Ghost Month

'Poignant, thought-provoking and very funny' JOANNA CANNON
'Darkly comic and deeply felt' GRACE FLAHIVE
Full of wit, heart and charm, Ghost Month asks a timeless question: do we only value life when we are reminded that it will end?
Perhaps you've already noticed little things, strange details. A shadow not attached to anything. A face in a window which might be a trick of the light. They come at dusk. Today.
Every September, the spirits of the dead return before vanishing four weeks later in a puff of green ash.
The haunting has become a holiday - part Christmas, part Halloween, full of annual reckonings with the past. The ghosts aren't real in any way that can hurt you, so it's hard to tell the silent spectres from ashen commuters: they linger on train platforms, they crowd buses, they take up space on your sofa. The proper term these days is 'people without pulses'.
This year, four strangers prepare for a visit from their dearly departed. The season forces them to confront all the things that haunt them, not just their dead. As suppressed truths emerge from the shadows, each of them will end Ghost Month changed in ways they never imagined.
Happy Haunting.
----- 'Eerie and tender, playful and profound, it lingers like a whisper long after the final page'
----- 'Thought provoking, moving and, ultimately, life affirming'
----- 'Astounding . . . This is a book is going to stay with me for a very long time to come'
----- 'Brilliant! A touching story of helping one another through life and death'
----- 'Atmospheric and beautifully written, it's haunting in more ways than one'

Simon Wroe is an award-winning author, journalist and former chef. His debut novel, Chop Chop, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Prize, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, and won a Betty Trask Award. He lives in Hackney, east London.