Cover Image: Ghoster

Ghoster

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Member Reviews

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

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This is definitely a book that will divide people as it’s slightly bonkers, but I think it almost pulls it off!

I loved books that focus on social media and anything involving dating apps is a winner for me, despite never having used them myself. To say that this is an eye opening book would be an understatement as I had no idea about anything dating app wise. Yes it might not be truly believable but you still get completely sucked into the book and the weird things that go on.

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I devoured this book in a day! I started this midday and read it late into the night. Though at first I felt this was just about being ghosted, I did not realise it would have the element of supernatural in it too. It really mixed in well and I was freaking myself out with the writing. I felt like there was something with me whilst I read it, as it was that intense!

The one thing that bothered me is that I did not like how gullible the main character but I guess if she wasn't we wouldn't have this book.


I would recommend reading this in the dark or at night, really sets the scene.


I am off to find more books from this author!!!

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I enjoyed the use of technology and ghosting in this book. It was interesting to see the characters and how they reacted to the situations. But I found the overall premise to be strange and difficult to get my head around. By the end I was more confused than entertained.

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I just could not get into this book at all - it was too far fetched and made no sense at all. I liked the main character but would an intelligent girl fall for Scotts lies?

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have not read anything quite like Ghoster for a long time. It was a real mix of the supernatural, real life and the sometimes brutal and fickle world of social media.

Main protagonist Kate, was your average single woman, a heroic paramedic, who upsticks and moved to Brighton to move in with Scott, a guy first encountered on Tinder before meeting at a holistic retreat. Would I move in with a guy after 4 months, maybe not but this was fiction and where would we be without a bit of drama as Kate discovered an empty flat and no Scott.

With no contact Kate was well and truly Ghosted, something I myself have never encountered but have heard of. Now if it was me I’d cut my losses and go home but not Kate as she discovered Scott’s phone and decided it was time to go back into the world of social media.

Boy did she get more than she bargained for and Arnopp left nothing out as he took us on roller coaster tour of the social media world.

He gave us glimpses into the easily accessible world of porn, of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tinder. The near perfect images percolated from the screen, and you could see how easily Kate had once been drawn in to its addictive world, of the obsessiveness, of following that one person, agonising over the if and buts of failed relationships and the world in general.

This time you felt Kate’s use of social media was for a good cause, as she sought to uncover the disappearance of Scott, yet it came with its own dangers, as Arnopp delighted in his eerie ghostly visions, of chipped wood in front doors. There were the mysterious phone calls which only added to the chilling intensity and bristling fear.

The arrival of her friend Izzy, seemed to push Kate onwards as the novel became darker, and more intense. Where would Arnopp take us next, what would Kate discover and would we have that happy ending we always want?

It was a novel that pushed the bounds of realism, that wasn’t afraid to take risks, pulling the reader along, to a fast and dramatic conclusion.

Arnopp should be congratulated for creating a novel that stepped away from the ordinary, that challenged and entertained.

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Do you truly know someone ? The someone you meet by chance or is it really by chance ?. Does using social media contribute to your bad life and luck ? These and other questions face Kate as she gives up her current life and moves to be with a man she met by chance. She is taking a big step into the unknown in the hopes of finding the love and peace she craves. Unfortunately for her its all about to get rather spooky and extremely unnerving. When she gets to Scott’s flat he’s not there, he’s not answering his phone or the door. After gaining access to the flat she discovers its void of any trace of him apart from his phone It’s this phone that becomes a tool in her quest to track him down. Oh dear things are not going to go well and we the reader know this but we still want Kate to find Scott and resolve the problem of his disappearance. As she is drawn in to the black hole that is Scotts phone she finds herself losing her sense of what’s real and what isn’t. Compounded by spooky happenings in the flat she is on a downward spiral into possible madness. Track Kates voyage of discovery and horror , join her in the hunt for the truth and be totally amazed by the unexpected ending of her story. A great tension building supernatural story that will have you pausing when you reach for your phone to check your social presence, i know i did. With an ending that was so unexpected its a great addition to any horror readers bookshelf. A new to me author whose other books i will be investigating in future.

