And… I’m back for my first blog tour review in what feels like forever, well September! I am so excited to be on the tour and my thanks goes to Tracy for having me, as well as Orbit Books for the Netgalley copy of Ghoster by Jason Arnopp to read in preparation of the tour.
Ghoster was published by Orbit Books on the 22nd of October, it’s genred as a ghost
story, horror fiction, occult fiction and psychological thriller – I agree with every single one of those, it ticked every one of my boxes! More of that later! You can purchase a paperback copy of this read here or an e-book version here!
Jason Arnopp is a British author and scriptwriter. His background is in journalism: he has worked on titles such as Heat, Q, The Word, Kerrang!, SFX and Doctor Who Magazine. He is the author of The Last Days of Jack Sparks, has written comedy for Radio 4 and official tie-in fiction for Doctor Who and Friday The 13th.
Kate Collins has been ghosted.
She was supposed to be moving in with her new boyfriend Scott, but all she finds after relocating to Brighton is an empty apartment. Scott has vanished. His possessions have all disappeared.Except for his mobile phone.Kate knows she shouldn’t hack into Scott’s phone. She shouldn’t look at his Tinder, his calls, his social media. But she can’t quite help herself.That’s when the trouble starts. Strange, whispering phone calls from numbers she doesn’t recognize. Scratch marks on the walls that she can’t explain. And the growing feeling that she’s being watched.Kate refuses to leave the apartment – she’s not going anywhere until she’s discovered what happened to Scott. But the deeper she dives into Scott’s digital history the more Kate realizes just how little she really knows about the man she loves.
Ghoster was the first Jason Arnopp book that I’d read, now I am in desperate need to read The Last Days of Jack Sparks because this author knows how to create a mind absorbingly captivating psychological horror fiction that will make you jump with surprise. We’ve all been there, met someone that we *really* like, we think the feeling is mutual and then like in a puff of smoke, they Houdini out of our lives – no over explained message, just gone. Most of us may have moan over a glass of wine to our mates, but we aren’t Kate Collins. Kate Collins is in love and she knows that her new boyfriend would never just ghost her messages and calls. Would he?
I was lulled into a complete false sense of security, Kate was *that girl* who just doesn’t get the hint, originally she felt to me naïve and needy but that turned pretty damn quickly when I begun thinking if I could actually trust her? Jason developed a character that I didn’t know if I liked or didn’t – that is one of the main things that sucked me in to the storyline. If you’re like me, you are a bit of a scardy cat when it comes to reading horror, Ghoster burrowed itself under my skin where it still makes me goose pimple now. The eerie atmosphere is a subtle one, you can feel yourself being pulled into a storyline that feels like watching a massive train crash in slow motion, if you could pause it to catch your breath you would, but you can’t and you keep watching until it collides… even then it’s seared into your eyes, as you sit unblinking, shook.
There are times throughout the read where you do get a little giggle, for example “Spank my ass and call me Alabama” had me sniggering more than it should, Ii even highlighted it on the kindle! But there were also literary images that had me scooting further under the duvet cover – i’m not going to quote any of these because i’m just not BUT it definitely got the heart rate up, could that count as cardio? Another mystery that echoes throughout the book apart from the missing boyfriend is why Kate has such an avoiding attitude to technology and social media – that kept me hooked like a fish on the line, I was addicted to the crumbs of personal information that were sprinkled to us throughout the plotline.
Ghoster is a brilliant hybrid of psychological and supernatural, the perfect balance of thrill and fear, Jason’s writing is alluring with times of sadness, unreliability and not even kidding – so many WTF moments, edge of seat reveals and quite frankly when you get down to the bones of it, a very thought provoking read. I can’t fault it, the psychologically bendable pretence will have you wanting more, brilliantly written and chillingly great. I recommend, especially for this Halloween season.
So that’s me, I’ve told you how much I love the book, I’ve provided the purchasing link, now the rest is in your hands….. Enjoy!
If you’ve already read Ghoster, let me know what you thought!
The Reading Closet 