The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

Chip Linton had a good life - a successful airline pilot at a northeastern airline with a loving, successful wife and happy 10-year old twin daughters. One day a flock of unlucky geese change all that. As his plane's engines die as they suck in a flock of geese, he is calm, focused, and chooses to emergency land the plane on nearby Lake Champlain, fully anticipating a Sully Sullenberg moment. Luck, however, is not on his side, and his plane's wing catches a wave, causing the initially-smooth landing to morph into a careening, plane-breaking disaster in which 39 passengers are killed.

Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Chip and his family relocate to a small, quiet New Hampshire town to aid in his recovery. While he and his family, wife Emily and daughters Hallie and Garnet settle in, many of the townspeople seem to take an unnatural interest in the girls. As Chip deals with some ghosts of his own from his crash, Emily attempts to keep a hold on working, the girls, their strange new home with a creepy history, and Chip's apparent downward spiral into insanity.

Bohjalian does a masterful job of creating a sense of dread with this story. As Emily struggles between needing the support of her new friends and a growing feeling of unease with their ways, she also remains unaware of Chip's close calls with causing physical pain to her and their children as the paranormal forces sink their claws deeper and deeper into him. As the group of herbalists surrounding Emily and the girls seem to grow more and more bizarre and malevolent with their rituals, Emily's maternal instincts kick in...but is it too late? Creepy mulit-dimensional novel with a dark, harsh ending.

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

Brunonia Barry has, in her first novel, written an ambitious tale of family, tradition, mental illness, witches, romance, and just about anything else you can think of. The end result, for the members of our Three Rivers Book Club, ranged from something that people "loved," "hated," or, were "thoroughly confused by."

Towner Whitney, living in California where she house sits and reads screenplays, returns to her hometown of Salem Massachusetts when she learns that her beloved "Aunt" Eva has gone missing. Towner has a complicated relationship with her relatives there - her mother, May, her brother, Beezer and her Aunt Emma and Uncle Cal. We learn that Towner (whose real name is "Sophya,") also had a twin sister who committed suicide while still in her teens.
Towner comes from a long line of lace readers, including Eva - who can divine the future by reading the patterns in lace - but chooses not to utilize her gift, as disastrous things have happened when she has. However, the similarities between lace reading and Towner's life are always there, haunting her.

This is not a book to be read quickly or lightly. There is so much to like about this book - Salem, Massachusetts as a setting is a character in its own right. I will not spoil the ending here, but only say that I felt as if I needed to read the entire book again as the (surprise)ending was revealed. The book shifts around from first person to third person - be warned that when in first person, the perspectives are not entirely reliable - and was a little clunky to read. If you enjoy books with a historical or paranormal slant, give this one a try.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Vampires and Witches and Daemon's...oh my! In this imaginative debut novel from non-fiction author Harkness, we are introduced to Diana Bishop, a Yale historian who is a visiting scholar at Oxford University in England, studying ancient alchemy. Oh, and she is also a non-practicing witch, last in the line of a powerful family of witches. In the course of her research she unknowingly calls up a bewitched manuscript, which turns her non-magical life on its ear.

One of the creatures who is drawn to both Diana and this manuscript is Matthew Clairmont, a smoldering yet ice-cold vampire who immediately stakes his claim on the witch, monitors her activities and defends her from the onslaught of magical activity that she has unwillingly instigated. As daemons, witches and other vampires descend upon Oxford, Matthew moves in closer and closer to Diana until their attraction to one another cannot be denied. Not only has the manuscript stirred things up, the burgeoning relationship between a witch and a vampire has also brought further unwanted attention to Diana. Finally, with her life in danger for reasons she does not understand, she takes refuge first at Matthew's ancestral home in France, then back in her upstate New York hometown with her quirky aunt and her partner.

This book is kind of like "Twilight" for grown-ups. It is smartly written, with references to all types of historical figures and works of literature. It is a very dense book - it took me what seemed like forever to finish it - but I enjoyed the journey. If you've read Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" this book was highly reminiscent. Best of all, if you enjoy this book and want more (the author does leave one hanging!) she is working on the sequel right now!