While i previously enjoyed "The Voices" series - i just couldn't get passed this book. The writing is erratic, the story doesn't move much, and the same scene that was so innovative in the first book is just repetitive and depressing. I couldn't finish it, despite my best efforts

I loved all books in this series. G X Todd is a very talented writer. I hope i hey the opportunity to review more books from this author (as and when they come out).

Well that was emotional. G.X . Todd's epic Voices series comes to an end and I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand it's always best to go out on a high (and this is indeed lofty) but on the other what am I going to do without Pilgrim? My favourite book crush in a long time. But that aside (I'll cry later) this has brought a fantastic series to a rip roaring action packed conclusion. All the threads come together but left me unravelled. I very much hope G.X.Todd has another story up her sleeve.

Having read the first 2 books in this series, this third book did not disappoint. Gripped me from start to end. Highly recommend that you read this series

The heart-stopping conclusion to the highly acclaimed Voices series, where there is no place left to hide and nowhere else to run. A gripping read and easy five stars.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as I have with all of the books in the set.

This one was so tense and I constantly wanted to keep reading to switch between the protagonists to carry on where each one had left off.

This final book in the set had a few twists that I did not see coming.

I was left a bereft at the end of this book with the strange realisation that I would no longer be following the characters.

My only regret is that I did not read these books, one after the other. I read them as they have been released but I wish I had the joy of binge reading them for the first time now, one after the other.

I can't waited to see what G X Todd is going to write next.





Description: Description: Description: 962_about_hmrc2Claire Sicnclair | Investigator

HM Revenue & Customs |Fraud Investigation Service |OCW Civil National

Postal Address: Claire Sinclair, HMRC, Queen Elizabeth House, 1 Sibbald Walk, Edinburgh, EH8 8FT

03000 527164 | Claire.sinclair@hmrc.gov.uk



This email and any attachment are protectively marked and may be legally privileged. It is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, you should not review, copy, use or disclose the contents to any other person or entity. If you have received this in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete this email from any computer.



If you receive a suspicious email, please forward to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk or refer to the GOV.UK site Avoid and report internet scams and phishing - GOV.UK for further information.




OFFICIAL


The information in this e-mail and any attachments is confidential and may be subject to legal professional privilege. Unless you are the intended recipient or his/her representative you are not authorised to, and must not, read, copy, distribute, use or retain this message or any part of it. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately.

HM Revenue & Customs computer systems will be monitored and communications carried on them recorded, to secure the effective operation of the system and for lawful purposes.

The Commissioners for HM Revenue and Customs are not liable for any personal views of the sender.

This e-mail may have been intercepted and its information altered.

Please note, Ghosts is book four in The Voices series. If you haven’t read the three books that precede this then there will most definitely be spoilers ahead.

Seven years ago, the voices came. Some people could hear and others despised them for it. As death and destruction spread, a ghostly figure was waiting in the shadows. Now the Flitting Man is ready to show his face – and no one is safe.

Pilgrim was made for this broken world. He’s chosen his path and will stop at nothing to see it through.

Lacey grew up in this changing world. She’s lost almost everything to the Flitting Man, but her fight isn’t over yet.

Albus sees this world as others cannot. And the friends that he’s kept safe are facing terrible danger.

Addison belongs to a very different world. She might just be the future, if she survives…

If you are a regular reader of The Eloquent Page, then you know I normally write long rambling reviews about the books I read. I wax lyrical about how the writing made me feel. What I liked and what I thought of the characters, basically all manner of book-related waffle. I find I can’t do that in this case.

I finished reading Ghosts about ten minutes ago and I’ll freely admit G.X. Todd has broken me. Please don’t get me wrong, this is the highest compliment I can bestow. Ghosts ends on a bittersweet note that left me in little bitty pieces on the floor. Part of me knows that the ending is exactly as it should be, but there is another part of me still reeling from the emotional gut punch. What can I say? I found myself heartbroken and hopeful at the same time.

As the story draws to a close there is a sense of resolution. Pilgrim, Addison, Lacey, Albus are each given their moment in the sun, their time to shine. The final third of the novel, where the story builds towards their meeting with the Flitting Man is particularly effective. From book one, page one the narrative has been moving inexorably toward that moment. The ultimate payoff is as devastating as it is satisfying.

