Jason Arnopp – author of acclaimed cult hit The Last Days of Jack Sparks – returns with a razor-sharp thriller for a social-media obsessed world. Prepare to never look at your phone the same way again . . .

Kate Collins has been ghosted.
She was supposed to be moving in with her new boyfriend Scott, but all she finds after relocating to Brighton is an empty apartment. Scott has vanished. His possessions have all disappeared.
Except for his mobile phone.
Kate knows she shouldn’t hack into Scott’s phone. She shouldn’t look at his Tinder, his calls, his social media. But she can’t quite help herself.
That’s when the trouble starts. Strange, whispering phone calls from numbers she doesn’t recognize. Scratch marks on the walls that she can’t explain. And the growing feeling that she’s being watched.
Kate refuses to leave the apartment – she’s not going anywhere until she’s discovered what happened to Scott. But the deeper she dives into Scott’s digital history the more Kate realizes just how little she really knows about the man she loves.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Orbit for this ARC! I read The Last Days of Jack Sparks last year and was struck by Jason’s dark wit and true talent for the horror genre. It’s really rare for me now to find scary novels that actually DO scare me, having grown up immersed in the world of spook. However, this book genuinely was hard for me to read at night because I got the heebie jeebies from its unique premise and tantalizing mystery. I was actually reminded of my own ghostly experience from when I was a kid; a moment where I saw a jerky, static-y figure looming in the hallway of my kitchen. The specters in this novel are quite similar, so I was on edge the entire novel.

Jason starts us off slow; introducing us to our protagonist, Kate. She has fallen in love with seemingly perfect guy, and is getting ready to move in with him. The only problem is, she only has days left before she makes the trek to his apartment, and he has gone completely silent. She can’t reach him on his phone, and she has taken a devout vow against using social media because of an incident on the job that left her best friend unable to walk. She decides to go through with the move anyway, and is greeted by a gutted apartment with no Scott in sight. She is of course enraged, and when she finds his phone laying on the balcony of the apartment, she is sucked in to the mystery of cracking the code on Scott’s disappearance. Did he trick her into the ultimate prank, or did something happen to the man she loved?

What follows is a roller coaster ride of a journey. Strange things start to happen; wood is gouged out of Scott’s apartment door, blue apparitions appear in the bathroom, and Kate is brought back into the digital world that she tried so hard to stay out of. Scott’s social media seems to be the key to unlocking the secrets that so elude her, and it consumes her every waking moment; leaving her job as a first responder and all other relationships or duties on the line. Once you think you have everything figured out, Jason throws a wrench in the gears with slow revelations that happen between snippets from Kate and Scott’s budding relationship, Kate’s present, messages between Kate and her best friend Izzy, and journal entries on a super secure diary app called TrooSelf. I loved the mixed media aspect, which Jason included in his debut novel as well, so I can only hope and pray that he brings a third book with the same feel, because I am head over heels for his style.

All in all, this was the perfect book to get me in the mood for Halloween. I had to sit down and finish it in the sunshine, as reading it in bed, in the dark was not working out for me. It’s amazing how real and present Jason makes his novels feel; there are so many references to pop culture and the characters don’t feel stilted or dated. It’s all wonderfully raw and exciting, and maybe that’s what drives the scare factor home is how honest it is. He also has a wonderful way of tying in real world issues with his works; this one being our obsession with our phones and the internet. I honestly can’t wait to see what he tackles next.

5/5 stars