With thanks to the author, publishers Titan Books, and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC on this book in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

This is a really entertaining collection of horror novellas from the pen of one of my favourite horror authors, Ronald Malfi. All four novellas have at their centre a cursed book of some sort, and all are entertaining in their own right, but for me The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride and The Story were the best of the four.

I really enjoy the writing of Ronald Malfi, having read both Come with Me and Black Mouth in the last couple of years. Also his horror novella Borealis is a favourite of mine, and this collection continues in the same strong vein. Recommended.

This book is perfect for any spooky, magical realism bibliophile. Each story is centered around how books hold the power to swallow you up 😳 literally.

After reading this, I am a certified fan of Malfi’s. I’ve learned that I prefer writing that gets straight to the point, while still maintaining the ability to create a beautifully vivid picture. His four stories do just that. And while each one can stand alone, there are little Easter eggs that tie them together, which is quite satisfying. I highly recommend!

This is a weird one to rate. Each story was based around a deadly or cursed book, which was an interesting topic but only worked in two of the stories for me…

The Skin of Her Teeth, 2 star. Did not vibe with this one. The story was odd and I had no real interest in how it was going to play out for the majority of it. Strangely enough, I did end up liking the conclusion of why what happened did, but I just wish it hadn’t happened at all tbh 💁🏻‍♀️

The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride, 4 star. I shouldn’t have liked this one because it followed both a plot and types of characters that I don’t tend to like but the story ended up hooking me and it had some genuinely unsettling moments. It fell off a bit towards the end and went on for too long after a point where it could’ve perfectly ended. But overall entertaining.

This Book Belongs to Olo, 2 star. This should have been one I enjoyed because it featured a strange house but the story was boring, not spooky, and irritating.

The Story, 5 star. Saved the best til last! This was a ‘choose your own adventure’ story that spiralled into unsettling realities. I was intrigued from the start, had a lot of fun working out the mystery and story as it went. Could see this being an amazing TV show if fleshed out more!

So yeah, a weird experience overall. I will still continue to read Malfi as I like his writing, but this collection wasn’t too much of a hit.

A great collection of stories by a fantastic author, I would highly recommend to fans of Malfi. I read this over October and it's the perfect spooky season book.

I LOVED THIS. Perfect for anyone who is look for a quick and spooky set of stories! Pick this one up

This is a phenomenal hit from Malfi. A cursed book, a deadly delivery, the pop up book from hell, and the choose your own adventure tale that comes to life- all four novellas are part of the collection Ghostwritten.

I loved, loved two of these, and the other two were well-written but didn’t quite land with me. However all four novellas pack a punch, and together, they make a collection that will delight any horror fan and thrill Malfi fans.

Definitely worth the read, and would make a great gift for the horror fan in your life.

Many thanks to NetGally and Edelweiss books for the digital ARC- my opinions are my own.

Ghostwritten by Ronald Malfi is a vicious, and visceral punch in the stomach.
A collection of four related novellas that explore the idea of reality and stories. "In The Skin of Her Teeth, a cursed novel drives people to their deaths. A delivery job turns deadly in The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride. In This Book Belongs to Olo, a lonely child has dangerous control over an unusual pop-up book. A choose-your-own adventure game spirals into an uncanny reality in The Story." are the stories in this book.
To be honest this is the second book by Ronald Malfi that I have read (the first being the Night Parade) and I found this one to be an entertaining and intriguing collection. The final tale The Story is by far my favorite and a fitting finale to the book. I plan on looking up more work by Ronald Malfi.
Thanks to #NetGalley, #TitanBooks, and Ronald Malfi for the ARC of #Ghostwritten.

Ghostwritten is a collection of 4 stories about books; books that have gone to the dark side. Each story is peculiar and creepy!

Skin of Her teeth - Possessed book that has a mind of its own. What creepy things can it think and do.. imagine!

The Dark Brother’s Last ride - Two brothers are tasked with transporting a briefcase with a book, only rule - do not open the briefcase. Human curiosity interferes and what might happen if the briefcase is opened.

The book belongs to Olo - an intelligent boy Olo plays hide & seek with friends, when they all hide, Olo opens his book. No worries, its just “another” book!

The Story - have you come across that game where you get to choose between options for the characters? Same concept, but with a book in one story and the result / ending can be deadly.

Malfi has great expertise in writing horror stories about different themes! He has crafted “ghost” stories creatively with books as a theme this time. Enjoyed very much!!

