In this tantalizing tale of Victorian ghost stories and family secrets, timid, solitary librarian Gerard Freeman lives for just two things: his elusive pen pal Alice and a story he found hidden in his mother's drawer years ago. Written by his great-grandmother Viola, it hints at his mother's role in a sinister crime. As he discovers more of Viola's chilling tales, he realizes that they might hold the key to finding Alice and unveiling his family's mystery-or will they bring him the untimely death they seem to foretell?

Harwood's astonishing, assured debut shows us just how dangerous family skeletons-and stories-can be.

PRAISE FOR THE GHOST WRITER
""[Harwood's] novel is an homage, a Victorian ghost story that honors the likes of Dickens and Henry James . . . A smart, stylish and mesmerizing book.""-THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

""Does [Alice] have some connection to Gerard's creepy, semi-insane mom? And to those Victorian horror tales that Gerard keeps stumbling across? What's she hiding, anyway? The answers are yes, yes, and wait and see . . . It's like A. S. Byatt's Possession. But without all that distracting poetry.""-TIME