Description
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 flat. 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 texts, 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 door that she can’t explain.
And the growing feeling that she’s being watched . . .
Jason Arnopp – author of The Last Days of Jack Sparks, a Radio 2 Bookclub pick – returns with a razor-sharp thriller for a social-media obsessed world. Prepare to never look at your phone the same way again . . .
About the author
Jason Arnopp is the author of the new Orbit Books novel Ghoster, which Barnes & Noble’s SFF blog has said, “just might qualify as the first true horror novel of the 21st Century.” The Three author Sarah Lotz calls it, “a fiendishly smart exploration of obsession and social media addiction”, while Cross Her Heat author Sarah Pinborough reckons it’s, “twisty, creepy and utterly absorbing.”
Arnopp’s previous novel was The Last Days Of Jack Sparks (2016), which has been described as “a magnificent millennial nightmare” (Alan Moore), “scarier than watching The Exorcist in an abandoned asylum” (Sarah Lotz) and “The Omen for the social media age” (Christopher Brookmyre). Director Ron Howard (Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon, The Da Vinci Code) optioned the film rights shortly after the book’s 2016 release.
Arnopp co-wrote the official behind-the-scenes book Inside Black Mirror with Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones.
Check out his four shorter-form fiction titles:
— Beast In The Basement, a suspenseful, mind-blowing thriller novella
— A Sincere Warning About The Entity In Your Home, a chilling and groundbreaking short story set in YOUR home
— Auto Rewind, a dark, emotionally charged thriller novelette
— American Hoarder, a supernatural creep-fest available only when you join the author’s free mailing list at JasonArnopp.com
Arnopp previously wrote and executive-produced the Lionsgate feature film Stormhouse and script-edited the Peter Mullan feature The Man Inside. He has also written for the worlds of Doctor Who (BBC), The Sarah Jane Adventures (BBC) and Friday The 13th (New Line Cinema).
In his past life as a rock journalist, he interviewed the likes of Bon Jovi, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne and Guns N’ Roses. He was once surrounded by angry guards holding semi-automatic weapons at The Vatican. His Slipknot biography, Slipknot: Inside The Sickness, Behind The Masks, was released in 2001 and is now available as a Kindle Edition. Arnopp has also written a guide to journalistic interviewing, entitled How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else, which is also out on Kindle.
Arnopp’s latest non-fiction book is From The Front Lines Of Rock. Available in the Kindle Store now, it gathers 30 of his favourite nterviews he wrote as a rock journalist, with the likes of Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Iron Maiden, Korn, Kiss, Faith No More, Garbage, Nine Inch Nails and Green Day.
When you sign up for Arnopp’s free newsletter at JasonArnopp.com, you can also download his short story American Hoarder for free. You might also want to check out his YouTube channel by searching for his name there. What a wonderful world.
My thoughts
Wow! Ghoster is a fantastically creepy book! I loved it from start to end. It absolutely satiated my love of horror, mystery and psychological thriller.
There are a few chapters that really raised the hairs on the back of my neck. The supernatural scenes were spine tingling. I devoured the whole book at speed, reading like mad to find out what was happening. I even woke up in the night a couple of times to carry on reading from my Kindle, in the dark, but that gave me the chills! Haha – serves me right.
I loved some of the themes in the book and one of them was tech/social media addiction. It’s easy to see how we’ve become a glued-to-a-screen species and Ghoster explores this in depth. Does tech alleviate loneliness or create it? Hell, do we even know we’re lonely when we’re using these devices as an all-consuming crutch? The tech theme is cleverly and intricately worked into the plot.
As for main character, Kate the paramedic, I really felt for her. Turning up to start a new life in a new town, leaving everything behind for what should be a fresh and exciting chapter in life then having everything whipped from beneath her on day one seemed unfair, but exciting in story terms. With all that came a fantastic hook. It had me asking the what, where, when, why and how. Will Kate ever catch up with Scott and what will he have to say for himself when or if she ever does? Obviously I can’t answer that question here as I’d spoil this fantastic read for you, and I don’t want to do that. Nope – my lips are as tight as a closed clam.
Ghoster is a top read and I’ll be thinking about it for a while, especially that ending!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ghoster-Jason-Arnopp-ebook/dp/B06X3V9VSX/
Thanks for reading!
Why not check out one of my other reviews? Maybe you’ll find your perfect read.
Breathe Your Last by Lisa Regan – review. https://griffbuck.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/breathe-your-last-by-lisa-regan-review/
Carla Kovach – author of Amazon and iBooks bestselling DI Gina Harte crime series.
Carla Kovach - Author 
Pingback: Dead Cold by Jane Heafield – review. | Carla Kovach – Author