Ghostwritten

De: Ronald Malfi

Narrado por: Joe Hempel

Four brand-new horror novellas from "a modern-day Algernon Blackwood" all about books, stories, manuscripts—the written word has never had sharper teeth . . .

BOOKS CAN BE DEADLY

In The Skin of Her Teeth, a cursed novel drives people to their deaths.

A delivery job turns deadly in The Dark Brothers' Last Ride.

In This Book Belongs to Olo, a lonely child has dangerous control over an usual pop-up book.

A choose-your-own adventure game spirals into an uncanny reality in The Story.

Full of creepy suspense, these collected novellas are perfect for fans of Paul Tremblay, Stephen King, and Joe Hill.

©2022 Ronald Malfi (P)2022 Tantor

Every story drew me in

Right from the beginning. Malfi’s prose is vivid and creative. Characters are believable and well fleshed out. One of my favorite “newish” authors!

A hit or miss novella collection

I really wanted to love this collection of novellas. I love when a story collection has a guiding theme. In this case, the theme is haunted media, my favorite. The problem lies, of course, in the execution.

The strongest story in the collection is the first story "The Skin of Her Teeth". This is the story of an evil book that has driven people to their deaths. This story is a bit long and bit too much telling instead of showing, but it is still so good. I gave it 4/5 stars.

"The Dark Brother's Last Ride" is about two low life criminals who are given a delivery job that goes horribly wrong. Think Pulp Fiction meets The Twilight Zone. This is a story about an odd road trip that gets weirder with each pit stop. The problem is, you have to love the brothers and care about their fate, and I did not. I gave this story 2 stars.

"This Book Belongs to Olo" will scratch the itch for anyone looking for a creepy kid story. Olo has a most unusual pop-up book. He plans a birthday and invites some local children, and, of course, the birthday party goes horribly wrong. This one was a bit long and too all over the place at points. That said, it had a satisfying conclusion and gave me a couple of characters to care about. I gave Olo's story 3 stars.

Finally, "The Story" is the novella that made me want to read this collection. It sounded right up my alley. A podcaster who investigates strange phenomenon and the paranormal kills herself. Her former partner investigates her death and gets embroiled in a choose your own adventure game. This story sounded so interesting. I love a game that takes a protagonist down a dark rabbit hole. Malfi was building up to some grand interlinked conspiracy then just kind of gave up on this one and went with something fairly routine. The haunted media was window dressing, and the rabbit hole does not get explained very well. That said, I was hooked by this story. I wish it was longer and more complex, but it is what it is. I give "The Story" 3.5 stars.

Favorite author

I will spend my credit on him every time. He is the best. Every story I have read this far has been captivating.

Olo is like Yolo

I was particularly fond of the Olo short but also confused. The last two stories in the anthology were mercurial in their nature's and ends. Olo being more vague and The Story on a literal cliff hanger as to that whole world's book. The grit of them is what drew me in, while the Dark Brothers was just annoying. I can't place as to why but it annoyed me. The Skin of Her Teeth was cute.

While the shorts bleed into eachother leaving some device from the prior and future in their shelters, I would love to know what happened to Olo. I feel sorry for that kid.

All in all, I appreciate the accidental purchase of this book. I wouldn't necessarily call it "horror" but more of a "thriller." Then again, I'm numb to most propostions of the genre. I'm also glad the selling point of this book was not sex as most authors tend to use to grab reader's attention. I'm not a prude, it's a pet peeve of mine that if all that your story has going for it is sex, then it's trash unless that is it's intended audience. If I wanted erotica, I would read erotica. Splashes of it are normal. The author dribbles it but does not go into great detail in The Story which would have taken away from it if he had.

Hopefully I can find more of his work to enjoy. I'm picky, needless to say.

Great stories

The audio is subpar hard to hear!!! Other than that it’s a 5 star!!! Wish there were more story’s man oh man so good!!!

My new favorite author of horror

This is a series of 4 separate horror stories. I love a good horror story that unwinds as the story goes along then the end comes and you’re left feeling like you just woke up from a nightmare. This author has a great imagination. I’m a new fan.

Amazing and unique stories..

Couldn’t put this down. Mr Malfi is an incredible writer. Narration wasn’t the best, as it’s difficult to tell who’s talking with this narrator. But the 4 stories were amazing! Highly recommend!

Interesting

The reader was very good, the writing was very good, the stories were very odd. I will try another book and see if it's just this selection.

The third Story is my favourite! I normally can’t stand kids as the main character in horror but this one is phenomenal.

The voice: Not bad but not great! I like the narrator voice but it’s typical!

First time with this Author

What a treat. I love Audible suggesting new authors and titles and this did not disappoint! Great book!