Ghosted by Rosie Walsh

The first novel I've finished in 2018 is a hard to put down psychological suspense about coping with pain and loss, through the power of love. 

I personally haven't heard about the word 'ghosted' until a couple of weeks ago, and it deals usually with the relatively recent phenomenon - in the age of Internet - when the part of a relationship - usually a short-term - completelly disappears without any 'online' trace. No phone calls, no e-mails answered, no Facebook or WhatsApp replies. He or she just disappears as it never existed. In Ghosted, by Rosie Walsh the apparent disappearance of Eddie, with whom Sarah spent six intense days of friendship and intimacy, it is more than a nonchalant run away from the responsibility of a relationship.

The narrative is made up of small little dots that added together create a dramatic suspense that you expect to end up tragically at least once. Blinded by love and the need to find the truth, Sarah is behaving out of herself, stalking Eddie on social media and watching obsessivelly her phone for any trace of online presence of him. 'The strange thing was, I knew this wasn't me. I knew it wasn't sane behavior, and I knew it was getting worse, not better, but I had neither the will nor the energy to stage an intervion on myself'. Although I personally was a bit disappointed by how this 'online drama' was staged, luckily the story is gathering more and more tension which goes straight to the heart of the main story.

There are many additional characters - including non-human ones - which kept being introduced into the story, but skillfully the author is able to control them and assign them a clear role into the story. The tone is well tempered and the ending is maybe a bit too mild compared to what could have been, but the readers is offered many ideas for a possible main conflict resolution. 

Besides the action and the suspense, though, Ghosted is first and foremost about dealing with pain and loss, after years of family alienation and the difficult peace resolution with a heartbreaking event from the past. A promising writing which makes a difference for offering a gentle approach to so many hard-to-break psychological walls and dilemma. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: ARC offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review