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
Ah, the humble smartphone. Where would we be without them? That constant ping of notifications – texts, emails, Twitter, Facebook. The socials. All to easy to get sucked in.
After reading this book, you may very well look at your little slab of glass in an entirely different way…
I went into Ghoster fresh, didn’t read the blurb, didn’t know what to expect. I’d heard great things about Jason Arnopp’s previous book, The Last Days of Jack Sparks from friends and fellow bookbloggers, so jumped in with both feet.
What starts off as a regular ‘what happened to Scott?’ thriller takes a very sharp turn in an entirely unexpected direction. Spoiler-free version: It’s dark, it’s very creepy, and entirely brilliant.
The story bounces between the then – Kate and Scott hooking up and their blossoming relationship – and the now, the ‘what on earth has happened to him?’. Arnopp has entirely too much fun playing with us – setting up little tidbits of information, scraps of their lives, another cliffhanger to entice you to keep turning those pages.
And turn those pages you will.
Ghoster is a cautionary tale at heart. We put so much of ourselves online, but never know quite who might be watching.
Highly recommended, though you might end up spending a little less time with your phone as a result.
Ghoster by Jason Arnopp is published by Orbit Books and is out now. Thanks to Tracy Fenton at Compulsive Readers for inviting me to take part in the blog tour
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