Ghosted

Unnerving, absorbing . . . Ashworth's setting is a small unnamed northwestern university city . . . a clever, gripping, refreshingly urban setting for a novel that plays with tropes from not just ghost stories but also murder mysteries . . . The mentally restless Laurie is a miraculous creation, somehow managing to be both a not entirely reliable narrator and yet solidly sympathetic. Piercingly human and darkly funny, Ghosted is a tender, beautifully controlled account of expectations knocked off course -- Patricia Nicol * Sunday Times *
From her debut novel, A Kind of Intimacy, Ashworth's work has explored physical discomfort, violence and sexual misadventure. She writes explicitly of physicality and its often petrifying opposite - disembodiment. There are moments in Ghosted that are at once terrifying and blackly humorous . . . an impressive reminder of the uneasy silence reverberating on the other side of grief. -- Catherine Taylor * Guardian *
Since her 2009 debut A Kind of Intimacy, Jenn Ashworth has been quietly collecting honours for her distinctive, empathetic and sharply observed novels, of which Ghosted is another . . . She writes powerfully and movingly about lives shaped by need, love and loss, as well as the solipsism of ferocious grief -- Stephanie Cross * Daily Mail *
Ghosts, buried trauma and lingering absences suffuse this darkly funny and compelling novel. -- Francesca Carington * Tatler *
A revelatory portrait of a marriage. Although Laurie is acerbic and funny, this is an immeasurably sad read, aching with the unacknowledged grief of a complicated couple who have lost more than they can say. -- Eithne Farry * Daily Mirror *
A brilliant 21st-century take on the Gothic: a woman, whose husband just vanishes, is left to the frantic silence of abandonment and virtual reality's eerie twilight. A seriously gifted writer surely due a big prize. -- Conor O'Callaghan * Irish Times *
Raw, darkly comic and moving * Best *
Stunning . . . Ghosted is a séance disguised as a novel. -- Andrew Gallix * The London Magazine *
Ashworth's writing is often referred to as "unnerving" and I wonder if that's because of her immense talent for honing in on our deepest fears. -- Emma Yates-Badley * Northern Soul *
A vivid, blackly funny and heartbreaking portrait of a marriage and the tiny and large hurts within it, how they wear at us and haunt us despite everything, but I found it beautifully hopeful too. -- Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure
A marvellous novel; thrumming with the absences and presences that can haunt a life, and shot through with flashes of great sadness and joy. If you don't know Jenn Ashworth's work already - which you should - this is a great place to start -- Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13
Fresh, darkly funny and exceptionally moving . . . Ashworth folds grief and anger and love into every line. -- Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground (April 2021)
Ghosted is deeply unsettling - Laurie is such a believable complex person, I couldn't look away from her life. It's also just so utterly compelling and funny. The writing is impeccable and the dark heart of the novel is uncomfortably human and relatable -- Evie Wyld, author of The Bass Rock
Dark, funny, thrilling and deeply human, Ghosted is a book that will haunt you forever, and you'll be glad. Jenn Ashworth is a master of modern storytelling -- Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Adults
Ghosted perfectly captures the claustrophobia of living in your own mind. Ashworth's writing is both acerbic and insightful. She has created a protagonist who is as flawed and as interesting as most memorable people are. -- Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Starling Days (April 2021)
There are dark and alluring undercurrents to everything that Jenn Ashworth produces, and she has a brilliantly uncanny ability to unnerve at every turn. To me, her psychologically driven work ranks alongside such singular spiritual ancestors as Muriel Spark, Jean Rhys and Shirley Jackson. -- Benjamin Myers, author of The Offing (April 2021)
This is a book to bring hope. -- Sarah Franklin (April 2021)
Tender, rude, funny, sad, moving, thrilling, heartbreaking, devastating. Perfect. -- Lucy McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them (June 2021)