Ghost story has it all for a creepy winter read: psychological thriller, complex characters who grow with the story, steeped in history, legends, wilderness and hauntings. I was gripped from the first page and couldn’t put it down. The remote setting was meticulous and the Island was like a character in itself. The pace and the layers of the plot had me rooted to the spot to finish.

There are some triggers with child loss and physical abuse so I wouldn’t go into this one lightly. I felt like the grief was handled well but it was an emotional read.

Remote Finnish Island in the Outer Hebrides was once inhabited but has been derelict for years. It has a bloody history of a massacre in the distant past. This doesn't put off novelist Seren. After a successful first novel she has hit a block after the death of her daughter, an event that also brought about the end of her marriage. With the pressure form her agent she decides to go to this remote place & hope the atmosphere & the isolation gives her the push she needs.

The author does a brilliant job of conveying the wildness & isolation of the island. I was totally able to envisage Seren's 'home' as well as the various places on the island. There is no throwing the spookiness at the reader, it creeps up slowly- rather like the mist. I found it a read I couldn't put down although at times I wished I could & one event, although necessary to the plot stopped it getting five stars! Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

I really enjoyed this story! Anything set on a remote island has my attention and this story kept me coming back for more! It’s got a great atmosphere and I really found myself engrossed in it!

Thank you, Bonnier Books and NetGalley, for providing me with an ARC of Elisa Lodato’s 'Ghost Story'.

Creepy rather than ghost-y, I would say, this is a psychological thriller rather than a ghost story, as the title suggest. As such, I echo the concerns of one other reviewer: a trigger warning re. psychological and physical abuse may be called for.

This novel starts promising, with a decent plot. I’m not going to give anything away, but half-way through it becomes regrettably rather predictable with a few plot-holes. That said, I enjoyed the voice and the setting (an abandoned Outer Hebrides island).

All and all, that adds up to close to 3.5 stars for Elisa Lodato’s ‘Ghost Story’.

In Ghost Story, by Elisa Lodato, author Seren Doughty spends four months – from May to September – on the abandoned Outer Hebrides island of Finish. Her goal: to write a zeitgeisty island-based ghost story that will satisfy her publishers and sell well.

There’s a lot riding on this. Seren’s three-year-old daughter Tilly died in an arson attack along with Seren’s sister Alana six years previously, and understandably, Seren has struggled to move on.

Seren’s marriage to Tilly’s father Jamie couldn’t withstand the strain, and her last novel, which she wrote with reluctance when Tilly was a baby, was a total flop. Not only is she hoping to revive her writing career, but that being alone on the island will help her manage her grief.

Seren doesn’t end up quite as alone on Finish as she expected, however. For one thing, she develops a relationship with Daley, the good-looking boatman who transports day-trippers and supplies to the island during the summer months. Then there’s Alex, the intense young librarian she first met while doing preliminary research in Edinburgh, who turns up claiming to be collecting soil samples for his PhD.

But there’s also something less definable, which manifests as ghostly cries and inexplicable events…

I really liked Ghost Story, being particularly captivated by the eerie atmosphere that persists throughout the novel; the history adapted and attached to the fictional island; and the wry meta-ness in regard to writing and publishing.

The feeling of creepiness and unease is there even before Seren sets foot on Finish. From the start, you’re aware she’s not going to survive, so you’re on the alert for clues as to how she meets her demise.

There’s also the feeling she’s living a half-life following her catastrophic losses. Then she meets Alex, who at first could be excused as socially inept and pompous, but later teeters, then plunges, into red flag territory.

Staying in Castlebay the night before the boat crossing, Seren’s further unsettled by a couple of out-of-the-ordinary things she sees and hears. By the time she actually gets to Finish, we’re well-primed for spooky goings-on.

These phenomena are very skilfully woven into the story. Lodato doesn’t overplay her hand: incidents are few and far between (there are stretches where you almost forget about them, and find yourself enjoying an uplifting story about a woman rebuilding her life by living off-grid for a spell), Seren rationalises them when she’s the only witness, and when there’s someone else present, their corroboration helps you suspend your disbelief.

The history the author creates for Finish by blending imagination with mixed-and-matched stories of real Outer Hebridean islands enriches the phenomena with weight and meaning. As well as the islanders’ (pragmatic) abandonment of the island in 1912, Seren learns of a brutal massacre committed against the island’s men, women and children hundreds of years earlier, and the reverence the residents had for their midwife – particularly the woman who held this role at the time of the massacre, and was given the posthumous name of Chulainn (“warrior”).

Seren maps her supernatural experiences onto what she knows of Finish’s history but, being an author, has the self-awareness to recognise that she could be forcing these connections, and is filling in the blanks herself.

This is just one instance of the meta-ness I so appreciated in this book. Right from the opening pages, when Seren’s publishers are asking Jamie (as her bereaved next of kin) to send over her “manuscript” in the hope of working it up into something they can sell, you know you’re in for a clear-eyed, interesting take on the literary industry.

I felt like Lodato was giving me a mischievous wink as the characters in this island-based novel referred to how and why such books were “on-trend”, and when Seren, attempting to come up with a synopsis for the book she hadn’t started, wrote a sentence that could largely describe Ghost Story itself.