It might seem a little odd, but I always find comfort in well-executed apocalyptic fiction*. People always manage to confuse the end of society with the end of the world. What books like Ghosts are really exploring is a fundamental change in humanity. Not us ending at all, but discovering where we go next. I’ve always been intensely curious about the potential for humanity to be something better.

As far as conclusions go, I think Ghosts managed to be everything I could have hoped for and far, far more. I’m already looking forward to whatever G X Todd decides to do next.

Ghosts is published by Headline and is available now. Highly recommended.

My musical recommendation to accompany Ghosts is the soundtrack to Y: The Last Man by Herdís Stefánsdóttir. It manages, in turns, to be both mournful yet also uplifting. The music captures the tone of the novel.

*Excluding extinction-level events obviously. If the world explodes, or spins off its axis into the sun, then chances are we really are screwed.

I am terribly sorry to see the end of the Voices series with Ghosts, the final installment to an exceptional four novel serial. It felt like a punch to the gut as the story wound down to a close. A touching, crushing yet fitting end but painful to say goodbye, nonetheless. If a book leaves a lingering feeling - the end of Ghosts has stayed with me for days - it is a great compliment to the author and a mark of excellent story telling.

Each book has been stellar in its own right, taking readers on a journey that feels very much like The Stand in its atmosphere, tone and array of characters. But make no mistake, Ghosts, and the previous three novels, are original in content and world building. This is a post apocalyptic, dystopian world where voice hearers and non-voice hearers fight to destroy each other and eventually work, at times together, to pick up the pieces. Society as we know it is gone and the survivors live a rather nomadic existence.

If you haven't read the previous books I would recommend you start with Defender and read them in order. This honestly is a thrilling, action-pack series and I envy anyone who can read them back-to-back as the time between books left me a bit lost on occasion but it doesn't take long for the pieces to slot into place. I hope you love this as much as I did and many thanks for your great talent, G.X. Todd, in crafting a series that is sure to be a cult classic.

Ghosts is the fourth and final part of GX Todd's The Voices sequence, bringing the story so far to a satisfying yet at times desperately sad conclusion.

I recently stumbled across an online discussion of the "cosy catastrophe"subgenre, post-apocalyptic literature in which, despite an apparently ruinous collapse of society, our heroes actually do rather well. They don't have to perform grinding work for somebody they don't like, they have the pick of abundant food and supplies helpfully left behind, the benefit of all human knowledge codified somewhere or other and above all, no longer have to suffer all those other irritating people.

Well, if had to choose one word to describe what The Voices ISN'T, it would be "cosy".

Spanning a period of seven years or so from the time "it" happened to the present, and ranging back and forth within that, these books describe a collapse that occurred when people began hearing "voices" in their heads, voices that drove them to do terrible things, torturing and murdering others and killing themselves. The series therefore deals with themes of extreme violence and suicide: approach with that in mind. While these destructive urges moderated in time, for those living in a ruined world with no order or safety, the few survivors focused to begin with on trying to identify and, yes, destroy anybody who still had a "voice" and could therefore be considered a threat.

By the time of Ghosts, things have rather turned round and now we see instead those with voices combining to track down and kill the voiceless in revenge or self-defence. Daily life remains a desperate struggle to secure and protect basic necessities, with survival dependent on quick wits, strength, weapons and a healthy mistrust of others. Things can go wrong in an instant due to deliberate action (the Voices can hear and speak to one another, sometimes capriciously betraying their owners) or misunderstanding and over-quick trigger fingers. We see both in Ghosts.

Amongst all this, small groups still try to survive and find some hope. Messianic cults flourish, particularly that of the 'Flitting Man', gangs spring up to control different areas of cities and provide a simulacrum of order and a few people who still have apparently benign "voices" seek each other out and rescue what they can from the rubble.

The previous books have followed a number of such groups, seeing them form and scatter again, with some members killed, disappeared or departed on various quests and, in a landscape of jumbled chaos and betrayal, even the sequence of this can be hard to recover. Across the books we are shown the same incidents from different perspectives, or told how the consequences fall out for different characters. Sometimes effect is portrayed ahead of cause and the full story kept back until later. None of the groups we witness has anything like the full picture - I had thought at the start that one or other of the Voices we hear might have some wider insight which Todd would use to explain what is really happening, but she avoids allowing that to happen - so reading these books is, until the very end, like viewing the world through a mirror with many cracks. It might be frustrating if you like your apocalypses cut-and-dried, but as a way of modelling the dislocation and loss one might suffer when the world slides into chaos, it's simply brilliant, leaving the reader with a growing sense of dis-ease and looming disaster. As I said, there is nothing cosy here.

