Ghost Mother

De: Kelly Dwyer

Narrado por: Renata Friedman

Ghost Mother is a mesmerizing psychological ghost story that blurs the thin line between reality and delusion.

Lilly Bly desperately wants to have a baby. She is struggling with infertility and bad spending habits when her husband, Jack, gets a new job that moves them from Chicago to a small town in Wisconsin. Impractical Lilly falls in love with a decrepit mansion well out of their price range—she is convinced that she will finally get pregnant and have a baby in this house—and Jack reluctantly agrees to buy the wreck. But when Lilly learns that her dream house was the site of a gruesome triple homicide/suicide in the 1950s, she begins to experience strange occurrences that soon lead her to believe the house is haunted. Are her ghostly encounters real, or is this a cascading mental breakdown? As Lilly learns more about the deaths and her visions become increasingly vivid, her relationship with Jack deteriorates, leading to a dramatic and irreversible climax.

Perfect for fans of classic gothic horror fiction, like Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, as well as contemporary suspense and horror fiction by everyone from Stephen King to Ruth Ware.

©2024 Kelly Dwyer (P)2024 Dreamscape Media

The creep builds throughout the story to a fantastic ending!

Plot: 5 📍
Spice: 0.5❤️‍🔥
Overall: 5⭐
Audio: 5 🎧

Lily is both a sympathetic and pathetic creature but I don’t blame her, rather those around her. Brought up by both overly indulgent, materialistic, but somewhat negligent parents, she’s a product of her environment. Never needing to actually grow up and become self-sufficient, she finds herself beholden to those around her. And is quickly discovering this in varying, painful ways.

Her descent into mania, paranoia, and depression starts slow and the reader (or listener! This comes in a stellar audiobook form as well!) is instantly sucked in. Is it madness or is it reality?

The hauntingly beautiful but decaying home grasps hold of you, grips tight, and chills you immediately. And those chills grow exponentially throughout the story! The ending has such a fun twist… and leaves you with an unanswered question… you'll have to read “Ghost Mother” yourself to decide the answer…

Absolutely thoroughly enjoyable!

Not sure about story line

I didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. Nothing really stood out. I like ghost stories and this one missed the mark.

Ghost Mother haunts!

I was hooked from the moment I pressed play on Ghost Mother and met the lovable/relatable protagonist, Lilly Bly. As a reader, I love when there's a satisfying ending and in the case, I'm happy to report there was.

Suspense awaits

If you’re a big suspense book fan this book is for you. I liked the pace of the story, and the fact that it wasn’t too scary. Once I started listening it was hard to stop.

A modern day horror tale that delivers the goods!

The story is both a compelling mystery and a distinctly creepy horror tale. Influences from other great horror are blended with the author’s own (as she has said herself) personal experiences of motherhood to really bring this distinct story to life.

Lilly’s a fully-realized character whose progress (descent?) is alternately fascinating and frustrating to observe (especially her tenure at the library). To be clear that’s frustration with the character’s actions being self-defeating, not any kind of frustration with the writing itself.

The dynamics between Lilly and Jack rang very true as well.

The reader was excellent. Articulate, in command of the emotional peaks and valleys and great distinguishing of the individual characters. Might have been nice to have more midwestern authenticity to the Wisconsin character voices but that is a small complaint overall. I thought she was particular good with the male voices of Jack and especially Bobby, a true rake.

We were frequently putting it on pause and theorizing how it was going to play out. That’s the mark of a compelling story.

Highly recommended!

Love Ghost Mother!

Atmospheric, sexy, original. Ghost Mother is the best supernatural thriller I’ve read in years! The narrator is excellent. The story starts strong and keeps twisting its way into you until its startling end! Highly recommend!!

A Hauntingly Great Ride

The main character, Lilly has an intriguing past, and is not without her issues. It is this past and these very issues that make her such an interesting character.
Her relationship with her husband Jack is tumultuous to say the least, with him being the bread winner and her being the bread spender, one may wonder why they stay in this relationship, but it quickly becomes obvious that these two love each other. Jack genuinely wants Lily to be happy. Hence buying the mansion, which they both know they can’t afford.
But, Lilly, haunted by the past, believes that this old house is the place in which she was destined to be a mother. This is where the seeds of family will finally germinate, so the more issues that arise in the dilapidated gothic mansion, the more she digs her heels in and fights to maintain her claim on the house.
The pacing of the story is quick and deliberate, there are not a lot of extraneous words, or wasted time in this novel. It clips along like a Porsche on the autobahn. The author does a great job of introducing side characters and tying small town charm into the novel, giving the reader a real sense of being in that small community with Lilly.
As the pacing quickens towards the books shocking climax, we witness Lilly’s world fall apart and are left wondering how she will salvage all she has fought for,. Plagued by ghosts and guilt, the author takes us on this death defying ride and lands us satisfied at the end of the book.
A great read! And a great novel.

Great mystery and ghost story

I enjoyed the great storytelling of this book. it was a unique mystery and the. narration was first rate.

Slow burn

I don’t read many ghost stories, so at the beginning I saw the main character much like the world saw her. As the story went on and I got to know her, things got very interesting indeed.

Like all the good ghost stories this one isn’t *just* about the strange noises in the house. As the layers get peeled back it becomes more and more emotionally harrowing.

Not that it is without genuine scares. There was one scene that unnerved me in David Lynchian fashion.

A great ghostly yarn.

Performance was competent, though some of the voices were a little much. Still worth the listen.