In fact, while some seriously dark and shocking events are described in this novel, there are also a number of opportunities to laugh – for example, at Alex’s terrible idea for his own novel, the obnoxious Canadian couple who insist on telling Seren their life story, and the trials of living in a bothy without indoor plumbing.

Ghost Story is multi-layered, atmospheric, and compellingly creepy.

Seren has had a tradgey in her life and she is struggling. She is a writer and for her next book she goes to an island in the Outer Hebrides. She is to stay in a bothy for several months to get her thoughts together and write her book.

I like books that are set on a Scottish Island. I like the bleakness and the isolation which add to the story. This particular island is fictional but does have a macabre history which I believe is taken from true events.

I was expecting the story to be about Seren on the island with it's ghostly goings on but she wasn't totally alone as there are other characters that come and go but won't say anymore as it may spoil. So for me the story didn't quite have the total isolation feel to it.

The story did have some spooky moments but for me it then went into thrillerland. I was expecting more of a ghost story rather than a thriller. I didn't not enjoy the book but it wasn't what I was expecting.

Thank you to the publisher via Netgalley for the book to review.

I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did to be honest. But I just loved it.

Seren was once a successful, published author. Her first book was such a success, that the publishers wanted a sequel. But it flopped. It wasn’t very good – Seren knows that.

She hasn’t written anything since. The most unimaginable tragedy befell her family and now she is divorced, alone, and still struggling with her grief six years later. I am not one bit surprised. I’m not sure how you ever get over it.

But now her publishers want her to write a ghost story. She decides to go to Finish Island where she spent holidays when she was young. It’s deserted – the inhabitants all left in 1912. It’s also the site of a terrible act of revenge in the 17th century and many believe that the island is haunted by the spirits of those who died. It sounds perfect for the inspiration she needs.

While researching the island’s history, she meets Alex in the library in Edinburgh. He’s a PHD student, many years her junior, working there while studying. They hit it off but she has now moved on. On the way to Finish she stays in a guest house where she meets Kathleen, who has dementia, but came from the Island originally. Her nephew Daley takes tourists across in his boat.

Sounds like a simple story, but it soon turns into something dark and sinister and I found it scarier than most scary books I have read recently. The myths and superstitions get inside Seren’s head – and mine – until she is not sure what is real and what is not. There are some pretty horrific descriptions of events, so be warned, but nothing is ever gratuitous, it’s always essential to the plot. A fantastic read that will stay with me for a long time to come.

Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour and to NetGalley for an ARC.

An intriguing and unusual novel, GHOST STORY begins with an email exchange between Jamie Doughty and his late ex-wife, Seren’s publishers. It appears that Seren has passed away ‘on that island’ while writing the novel commissioned by the publishers and whose manuscript they would now like to publish. Jamie refuses, arguing that the manuscript in his possession is ‘not a work of fiction’ and it is apparent he holds the publishers responsible for whatever has happed to Seren.

What then follows appears to be that manuscript and tells Seren's story as she does indeed travel to remote Scottish Hebridean Ireland, inspired by the story of a massacre that took place there hundreds of years before and hoping that the location will reignite her creative spark. It's quickly evident that Seren’s manuscript is not a novel, at least not a conventional novel, but rather a memoir telling of the events that brought her to travel to the island and later when she gets to the island it takes the form of journal entries and dispersed with chapters of her intended novel. The prose is melancholy, and slow-moving, and utterly engrossing. Seren’s first novel was a huge success, her second a comparative failure. Her daughter and sister were murdered in an arson attack carried out by her sister’s deranged partner, and Seren’s marriage, to Jamie, did not survive the tragedy. Contacted by her publisher with an offer for a story about ‘“Ghosts…not ghosts that go bump-in-the-night but the inner demon, you know”’ Seren decides to visit the Western Isles, where she spent holidays as a child, Finish Island, uninhabited since 1912 but whose population had been massacred by clansmen centuries before. Seren hopes the location, and the solitude, will inspire her but the reader can’t help but feel that she is trying to escape the grief which which she has been living, grief which, perhaps quiet at times, never leaves.

It would be unfair to reveal any more of the plot, suffice to say I found it gripping and intensely moving. Elisa Lodato is a talented writer. Her prose is exquisite, her dialog modern and realistic. Sadness and grief are present on every page but the book is never gloomy and GHOST STORY lives up to its title as a feeling of increasing dread takes hold in the latter stages. It is chilling and atmospheric. It doesn’t tie everything up in a neat bow, and I liked that. For days after finishing the novel I was still thinking about it - did things happen as they appeared to, as Seren had recorded them? Did the remoteness of the island take a toll on Seren’s sanity? Were the ghosts real or ‘inner demons’, or both? I don’t know but the questions will stay for some time.

A remote Scottish Island, and ghostly goings on, what’s not to love?! This book was the perfect read for me as I really enjoyed the mix of the history of a small Scottish Island with a modern day thriller set on the same island. The way the two stories blended together the further into the story I read was great, as at points you really aren’t sure who or what to believe. I loved the setting which was used to great effect to create a dark and foreboding atmosphere. Perfect read for the dark winter months.