In keeping with that, while Ghosts does provide some closure, it's far from complete, for several reasons. First, if the physical setting is harsh, the moral landscape is even bleaker and dislocated. The "war of all against all" has its impacts. It's hard to point to anyone who doesn't have blood on their hands and even the groups we've been following who we might like to think as the "good" struggling against the "bad" do some terrible things, deliberately or not. Secondly, the motives, origins and nature of the "voices" are hinted at but never explained. We seem to be watching a struggle between certain of them - Piligrim's original "Voice" and its later offshoot, that of the Flitting Man, a few others - suggesting that the death and suffering visited on humanity is essentially in service of warring powers but I'm not 100% certain of that and if that is what was going on, it's far from clear whether it was actually resolved for not. Finally, however you try to fit the pieces together, the different perspectives and timelines mean that certain incidents just bear multiple interpretations, raising questions about whether this is really one story or several and about who is telling the truth and who may not be.

Throughout the sequence, there has been a current of - I'm not sure what to call it. Prophecy? Desire to find a cause, something to believe in? Whatever, it hasn't always had healthy outcomes for the protagonists, often sending them running into danger or aligning with the "wrong" faction. Rather they've tended to do better when guided by simple, human goals: searching for and protecting a friend, a sister. Saving others. Sharing. That's been the basis of many of the temporary groups trekking across the wasteland that was once America, but it has been hard, and gets much harder here, to ignore the bigger things going on and the push of events as the various currents come together.

In Ghosts, the two themes finally become completely entwined, leading to a violent and seemingly hopeless confrontation which nicely joins the need to save and protect other loved ones and to somehow - some way - confront the darkness that slips through the wastelands, creating chaos and conflict. Everything, and everyone, is in the balance and while we've seen heartbreaking loss already, it seems as though it will get worse and worse now.

This sequence was like nothing else I've read, a truly heartrending story of love, loss, endurance and commitment in the face of chaos and wickedness. I'd strongly recommend it, but if you have managed to miss out on the previous books you really do need to go back and begin with Defender.

A slow paced, fascinating and well written story that mixes horror and fantasy.
Great characters and world building, a fascinating story that closes a series and kept me on the edge till the last page.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story and I liked the storytelling and the world building.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Ghosts by G.X. Todd.
The Voices Book 4.
The heart-stopping conclusion to the highly acclaimed Voices series, where there is no place left to hide and nowhere else to run.
Seven years ago, the voices came. Some people could hear and others despised them for it. As death and destruction spread, a ghostly figure was waiting in the shadows. Now the Flitting Man is ready to show his face - and no one is safe.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Great story and characters. 5*.

I've loved G. X. Todd's Voices series since the first book in the series, Defender, was published back in 2017. With Ghosts, Todd brings this fantastic series to a satisfying – if not entirely happy – conclusion.

I'm not going to go into the plot at all. It would be far too easy to provide spoilers as to what happens earlier in the series, and this really is one that you need to pick up from the beginning and read in order to fully appreciate the setting, the characters, and everything they've been through to bring them to where we find them in Ghosts. With this final instalment, Todd brings the characters together for a final showdown, and as such it’s an action driven novel as the relevant players manoeuvre themselves (or are manoeuvred) into position. It's fast paced and I was gripped throughout wanting to know how things would be brought to a close.

The characterisation throughout the series has been superb. I have loved seeing Lacey grow and develop as the series has progressed from her first appearance as a sheltered and somewhat naïve young woman who has been forced to toughen up in response to the world in which she's found herself and the people and events that she has come into contact with. I said in my review of Defender that I'd prefer her to be a little more kickass and boy did Todd deliver. Despite her experiences, she has remained a good person throughout the series – flawed, certainly, but better than most – developing into the character we see here. It’s a fitting and organic transformation – saddening in some ways given the circumstances – but apt for the world Lacey has come into contact with throughout the series.

Of course, the hero for me from the very first page has been Pilgrim. Taciturn by nature, it's been an absolute delight to follow his journey and to see the diamond beneath that rough and gruff exterior emerge. He is – and always will be – one of my favourite characters in fiction. Of everyone we encounter in the series, I think that he is the one who has remained himself throughout. Not entirely unchanged – I think that there’s been a softening where Lacey is concerned – but he has been true to himself and his ideals from the get-go.

