The Winter People

by Jennifer McMahon · 2014

In the remote New England town of West Hall, a century‑old tragedy haunts the woods. In 1908, grieving mother Sara Harrison Shea is found dead in the field behind her farmhouse, just months after the loss of her little girl. A century later, nineteen‑year‑old Ruthie lives in the same house with her mother Alice and younger sister Fawn, living off the grid as Alice insists. One morning Alice vanishes without a trace, and Ruthie discovers a hidden diary belonging to Sara beneath the floorboards. As she reads the desperate entries of a mother trying to protect her child, Ruthie is drawn into a chilling mystery that mirrors her own loss. The past and present collide, forcing Ruthie to confront ghostly secrets, dark choices, and the unbreakable—sometimes dangerous—bond between mothers and daughters, before history repeats itself.