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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.

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Ghoster is unlike any novel that I have read in a long while, it focuses on Scott Palmer and his relationship with paramedic, Kate Collins but with a supernatural/paranormal twist. Which, if I'm totally honest, I'm not sure I'd have chosen to read the novel if I'd known about beforehand, as I'm not a fan of the genre. But it is fairly light, so not too off putting.

Kate, social media and mobile addict meets Scott on a digital detox, after an incident at work forces her to reevaluate her relationship with all things online and break-up with her smart phone in exchange for an old nokia.

The two live miles apart, but after a whirlwind romance, Kate decides to transfer her role to Brighton and move from Leeds to be with her new man. She doesn't care much that she hasn't known him for long, to her, their relationship just feels right.

However, things start to go wrong the day before the move for Kate. Scott suddenly stops responding to her texts and calls. Kate has second thoughts about the move, thinking Scott is 'ghosting' her, but she decides to go ahead with the move anyway. She'll soon find out the truth.

But nothing can prepare Kate for what greets her upon her arrival at Scott's plush waterfront apartment. Literally nothing.

The apartment has been totally cleared with no sign that Scott was ever there. This is the starting point of the novel taking an interesting turn of events, and I can't say too much more without giving anything away.

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I really wanted to love this book it was so fast paced and it has such a interesting plot! I just didn't realise beforehand that it had a supernatural element to this. I understand that this was due to my personal taste but this just left me really unsatisfied.

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Really liked this book and how it started, kept you wondering. However ending was a bit weird, not sure it made much sense but I wonder if that was the point!

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If you’re looking for a book that will keep you wondering from the first to the last page, have you on the edge of your seat determined to try and figure out the conclusion before the Author can reveal it and then COMPLETELY missing the mark, then this is the perfect read for you.
Ghoster is very cleverly written, and the author certainly has a flair for taking a scenario that is so prevalent and relevant to society currently, something that is certainly frustrating (and anybody who has been ‘ghosted’ will entirely understand that frustration) and twisting it on itself, turning it upside down and every which way to make it not just disturbingly sinister, but wholly plausible in some ways at the same time.
There are occasional scenarios that stretched credibility for me, but they were still wholly entertaining, and I cannot say that there was any point throughout the story in which I wasn’t fully engaged with the tale. There is a lot within the story that is humorous, despite the deeper and certainly creepier elements.
For myself, the key to a thriller that is great, is one that can have the storyline twist and turn in ways that are surprising even if not entirely unpredictable. The surprise might be from how a scenario comes about or how it concludes, but it certainly should surprise you at times. However, the key, the essential element is the surprising or shocking ending. That final twist that makes you say “wait... what?!”, or has you going back to reread the final chapters or in the very best cases the whole book, because you need to see if you missed any hints, any clues towards that cracker of an ending.
This book certainly has that! It hasn’t been taken so far that the ending makes the reader roll their eyes, you know those ones where the twist at the end isn’t logical and had no basis from the story? Nope. This makes sense! Perhaps after you read it for the second time....
A great and enjoyable book cover to cover, I know I will look forwards to more from the Author!

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As Taylor Swift says there are a lot of lame guys out there and Scott is definitely one of them! Or so he appears…. Abandoning Kate when he’s asked her to relocate from Leeds to Brighton.

I loved Kate’s voice throughout. I identified with her insecurity and what a tenacity to get to the truth! And then her will power to remove herself from social media and to live with such a basic phone! I doubt many of us could do that for a week, let alone the 6+ months she did it for.

What started as a tense thriller morphed itself into something slightly different but I can’t put my finger on what. Arnopp has written a very unique and dark tale about the dangers of romance and social media. I’ve not read the author’s other works but this twisted story will definitely sending this reader back for more Arnopp writing!

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Ghoster tells the story of paramedic, Kate Collins, who met her boyfriend, Scott Palmer, on a digital detox weekend retreat. She lives in Leeds and Scott lives in Brighton so they conduct their budding romance from afar at first. After dating for a few months, Scott invites Kate to move in with him and she gives notice on her flat and transfers her job to Leeds.

