folklore, and books that explore the darker side of grief, you’ll probably enjoy this one.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
📚 If You Liked This, You Might Like…
| Book | Author | Why You’ll Like It |
|---|---|---|
| The Drowning Kind | Jennifer McMahon | Same author, same creepy Vermont vibes. A supernatural thriller about a wishing pool that grants wishes… for a price. |
| The Invited | Jennifer McMahon | Another McMahon novel about a couple who build a house on land with a dark history. Ghosts, secrets, and small-town chills. |
| The Little Stranger | Sarah Waters | A slow-burn gothic ghost story set in a crumbling English manor. Atmospheric and unsettling. |
| The Haunting of Hill House | Shirley Jackson | A classic for a reason. If you liked the creepy atmosphere of The Winter People, you’ll love this one. |
| Mexican Gothic | Silvia Moreno-Garcia | A stylish, creepy novel set in 1950s Mexico. Family secrets, a haunted house, and a heroine who refuses to be scared. |
💬 Have You Read It?
What did you think of The Winter People? Did the ending work for you? Let me know in the comments! 👇
Happy reading! 📖✨
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