Thank you Titan books via Netgalley for the arc!!

I have fast become a Ronald Malfi this year after previously reading "The Night Parade" and "Black Mouth", and to me, his writing style and character development is akin to the great Stephen King! I am a huge fan of short story collections, so I was very excited to read "Ghostwritten." It's really cool that the theme of all 4 stories in this book is "dangerous books," and each story left me wanting more! My favorite tale was "This Book Belongs to Olo," a story about an eccentric lonely child from an affluent family who only wishes to have more friends. It reminded me of Joe Hill's "Locke and Key" series. The Dark Brothers' Last Ride, a delivery job undertaken by a pair of criminal brothers is similar to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" or even "The Stand." Malfi's books uncover that part of the soul that breeds existential terror of the unknown, and I leave his books with much on my mind. If you love reading and short horror stories, then please don't hesitate to read this one! Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing the ARC!

GHOSTWRITTEN, by Ronald Malfi, is a collection of four novellas that each take place in a "shared universe". While not quite a "wrap around" story, I really loved the fact that each of these stories had characters or pieces of previous ones added into them. This made it feel like we were reading a "collected work" based on something larger behind it; which, in essence, we were.

The first novella, THE SKIN OF HER TEETH starts us out on the perfect note. We get the background of a lot of characters, a book that--literally--does not wished to be changed, and knowledge of a group somewhere that knows much more about these kinds of things than the average person...

Second is THE DARK BROTHERS' LAST RIDE . This is a "gangster-style/deliver the package" story. The package in a locked suitcase being, of course, a book. With a ridiculously large amount of rules as to how this package is to be delivered, you just know nothing will go smoothly. Although there were parts of this that I absolutely loved, the overall ending of it made it feel somehow less magical than it was earlier.

Next we have THIS BOOK BELONGS TO OLO , in which a lonely, extremely creative boy creates a sort of "pop-up" book that is so much more.... This one had all the right notes for me, emotionally, physically, and tied into the "Otherworldly Realms" so well that I have to say it was my favorite of the group.
Try telling me that a plastic clown mask isn't creepy in any situation....

Last we have THE STORY . This one was more realistic feeling than the rest, perhaps due to the fact that it opens with a death, and the sorrow, guilt, and loss associated with it. It did take me a while to get into, primarily because the "story"--a choose you own adventure type that only can be "found" when it chooses to-doesn't appear until later in the book. Before that, it was so full of grief and regret, that it just didn't seem to fit in with the alternative areas the other tales did. However, once it DID breach that area, there was no going back. The ending packed a punch that concluded the collection on the perfect note possible, in my humble opinion.

*Thank you NetGalley, for the ARC.*

Recommended!

Thank you for providing me with a copy of this book.
I run out of time so sorry I wasn't able to finish this just as yet, I will edit this review soon as I finish.

All four novellas were thrilling, the strongest being “This Book Belongs to Olo” in my opinion. I loved the subtle interconnected nature of the stories and the way each character was uniquely haunted.

Ronald Malfi is becoming one of my favorite horror writer and these novellas about books met my expectations and I thoroughly enjoyed them.
They're well written, kept me on the edge, and are great examples of how well Malfi can write.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

This is the perfect fall read, especially around Halloween! As a compilation of 4 short stories by Ronald Malfi, this book is easy to read each story individually or all at once. For me, I prefer to read one and then come back in between longer books to read more. My two favorite stories from this book were The Skin of Her Teeth and The Story. I read the first two stories and listened to the last two and I would recommend this book either way. The narrator, Joe Hempel did an excellent job. This book is perfect for horror fans looking for a short and fast read! I’m giving this 3.5 out of 5 stars, rounding up to 4 on goodreads.

A big thank you to Titan Books, Tantor Audio, NetGalley, and Ronald Malfi for providing me with both the ebook and audio copies in exchange for my honest review.

Ghostwritten by Ronald Malfi is made up of 4 novellas and it’s the perfect Spooky Season Read. These 4 short stories are about books and manuscripts which all tied into one another. Are short stories and horror your jam? If so, Ghostwritten is definitely for you. Ronald Malfi is such a creative, spooky horror writer. His works are so mesmerizing and hard to put down. And Ghostwritten was no different.

Thank you to NetGalley, the Publisher, Titan Books and Tantor Audio for both a digital copy as well as an audiobook copy in exchange for my honest review. I very much enjoyed the reading experience. Listening while reading along has become one of my favorite ways to binge read books at record speed.