With Ghosts, Todd brings the Voices series to a satisfying if somewhat bittersweet conclusion. The reader gets the answers to those questions raised previously, as well as that final showdown against the Flitting Man. It's a tremendous series and one of my favourite post-apocalyptic settings in recent years. I can’t recommend it enough.

This was interesting. I had read the first book but not the second, but it was reasonably easy to fill in the missing part as I carried on reading, discovering what must have happened. It started with what to me seemed a load of new characters, but was easy enough to understand. I found it quite sad, a bit depressing, but that is probably a result of the times in which I read it.
However, the book was well written and had plausible characters, and I did enjoy finding out what had happened to those I met in the first book.

Ghosts is the phenomenal conclusion to The Voices series. Lacey is determined to find Addison; Pilgrim is determined not to lose Lacey again. Their journey finally brings them to Albus’ inn, but are they too late to stop the Flitting Man?

This series is one of the best dystopian series I’ve ever read. I was so sad to finish this book because I just didn’t want it to end. It’s based on a really dark and well-thought through concept, which I really loved and made a refreshing change from an apocalypse based around zombies or robots.

I was glad to see more of Lacey again in this book. I thought she was a great character from the start, but she has undergone so much growth by this point that she’s almost unrecognisable. I also, as ever, adored Pilgrim and Addison.

To be honest, I wasn’t totally ecstatic about the ending (no spoilers). That being said, coming up with a conclusion to a series like this one is impossible to do perfectly, so I’m not really complaining. If you like apocalyptic fantasy, this series is a must-read.

I'm sad that this brilliant series has come to an end but I think it ended pretty perfectly- although some of it is brutal for the readers like me who adored the characters and was thoroughly invested in all their outcomes.

It's time to face down the Flitting man and Ghosts is pretty action packed as our various groups make their way towards a final showdown.

It was edge of the seat stuff, as with each book before it Ghosts reinvents itself becoming a race against time thriller that culminates in a reckoning for all.

I loved it and although I have to sadly leave Pilgrim and Co behind me now I can't wait to see what this author comes up with next. Bring it on.

I have read the other books in this original series and wasn’t disappointed in this, the final part. It was exciting and fast paced and I enjoyed it.

I devoured Ghosts by G X Todd in one sitting. I absolutely loved this series, and I am gutted it has finished.

If you haven’t read Defender, Hunter or Survivors then you really should get on it. Check out my reviews for more on those books.

Ghosts has a host of fantastic characters, and I am sad to be saying goodbye to them. I find it hard to pick a favourite.

The writing in this was excellent as always and the story is incredible. Ghosts begins 7 years after the voices first appeared causing chaos and destruction. The Flitting Man is waiting in the shadows to make his move, can Pilgrim and his rag tag group stop him before it is too late?

Ghosts ties up the majority of the loose ends from the previous books and manages to be one hell of a read at the same time.

If you haven’t read this book, what are you wating for?

I have been waiting for this book, for what feels like an eternity. So a massive thank you for letting me read it first.

I'm a big G X Todd fan. Absolutely love this series. One of the things I love is the continuity between books. This book picks up nicely from book 2 and 3. (I did reread book 3 as of forgotten a few things) and gets straight to the point. There are a few recap moments, but not too many to become annoying. The characters, on the whole felt developed and true to themselves. I was a little disappointed with Hari as a character, and although this is were hinted at, they could have been built on more, for example his ability to manipulate others. This was a minor things though because Pilgrim is back!!!!! I was so shocked when he died so this was a welcome return, and surprisingly, I understood the reasoning behind the whole back to life business and voices involvement in that.

I know some people didn't like Abernathy, but I felt she played an important role. However, it was hinted she knew something about pilgrim and I was hoping it would be revealed. Tyler, I wasn't so keen on, and Jay just kind of faded out which was a shame. Equally, Sunny was prominent in previous stories, but now she seemed to be tagging along for the sake of it.

I did like the new kids who turned up, though hello, Mr Rocky has a gun. Did we all forget this?? Why didn't he shoot The Flitting Man???

The overall story tied things up nicely. The characters resolved their issues and the flitting Man, well. But if I'm being honest it felt a bit odd almost as of the author were trying to make it all happily ever after. Maybe it tied things up too well. There were also angles, such as Mr Rocky which I felt could have been explored.