I could summarise my review and thoughts quoting Ghosts by The Japan: “Just when I think I'm winning/ When I've broken every door/ The ghosts of my life blow wilder than before”
I joined this blogtour attracted by the title and the eery cover of the book. I read the blurb and it sounded interesting, it was the first book by this author.
Let’s say this is not a classic ghost story nor a horror one. There’s ghosts but there’s also a lot of personal ghost from a past which is still hurting.
Seren lost nearly everything: her family, her home. She also feels unable to write, to express emotions as hers are still raw.
She is tasked with writing a new book and moves to a desolated island with dark story of blood and violence.
When we start the book we know that something happened and what we will read is not a heartwarming story.
It’s a beginning of a very dark, hipnotic, dreamlike story. It’s a diary and it’s a sort of book-in-book as we are brought into Seren’s mind space and her disturbing mind trip.
It’s a fascinating trip even if I found hard at times. I kept me reading because I fell in love with the style of writing and the storytelling.
The main character is not very likeable as you feel Seren’s suffference, doubts, and her ambiguous relationship with Alex, the man takes with supporting her.
There’s a lot of blood, violence, sufferance. It’s not a book to read if you want a uplifting story but it’s an excellent book if you want to read a well plotted and well written story.
Many thanks to Manilla Press and Compulsive Readers for this digital copy, all opinions are mine.

I have a weakness for books set on Scotland. Can't get enough of them! This one is set on the island of Finish. A remote island that was long abandoned. With a grisly past and no inhabitants, it really is a ghost island. Seren has been struggling to write since the death of her daughter. She relocates to Finish to attempt a new novel. Hoping the isolation and setting with help with inspiration. But things aren't as they seem on the island. There is no running water and she has to rely on a friendly boatsman to bring her supplies. Is the island haunted?

I really enjoyed the tension and creepy parts to this story. Very atmospheric and spooky. Perfect for this time of year

Wow, this book was so much more than I expected it to be. It was haunting, beautiful, sad and had such gorgeous descriptions. I really wanted Seren to live, so badly. It's so sad but this was amazing.

I was drawn to this read due to the title and the fact that it's almost Halloween. I love a spooky story and yes this book is creepy and starts off really well.

I almost didn't finished it due the way it's written. It's in the format of a diary and journal and this put me off.

I liked the plot, and it's a well written tale.

This book opens with a bang. At first, I was intrigued by the plot but the unsympathetic, unlikeable MC, lack of spookiness, switch to journal-style storytelling, and a particularly traumatic death ruined any semblance of enjoyment I had in this book.

For me, this started going downhill with the first Alex interlude. Why is the MC so disempowered? Why does she keep forcing contact with someone who creeps her out? Self-obsessed, self-destructive, and profoundly stupid, she is impossible to root for and this doesn’t improve as the book goes on. Honestly, I’d have rather read Kathleen’s story. She was interesting!

Part two is told through diary entries which slowed the pace and made us spend a lot of time in the MCs head jumping between oversexed obsessing over the boatman to repetitive obsessing over the daughter. It got tiresome quickly and sucked any spookiness right out of any attempts at an atmosphere. The “I have to write a book” thing became tedious too - MC is procrastinating and complaining about it all the time and hearing the repetitious, circular whining about not being able to write a book was so dull.

I knew what was going to happen the moment the wee puppy showed up. The MC didn’t want her and it was cruel of Daley to leave her on that island. She would’ve needed her puppy vaccinations, and needed love, care, and training that the MC was too self-involved to ever provide. When it ended as I predicted, with a graphic death, it was devastating. Individual reader mileage will vary, but pet death is a hard red line for me, personally.

Throughout the book, there’s a noticeably excessive amount of descriptions about defecation and arses.

The second Alex interlude was just bizarre. Why does the MC stay?! Why is she constantly trying to force cordiality with him? Despite what she says to Daley, she doesn’t directly tell him to get lost or call him out on his creepy behaviour. It’s telegraphed really early on that this guy’s an unhinged obsessive so nothing in this thread surprised me yet MC slept-walked right into all of it like a dumb horror movie character who keeps making all the wrong choices. She had like zero self preservation instinct and, while what Alex did to her is his fault, it was frustrating seeing her continually goad, make overtures, and engage in drama with him.

The plot itself had potential but I didn’t feel the ghostly thread was fleshed out enough to compel me forward. It was predictable and it takes the MC ages to put it all together. The story suffers from a short attention span: jumping from ghostly happenings to the MC’s sex life to drama with MC’s family, to Alex… some of these threads didn’t complement each other or work together nicely, especially in the journaling format.

I feel like I’ve read this story loads of times: remote Scottish island, character(s) losing the plot, creepy men, “tortured writer” trope, underdeveloped ghost plot… Every time I see something is set in Scotland, I get so excited but this didn’t work for me on almost any level and it wasn’t an enjoyable way to spend my time.

I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thanks for letting me give this a try, Bonnier Books UK.