I didn’t know anything about this book except that Ronald Malfi was the author and I couldn’t say no. This was a memorable collection for sure. Overall, I’d give this 4 stars. Some stories I enjoyed more than others but overall it was an enjoyable read. I highly recommend this spooky collection found within the pages of Ghostwritten.

Thank you so much for the early access!
Four different stories, four different haunted homes, and all the same fright. This was perfect for the halloween season, It was creepy, mysterious, horror blends, scary, intense, and dark. I really enjoyed the writing and each story. Loved the connections between everything: characters, plots, writing. Some of the novellas just didnt feel as developed and connected as others which was kinda a let down. Slow paced but not a bad thing. Overall, I enjoyed this and would recommend!

4.5/5 stars!

Being that I love Ronald Malfi's work, when I saw this come up for request on NetGalley, I was all over it. Novellas are the perfect length for horror stories and this volume contains four of them. Color me happy!

Each novella is a tale about books and I enjoyed each and every one of them. I think my favorite though, has to be This Book Belongs to Olo. This is a serious creepfest about a boy that creates a house out of paper. It's almost like a pop up book, but this paper house is not a normal pop up book, that's for sure. It might have cool levers and handles that do things to the paper house, but what's even cooler is what those levers and handles do in real life.

The Skin of Her Teeth is a neat little tale of an author and his agent, another famous author, and a screenplay that just does not want to be written. What an imagination Malfi has!

The Dark Brothers' Last Ride was yet another compelling tale about, (you guessed it!), a book! Two brothers set out on what seems to be the easiest job of their lives. Deliver a book in a briefcase. Do not look in the briefcase. That's it! How Malfi came up with this tale, I have no idea, but it was wild, fun, and unpredictable. What's not to love?

The last story was called The Story. Grady discovers that his friend Taryn is dead and before you know it, we're hip deep in a choose-your-own-adventure type story. For whatever reason, this is the tale that did not fully connect with me.

Four novellas + all about books + Malfi's wonderful down to earth, relatable writing style=one hell of a collection that I can highly recommend!

*Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*

Four horror novellas centered around books. From the book description:

In "The Skin of Her Teeth", a cursed novel drives people to their deaths.
A delivery job turns deadly in "The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride."
In "This Book Belongs to Olo," a lonely child has dangerous control over an usual pop-up book.
A choose-your-own adventure game spirals into an uncanny reality in "The Story."

Full of creepiness with classic horror feel. I finished this book just after Halloween and it is perfect Halloween fare.

[I received an advanced copy of this via #Netgalley.]

I've been on a Malfi binge since... well since discovering this brilliant writer.

These 4 cleverly twisted horror novellas each focus on the same concept of NOT reading A specific book, if you'd like to remain alive.  Each of which carries little bits and pieces from the previous story into the next. I love me some good ghost stories.

Thank you to Netgalley and Titan books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received this first as a book from Netgalley, but by the time I was ready to read it, there was also an audiobook version available, so I received that from Negalley also. I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ronald Malfi is fast becoming one of my all time favorite horror authors. Ghost Written is the second book by Malfi I have read (the first being Blackmouth (you can find my review here)). I really liked the book in both mediums (book and audiobook format).

I'm a voracious reader (I have read about 85 books so far this year, which is pretty typical for me), so the theme of cursed books was intriguing to me. I was not disappointed!

In The Skin of Her Teeth, a cursed novel will stop at nothing to remain unedited and unchanged, even kill! I really liked this one alot -- it was actually probably my favorite of the bunch. The book in this story took on a monster quality and seemed to have a mind of its own. I really liked the ending (but I won't spoil it).

In The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride, two guys have to deliver a package, a book -- should be easy right? The problem: the delivery comes with certain instructions, ones that the brothers decide not to follow. This novella has elements of alternate realities / dimensions and I really liked it!

In This Book Belongs to Olo, Olo is the child of rich parents -- his only problem is that he has no friends. With his magical pop-up book at his side, he decides to get friends any way he can, even if that means trapping them forever. This was not my favorite story. I would have liked to know how Olo came to have this book and/or how he came to have the power to make this book magical.

Lastly, in The Story, a journalist is investigating the apparent suicide of his ex-girlfriend. What he finds is a strange dark web choose-your-own-adventure story. Could this be the reason for her death? Reading this story via audiobook was a little confusing because sometimes the POV would switch to the characters in the adventure story. I think this one might be better read than listened to.

I love this author, so I can't recommend his books enough!