Overall I love this series. Action, intrigue and really well written. Not the best of the books, hit still a worthy 4 stars.

I've loved this series from the moment an early copy of DEFENDER landed on my doorstep. After each book I've eagerly awaited the next volume in the series. So, naturally, I was beyond excited when I heard GHOSTS had a release date. I've had so many question while reading this series and I couldn't wait to get some answers in this final book. Did I get those answers? If I'm honest, I'm not sure I really did. At least not all of them. Weirdly, I'm almost okay with that - perhaps because it gives me hope that Todd will take is back to this world some time in the future? Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part.

There are some characters in this series that I've just loved from the moment the appeared on the page and GHOSTS did put me through the emotional wringer with them. My heart was well and truly stomped on. Other characters, like Abernathy, I've really grown to like too. I think, of the wider group of characters introduced into this series, Abernathy is my favourite. Can we have an Abernathy spin off please?

In all honesty, I did take issue with the pacing of this novel. I mean, I'd read G.X. Todd's writing all day long so I didn't mind the seemingly slow build up that took up perhaps 80% of the novel. However, that final 20%, the finale, felt too rushed for me. It wasn't really the finale that I'd hoped for, and after four books I was a little disappointed with it. That said, I did really enjoy the book all the same, and I know that I'm going to miss some of these characters. I can't wait to see what G.X. Todd brings us next.

'Ghosts' is the final volume of 'The Voices' - a thrilling, epic fantasy series reminiscent of Stephen King. Overall, I've really enjoyed the series but I have to be honest and say this final instalment didn't live up to expectations.

Writing these sort of fantasy epics must be incredibly difficult and even some of my all time favourites, such as George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' and Stephen King's 'Dark Tower' were, in my opinion, unable to maintain the high bar of quality set in the earlier volumes. Such is the case with 'The Voices'. Before diving into the review I should say there will be no spoilers for this specific book but events from the previous three books may be discussed and could be considered spoilers.

CHARACTERS
First of all, the good. I loved Abernathy. I kind of wish we'd had more of her in the series and less of some of the other supporting characters (and Addison!) who didn't add anywhere near as much. Abernathy was funny, crazy, angry and unpredictable - a real blast of a character.

But she was the exception to the rule here. Most of the other main characters didn't come alive as they did in earlier books. I also thought there were just too many characters to keep track of. And I have to be confess that I sighed every time I came to an "Addison" chapter. I can't help but feel the series could have lived without Addison entirely. She felt very uneven to me - at times acting like an 8-year-old and at other times seeming like a retread of the Lacey of book 1, a complete bad-ass and wise beyond her years.

Finally, I feel like the lack of a tangible, threatening antagonist weakens the book. See my comments on the "flitting man" later.

PLOT
In the final book of an epic, mysterious series, I want epic stuff! And mysteries to be solved! But for the most part,'Ghosts' felt mundane. I kept nervously checking how far through the book I was on my Kindle ("30%, nothing's happened yet...40%, nothing's happened yet...") just waiting for things to really kick off. Instead, there were lots of characters moving from point A to point B, then splitting up so some characters went to point C and point D. They have encounters with some randoms roaming around the world, get in some accidents, etc, but so much of this felt like filler and a repeat of earlier incidents. I was desperate to find out about the overall mythos of the series - who is the flitting man really? What does he want?

In the end, nothing much happens until the last 10% of the book, and those events then feel very rushed, leading to a lack of emotional impact.

CONFUSED...
Aside from the final volume feeling full of filler, my main issue is really that I finished books 1-3 excitedly thinking "ooh, what does it all mean?" I've now finished book 4 thinking "eh...what did it all mean?" There's so much that I just don't get. It's quite possible this is because I am a fucking idiot. Or wasn't paying attention. But with the series now at an end, I don't really get what the whole quest was about. There's no obvious goal, like throwing the ring into Mt Doom, or finding the Dark Tower. I'm left wondering what it was all for. To stop the flitting man? But who the hell was the flitting man anyway? What did he want? Where did he come from?

SUMMARY
Is the series worth it? I think yes, despite the moans above, because:
a) lots of you will like 'Ghosts' more than I did and
b) the journey is just as important as the destination, and overall i really enjoyed the journey

I'll be interested in what GX Todd comes up with next for sure, I'm just a little sad that the final Voices book didn't work for me as well as the others.