AUDIOBOOK
About
In this tantalizing tale of Victorian ghost stories and family secrets, timid, solitary librarian Gerard Freeman lives for just two things: his elusive pen pal Alice and a story he found hidden in his mother's drawer years ago. Written by his great-grandmother Viola, it hints at his mother's role in a sinister crime. As he discovers more of Viola's chilling tales, he realizes that they might hold the key to finding Alice and unveiling his family's mystery-or will they bring about his untimely death, as they seem to foretell?
Harwood's astonishing, assured debut shows us just how dangerous family skeletons-and stories-can be.
Harwood's astonishing, assured debut shows us just how dangerous family skeletons-and stories-can be.
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Reviews
"Does [Alice] have some connection to Gerards creepy, semi-insane mom? And to those Victorian horror tales that Gerard keeps stumbling across? Whats she hiding, anyway? The answers are yes, yes, and wait and see…Its like A. S. Byatts Possession. But without all that distracting poetry."
Time
"With all these literary revenants hovering about, The Ghost Writer manages to evoke, as not enough contemporary horror does, both the confident past and the more anguished present of the genre, and even to suggest, slyly, that although the illustrious tradition of the genteel British ghost story remains with us, we need to be very, very careful about disturbing its rest."
New York Times
"Intricate and engrossing. Harwood raises the ghost of the Victorian ghost story. One ghoulishly absorbing read."
Entertainment Weekly