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Nicola Laughton, born with cystic fibrosis, never expected to live into her late thirties, and she never expected to find the kind of love she has with her husband, Anton. But then Anton dies in a tragic car accident a short time into their marriage. Her fierce love, combined with a moving death scene where he declares, “I’ll be waiting for you,” turns into a social media video featuring a white shape around her as Anton died. This leads Nicola to try to communicate with the deceased Anton. While she is a nonbeliever, she has spent the months since his death testing mediums. But her family is concerned about her and wants the perceived toxic behavior to stop. They agree to one final séance with a noted professor of parapsychology. They pick a remote but important spot for the event—Anton’s family’s rundown, isolated lake house on the shores of Lake Erie. As soon as they arrive, the weird occurrences begin—disembodied voices, slamming doors. The atmosphere here is superbly realized. The book is a ghost story with hints that it might actually be about Nicola’s past. Fans of Riley Sager and Lucy Foley will enjoy this well-paced and atmospheric ghost story–thriller.

Publishers Weekly
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Armstrong (Hemlock Island) shines in this nail-biting thriller that hinges on whether its protagonist is dealing with natural or supernatural evil. Nicola Laughton was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as a child, and told she’d be lucky to live past 20. Despite this prognosis, Nicola, now in her 30s, is running her own company and happily married to Anton Novak. Then their marriage ends tragically when Anton dies in a car crash. Bystanders report his last words to Nicola—“I’ll be waiting for you”—to the press, with one claiming to have photographed Anton’s ghost as he spoke them, and the publicity makes Nicola a reluctant celebrity. To settle the matter in her own mind, she seeks out mediums to contact Anton’s spirit and plans a séance in his family’s old beach house. What starts with unsettling noises and weird phenomena, including clouds of insects, eventually leads to violence and threatens to expose secrets from Nicola’s past. Armstrong’s insightful characterization of her lead, even as it keeps readers guessing about Nicola’s reliability as a narrator, makes suspending disbelief easy. Riley Sager fans will be delighted. (Oct.)