The day before she’s due to move, there’s radio silence from Scott – no texts, calls, tweets, nothing. Her best friend, Izzy, does her best to reassure her when they go out for drinks the day before Kate is due to move. She’s worried that he’s changed his mind – or is dead! – but things are too far gone by this point and she has to go ahead with her relocation.

On arrival in Brighton, there’s no sign of Scott. His luxurious seafront apartment in the Van Spencer building is deserted; the electricity is off, all his stuff has gone and there’s no evidence that he was ever there. Totally bemused, Kate isn’t sure what to do at first – she’s moved her whole life here so has no one local to call upon for help.

After spending a lonely night in the flat, Kate discovers Scott’s mobile abandoned on the balcony. She is reluctant to do anything with it at first, but curiosity gets the better of her and she realises that it’s the only way she’s going to be able to understand what’s happened and why Scott has left and when.

This is when things start getting weird and the story takes a sinister, supernatural turn, and freaky stuff begins happening!

I loved the main protagonist, Kate, who is so matter of fact and kept coming up with little asides, often amusing, to justify her actions and reassure herself that everything was going to be ok. She is hilarious at times and her observations and wry comments really made me laugh and brought some light entertainment to the tense proceedings!

We learn that Kate has a bad addiction to social media and, after a mobile-related incident involving her Venezuelan ex, Rudolpho, which badly affected Izzy, Kate downgraded her phone to an old Nokia and removed herself from Facebook, Twitter, etc.

She was rather daft to let things with Scott move quite so fast in the first place; she didn’t really know him after four months of dating and her observations of his ‘hungry wolf look’ and ‘wolfish grin’ were hints that he couldn’t really be trusted.

I was reading Ghoster late at night one evening and it started to freak me out, especially when my cat jumped on my bed!! Such a deeply unnerving book – things started to really ramp up and it turned more chilling and sinister as the story progressed. I was surprised that it had a supernatural/paranormal element to it, but this only added to the intensity of this well-written story.

It was also an interesting commentary on the use of social media – too many of us are head down in our phones all the time, constantly refreshing, obsessed with the next message or email, or scanning Facebook or Twitter the next update. We should all put down our phones and embrace the world and talk to other people!

Ghoster was certainly a different book; I really enjoyed it, despite being disturbed and unnerved by its intense creepiness. I’ve added Arnopp’s other book, The Last Days of Jack Sparks, to my wanted list now and will have to check out his short stories. I’ll look forward to reading any other books he writes.

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You wouldn’t believe how eager I was to read this book as soon as I read the description. I was instantly intrigued and desperate to find out why Kate had found herself alone, what had happened to Scott?

Kate is due to relocate to Brighton, she’s fallen head over heals in love with Scott and can’t wait to start a new life with him so why isn’t Scott answering his phone or replying to her texts? Deciding to go ahead with the move anyway Kate finds herself at Scott’s flat that has been completely emptied and the only thing left is his mobile phone.

The story starts off like a thriller and I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery, there’s a paranormal element too which I did enjoy but I really didn’t expect it at all.

I don’t want to give anything away about the story but expect the unexpected with Ghoster, you really need to go into this book with an open mind. It’s full of surprises, it’s tense, shocking sometimes and totally original. I can honestly say I haven’t read anything like it.

This is the first book I’ve read by Jason Arnopp but I’ll definitely be catching up and reading The Last Days of Jack Sparks.

So if you’re in the mood for a story that will blow your mind, have you gripped from beginning to end then Ghoster is definitely the book for you.

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For the most part I really enjoyed this book, it was filled with suspense and kept me hooked and wanting to know more about where Scott has disappeared to and why, but I did find that the more the story went on, the more far fetched it became and I feel like it lost its way,

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Jason Arnopp was one of my favorite authors when I read "Last Days of Jack Sparks" last year ( as with most of you, I am sure who have read that splendid addition to the genre of horror!) - So it was with a bit of a trepidation that I came in to read Ghoster ( was one of my most-awaited titles of the year!)

