The Apparition Phase

Reminiscent of the gothic suspense of Shirley Jackson and the ghost stories of M. R. James, The Apparition Phase is an atmospheric and stunning debut. Tim and Abi have always been different from their peers. Precociously bright, they spend their evenings in their parents' attic discussing the macabre and unexplained, zealously rereading books on folklore, hauntings and the supernatural. In particular, they are obsessed with photographs of ghostly apparitions and the mix of terror and delight they provoke in their otherwise safe and boring childhood.

But when Tim and Abi decide to fake a photo of a ghost to frighten an unpopular school friend, they set in motion a deadly and terrifying chain of events that neither of them could have predicted, and are forced to confront the possibility that what began as a callous prank might well have taken on a malevolent life of its own.

An unsettling literary ghost story set in the early 1970s between a claustrophobic British suburban town and a menacing Suffolk manor, The Apparition Phase is an unnerving novel which pushes us repeatedly over the line between rational explanation and inexplicable fear. Like all the best ghost stories, it questions what is real and what is simply a trick of the mind—and whether there's really a difference between the two.