Today I’m on the blog tour for Ghoster by Jason Arnopp, I have to admit that this was a strange book that kept me guessing and more often than not, confused, about what was going on. Thank you to Tracy Fenton for asking me to be part of the tour. I received a copy of Ghoster via Netgalley, I was under no obligation to review the book and all thoughts are my own.
My Review:
I’m not really sure where to start with this review. Ghoster is a book unlike any that I have read before, in many ways it seemed like a pretty standard book about a girl who fell in love with a boy who was a jerk and who left her high and dry with nowhere to live. Social media and phone use are a prominent part of the story and I felt confident that this book would be a story about how phones are bad and that the moral of the story is that you should use your phone and social media less.
Of course I was totally wrong, although I do think that message is there, but this book is about so much more. The spooky element was not something I had expected, and if I’m honest it was a part of the story that I was really not sure about.
What was great about the book were some of the characters. I really like Kate Collins, the main character who was frankly rather naive and totally obsessive (hence her trying to cut down on her social media use) but also kinda brilliant. Even better than Kate was her best friend, Izzy, someone who was living with the consequences of Kate’s phone obsession yet remained a brilliant friend. I really enjoyed reading the parts with Izzy in it.
This book, despite being very confusing at times, is also very clever, thought provoking and downright crazy. The ending is one that I will be thinking about and trying to work out what on earth had happened for some time to come.
Blurb:
Jason Arnopp – author of acclaimed cult hit The Last Days of Jack Sparks – returns with a razor-sharp thriller for a social-media obsessed world. Prepare to never look at your phone the same way again . . .
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 recognise. 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 realises just how little she really knows about the man she loves.
About The Author:
Jason Arnopp is the author of the upcoming chiller-thriller novel Ghoster, The Last Days Of Jack Sparks (Orbit Books) and the co-author of Inside Black Mirror with Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones.
Arnopp wrote the Lionsgate horror feature film Stormhouse, the New Line Cinema novel Friday The 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat, various official Doctor Who works of fiction (including the BBC audiobook Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion) and script-edited the 2012 Peter Mullan film The Man Inside.
Arnopp has also written 2012’s Beast In The Basement, a horror novella available at Amazon, and experimental ghost story A Sincere Warning About The Entity In Your Home.
He is the author of non-fiction ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else.
He is on Twitter here, and is represented by literary agent Oli Munson at The AM Heath Agency. He is also represented for film and TV by Lawrence Mattis at Circle Of Confusion.
Check out the author’s YouTube channel here.
If only I could read faster 