The premise holds a lot of promise - and creepy intrigue. Kate Collins, a paramedic is about to move in with her boyfriend Scott Palmer in the next two days but her lover has stopped answering his calls. Has he "ghosted" her? Kate, who suffers from a "smart-phone" addiction problem, first "super-liked" Scott on one of the popular dating apps on her phone, only to bump into him in person at this de-addiction camp. The initial 'like' soon turns into a roaring long-distance relationship with frequent to-and-for between Leeds and London until we come to that fateful day, when Kate discovers to her mounting horror that Scott has gone missing. Her travails have just begun as she moves into an empty apartment that overlooks the sea.

So the good parts, first.
The tension ratchets up page by page as we follow Kate on her desperate journey to uncover this mystery of her missing boyfriend. Is Scott a good guy? Or is he a bastard, who has ditched Kate but has been doing a lot of 'illegal' stuff on the sides, that Kate has been unaware till now. Every chapter is a hook, a surprising reveal about who Scott was - followed by a jump in timeline back to the whirlwind 3-months courtship period where a particular aspect of their relationship is examined under different lenses. The rose-colored lens of a desperate woman hungry for relationship. And then the cold lens of logic and deduction of a desperate woman hungry for answers. The mystery deepens, twists into weirder territories of inexplicable horror and then sinks into a deeply unsettling dark whirlpool of insanity.

So far so good. And now, to my issues with the book. So quite frankly, despite the excellent pacing and the masterful storytelling skills evident here [ For about three quarters into the book, you wouldn't be able to prise the kindle away from my hands. I was a blubbering idiot, sinking into it, hook line and sinker. Baited by the mysterious videos of sleeping people, the claw-marks and gouges on the door handle. the infrequent iridescent ghostly apparitions and the over-arching desire to find out where had Scott disappeared to. ] I ended up not liking the book. Don't get me wrong, this here is an excellent mirror to the evils of the present world. Our needs for self-gratification through likes and retweets on our posts on social media. Our desires to be frequently hit with 'dopamine' as we line out click-baits, forming that virtual alternate reality version of ourselves revealed to the world. It's an excellent running commentary dipped in satire and acid enough corrode through any of our cynical defenses for our addiction to such irrational behavior of being lost for hours watching the cute puppy videos and burning with envy at our friends' foreign vacations somewhere in the lost islands of paradise. Nope, all that is brilliantly concocted into the various episodes of Kate and Scott's life. And Jason is spot-on with all his wry observations of our depraved humanity that shuns real interactions for digital pleasures.

I just didn't like the weird inexplicable horror that the narrative melted into. It was a hot mess alright. There were just unbelievable sequences and Kate's emotional reactions to the situations were just plain warped. Perhaps her over-thinking highly self-critical cynical parts of the brain just got activated at all the wrong times. Her emotional core, that made her human and possibly vulnerable and thus likable, kept flickering but never really switching on through the book. That was my main grouch. I just didn't like Kate. While Jack Sparks was a total swine as well, there were parts of his personality that just shone up. Kate just had too much of a rational brain trying to justify every single wrong done against her. Like for example, chased by her own imagined demons, a slavering bloodthirsty rottweiler and possibly a deranged serial killer, Kate still manages smart-alec quips and self-deprecating humor. Sigh.

There is no denying that this book is written by a mastercraft writing close to his peak for sure. Jason Arnopp keeps pushing the boundaries of this genre with his unlimited imagination and aptly brings in sharp daily observations of life into play to make this a highly gripping mystery-thriller. A lot of genre fans will be happy with this book for sure. I am a fan of the author but not this book, specifically. I will go with a reluctant 3 stars out of 5 for this one.

