The Listeners

The Listeners (2025) is a work of historical fiction with elements of magical realism by American author Maggie Stiefvater. Best known for her bestselling young adult fantasy series like The Raven Cycle (The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, and The Raven King) and the Michael L. Printz Honor–winning novel The Scorpio Races, Stiefvater makes her adult fiction debut with this novel. Set in early 1942, the story follows June Hudson, the formidable general manager of the Avallon, a luxury hotel in the mountains of West Virginia. Shortly after the United States enters World War II, the federal government commandeers the hotel to intern Axis diplomats. June must navigate the logistical and ethical turmoil of housing enemy nationals, a task complicated by a budding romance, a rigid FBI agent with a hidden past, and the hotel’s mysterious, sentient mineral spring, known as the “sweetwater.” The novel explores themes of The Human Cost of Luxury, Social Mobility and Compromised Identity, and The Inevitability of Moral Compromise in Wartime.

This guide is based on the 2025 Viking e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain descriptions of racism, ableism, mental illness, child abuse, self-harm, sexual content, and death.

Plot Summary

The narrative is framed by a letter dated December 7, 1961, from Eric Parnell of the US State Department to Jillian Pennybacker, promising a story about the Avallon hotel and her father’s role in its history. The main story begins on January 25, 1942, at the luxurious Avallon Hotel in West Virginia. June Porter Hudson, the hotel’s formidable general manager, is preparing for a Burns Night ball while navigating the recent death of the hotel’s owner, Mr. Francis Gilfoyle, and the nation’s entry into World War II. She reflects on a recent romantic encounter with Edgar David Gilfoyle, the hotel’s heir, who believes the war will not affect them. During a rehearsal, a rotted balcony rung falls, sparking staff rumors that Mr. Francis’s ghost is haunting the hotel. The moment is interrupted by news that Edgar is arriving for a meeting with the State Department, which plans to take over the hotel for the war effort.

FBI Special Agent Tucker Rye Minnick, on a probationary assignment, arrives with fellow agents Hugh Calloway and Pony Harris, alongside State Department representative Benjamin Pennybacker. Tucker, who has a hidden past in West Virginia, immediately takes note of the hotel’s pervasive mineral water, known as “sweetwater,” which he recognizes from his past. In a tense meeting, Tucker bluntly informs June and Edgar that the Avallon will be used to intern approximately 300 Axis diplomats and their families until April.

June is shocked to learn the internees are Nazi, Japanese, and Italian diplomats and that Edgar knew of the plan. She reluctantly begins evacuating all guests, making a special arrangement for the hotel’s reclusive long-term resident, “411,” to stay on as a paid “consultant.” As Border Patrol agents arrive, June learns from Pennybacker that the humane treatment of the Axis diplomats is a matter of diplomatic reciprocity. That night, June inspects the hotel’s four bathhouses, concerned the sweetwater is “turning” malevolent. She confronts Edgar as he is leaving, and he confesses he offered the hotel to the government to avoid being drafted, giving her a gift of mink-trimmed overboots.

Meanwhile, Tucker begins interviewing staff, clashing with the head of housekeeping, Toad Blankenship, whose son died at Pearl Harbor. A conflict arises when the switchboard supervisor, Ulcie Leta Crites, refuses to work with Hugh Calloway because he is Black; Tucker reluctantly moves Hugh to the post office. June later accompanies Pennybacker to a hostile town hall meeting, where she delivers a rousing speech reframing the housing of enemy diplomats as an act of patriotic superiority.

The perspective shifts to Hannelore Wolfe, the non-verbal 10-year-old daughter of the German cultural attaché, Friedrich Wolfe. She arrives at the Avallon and observes her new surroundings with intense focus. As the diplomats check in, Tucker and Hugh discover a machine gun hidden in a suitcase belonging to Lothar Liebe, a Gestapo agent, while searching luggage. The Swiss liaisons arrive, followed unexpectedly by Stella Gilfoyle and her brother, Sandy, who is in a wheelchair and psychologically unresponsive from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a training accident. June is devastated by Sandy’s condition, recalling how she saved him from drowning years before.

As the diplomats grow restless, June hosts a literary-themed party, during which Hannelore has a screaming episode and is publicly sedated by Dr. Otto Kirsch, a Nazi party member, whose eugenicist comments horrify June. Hinting at a larger plan involving Sandy, Tucker uses the opportunity to plant a secret note in his wheelchair. June later finds Tucker and tells him about Hannelore’s sedation; he agrees to confiscate the drugs and asks her to investigate mysterious phone calls from a sixth-floor cloakroom. A flashback reveals how June earned the nickname “Hoss” years ago by single-handedly managing a crisis when the sweetwater turned, culminating in a ritual she performed in the Avallon IV bathhouse.

In the present, June organizes a game of Winnet for the diplomats and speaks with Sabine Wolfe, Hannelore’s mother. Sabine confesses she was making the mysterious phone calls in an attempt to arrange for Hannelore to stay in the US to protect her from the Nazi eugenics program. June agrees to help.

Soon after, a fistfight breaks out, and June discovers the ground is suddenly covered in snails, a sign the sweetwater is turning malevolent again. Feeling the hotel’s balance collapsing, she locks herself inside Avallon IV to perform the rebalancing ritual. She then must recover for several days in her staff apartment.

While she is gone, Tucker learns that the head waiter, Sebastian Hepp, provided uniforms for an escape attempt by three journalists. Faced with the choice of arresting Sebastian to save his own precarious career, Tucker decides to quit the FBI. When June emerges, Tucker drives her to the abandoned town of Casto Springs, their shared birthplace. He confesses his real name is Richard Monrow Minnick and that, as a teenager, he sabotaged the mine that destroyed the town. They kiss, but upon returning to the hotel, they witness Agent Pony Harris arresting Sebastian just as Edgar Gilfoyle arrives. Edgar proposes marriage to June as a ploy to avoid the draft, but she refuses him.

On the diplomats’ final day, the hotel is tense. Hannelore overhears Pennybacker telling her mother he has failed to secure her safety. June goes to Tucker’s cabin to plan Hannelore’s escape, where she is stunned to find Sandy Gilfoyle standing and speaking. He reveals his catatonia was a ruse to spy on the diplomats, a plan orchestrated with Tucker and Edgar. Sandy has discovered that the coded song Hannelore sings is a list of anti-Nazi sympathizers. He agrees to help get Hannelore to safety, but only if June agrees to leave the Avallon forever. June accepts.

At midnight, as the diplomats prepare to depart, June finds Sabine, who tearfully relinquishes Hannelore. As a final act, June takes Hannelore to the lobby fountain and plunges both their hands into it, unleashing the full, chaotic power of the sweetwater. The hotel floods, creating a massive diversion. In the confusion, Tucker frees Sebastian, giving him money to disappear. June leads Hannelore away to safety.

An epilogue reveals that on April 30, 1942, Sandy delivers Hannelore to a surprised Benjamin Pennybacker in Virginia. Sandy speculates that June and Tucker have run away together and that the government plans to convert the damaged Avallon into a war hospital. A final letter, dated January 31, 1962, from Jillian Pennybacker to Eric Parnell, confirms that her father adopted Hannelore and expresses hope that the Avallon’s “healing waters” might yet help her now-ailing father.