Ghostwriter by Lissa Bryan

After being laid off from the newspaper where she worked as a journalist, and losing her boyfriend in rapid succession, Sara Howell is looking to downsize before her dwindling savings run out. Things are finally starting to look up when she lands a job ghostwriting the biography of a popular politician and rents an isolated island house which turns out to have once been the home of her favorite author, Seth Fortner, who mysteriously disappeared in 1925.

But when strange things start happening, as objects break, or go missing, and terrifying visions appear, Sara begins to wonder if Seth ever left, or if she is losing her mind.

What happened to Seth is a secret closely guarded by the family to this day, a family that seems to exist under a terrible curse. Through an old trunk of letters she discovers in the attic, Sara unravels the mystery and becomes caught up in a tale of greed, lost love and the horrors of WWI.

When Sara realizes she is not going crazy and that Seth Fortner’s spirit still haunts her new home on the isolated island, she begins to draw him out of his shell bit by bit. She will discover what happened to the idealistic young writer who went to the battlefields of France to save lives, and to his beautiful bride to destroy the love between them, and what led Seth to make a terrible choice which would have consequences that would echo for generations.

They gradually fall in love in their world of dreams, dreams which swiftly become more attractive than reality, as Sara learns from a ghost how to truly live. Will she be the one to break the “Fortner Curse” by helping Seth conquer his demons, and heal both of their hearts in the process?

Review by FS Meurinne

Lissa Bryan is a writer extraordinaire even if she didn’t include it in her autobiography.

In this novel you will get carried away by a character facing many adversities. She is trying to gain her mother’s approval to achieve her goal as a writer when she suddenly finds herself alone, after being in a car accident and her boyfriend leaving. These circumstances force her to accomplish something solely by her own means.

Her fear of being unemployed makes her accept a job as the ghostwriter for the autobiography of a little known politician. This leap of faith would change her life, as she will not only find her true self , but also love and forgiveness from the most unexpected of situations, one that will mark her and you forever.

by FS Meurinne