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I'll be honest - it took me ages to finish this because for huge chunks I just wasn't feeling it at all.Having been married for many years and not having a Smartphone a lot of the apps and ideas involved in Ghoster don't resonate with me personally, but once you get into it, most of us, if not all have some form of addiction even if its not to porn, dating sites etc, so it does began to make sense as the denouement approaches. When you find out whats going on then you realise exactly how demented a story this actually is, and you can begin to wonder at the sheer wackiness of the central idea and how it pans out. So its not quite as wonderful as Jack Sparks is, but I have to say that its really very close indeed.
When does Jason Arnopp publish his third book?!

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I really really bloody loved this book. It had humour, horror, thriller, modern technology, a mystery and even the paranormal. So heaven knows what genre this would be classed as.

And boy am I glad I don’t do dating in this modern age. If I wasn’t already tied to someone I don’t think I would bother, especially after reading this.

Meeting Scott at a retreat for a digital detox and having previously super liked him on Tinder, Kate and Scott enter in to a whirlwind relationship and soon Kate has handed in her notice and is soon to relocate to Brighton and move in with him.

Then the ghosting starts. Now this is where I was shouting at the book. I personally would have cancelled the move and stayed put. But that would have made for a very short and dull book ha ha.

Kate however turns up to an empty flat with just Scott’s phone for company. Now being insecure and a complete social media stalker this is where everything starts to go horribly wrong and incredibly creepy.

Kate was to put it mildly, pretty annoying but the inclusion of her best friend Izzy who was likeable and funny added some light hearted banter which was needed for balance.

Now I love the bizarre and unexpected, Sarah Pinborough’s Behind her eyes being a great example. Well Jason Arnopp has brought bizarre into the modern age and knocked it out of the park. Bravo Sir!

I would really recommend this for people who can suspend their disbelief and just go with it. This is getting a lot of comparisons to Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror and considering that is about how technology manipulates behaviour I would totally agree.

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This book is read from the point of view of Kate and Scott, who meet on a Digital Detox weekend on 1st June in Wales. But we dip into memories and times prior to when they met and why they were there.

It's soon clear that Kate is there for reasons very different from Scott's, she has had to get rid of her smartphone due to an incident with her friend Izzy and so has removed the 'problem' from her life. Scott on the other hand still has his phone and so Kates left wondering why hes there at all.

Kate and Scott's relationship moves on and we get to when Kate's sold her stuff, handed in her notice on her flat and job and is moving down to Brighton to live with Scott when all lines of contact go blank. Kate can only text and ring Scott, and now that she's standing on his doorstep, with no key to get in the flat, what's she to do? With her old Nokia phone, she has no other means of contact, no Whatsapp, messenger, nothing. She's determined though and makes it inside, only to find the place stripped bare. No furniture and no sign of Scott.

But she's given up everything - her old life, she had a new life with Scott in Brighton planned - a new job - as a paramedic starting, which she decides she must go and do and try and track Scott down. She gets in touch with Izzy, who with her smartphone can see Scott's still on Facebook and Twitter but seems not to want to respond to Kate at all.

It turns out Scott has a twin brother Ray and he seems to know more than he's letting on, does he know Scott's whereabouts?

The situation gets weirder when Kate finds Scott's phone and starts piecing together his life in Brighton before she moved, before they met even and none of it makes any sense, he's been hooking up on Tinder with women and then finds out he's in debt, old photos and videos make her think she didn't know Scott at all. Until she starts finding old diary entries Scott had written. Phone calls from people warning her to not use the phone and there's wood scrapped from the door.

What's going on?

As much as Kate does want to know, she's scared of what she'll find out. And though she knows the dangers that led her to not having a mobile phone - shes gone back to being unable to stop using Scott's phone, even when a near accident happens and by that time, it's too late, she's in too deep, she can't stop herself.

Its a great way of getting people to see how much screen time they use and that the way of the world in such now that we can't help ourselves, we are addicted to technology and people's lives are affected by it, relationships, friendships, and family life can all suffer. Even sending a simple text now isn't that simple as people read them the wrong way, people don't know how to interact anymore or flirt as its all done via dating apps, it's sad, but at the same time, makes life more efficient.

The premiss for this glades along nicely and is totally compelling in the storyline. I really enjoyed Ghoster - its a Fantasy Thriller with a message, to those willing to listen.

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