Ghosting

De: Marc Johnson

Narrado por: Megan Mackie

As a stay-at-home programmer living with her loving boyfriend, Mia lives a simple but good life. Like most people, she dreams, but unlike most, she has vivid dreams about her neighbors' lives. One day, she realizes that they aren't dreams - what she's been experiencing is real. Mia's able to "ghost" into anyone she chooses, take control of their body, and make them do what she wants.

Frustrated by the injustice and abuse she sees around her, Mia begins using her power to try to right the wrongs she sees. Her boyfriend, Amir, does his best to stop her, believing that no one person should have that much power, and that the system - or God - will bring justice to the perpetrators. Mia, on the other hand, has seen too much corruption in her life to believe in such naïveté.

However, the best intentions don't always work out as planned. The power begins to affect Mia in ways she didn't expect - and turns out to have consequences she never imagined.

©2016 Marc Johnson (P)2017 Marc Johnson

Rushed but enjoyable

When Mia wakes up to find she has the power to transfer her mind (although the book says it is her soul, which seems strange) into other people to control them she takes the opportunity to right some wrongs and to try make the world better for those around her. And why not improve her own situation a little while she is at it?

Author Marc Johnson has got a great concept here and works through many of the potential issues, uses and abuses that the powers could cause. He keeps the uses fairly varied and sets up some solid rules for how the system works. He even hints at a wider world of powers. It is a great setup for a story.

It is, however, let down in it's execution. The main issues basically comes down to the pacing and length. This is a very short book, a quick novella. And because of that, and the attempt to cram a lot into the short space, it simply moves to quickly. Not of the events are really given enough time to breath. It moves from one story to another, giving the barest of details of how things occur but not really letting the reader sit in it and enjoy it unfolding. Mia discovers her powers, then accepts her powers and then goes about using them within a few lines. It happens way too quick to be believable. The exact consequences of actions (or even in some cases later in the book, the exact details of the actions) are glossed over extremely quickly. Mia does stuff with her powers but other than one of two brief adventures what she doesn isn't really told. The most fleshed out is the story with the neighbour and even that is bare bones.

And then the coda, which should have some sort of fast impacting ending feels dragged out and thus loses momentum and impact.

I enjoyed the story but would have enjoyed it more if it was given the space it needed to be a full story. Or if it was to be a short story then some of the side adventures needed to be cut.

There is an amusing Freudian slip in the writing at one point, with a line somewhere along the lines of “her father died young and every man she’s been in a relationship with since…”. The movement from her father's death to romantic male relationships puts a strange context to her relationship with her father. This doesn't actually take away from the book. It was just something I found amusing.

Narration by Megan Mackie is reasonably good, but is severely let down by the audio production. She is generally clear, although I found the pace a quicker than most narrators (possibly exacerbating the "story needed space" issue). She provided voices and chracterisation to each character, some more successful than others. Generally not bad.

The audio production was what put me off. There are bells/chimes at the end and beginning of each chapter. This doesn't add anything ( a pause in narration, or a chapter titles would have be better) and only serves to draw the reader out of the story.

There was also background music to add atmosphere but this only appeared to happen at one point in the book. It should be there throughout or not at all (not at all would be my preference) but the ad hoc nature of it detracted from the book.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Body jumping

Wonderful story great theory that I have never heard of before. The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is the bells at the beginning and end of each chapter were annoying. I'm glad that Mia survived hopefully there is more to come.
I received this free for an honest review from the author or narrator.

Great short supernatural read!

Great story, great narration. Very quick read. At times felt rushed but still very good. I could see this being a series on TV like many others where people have supernatural abilities. It could definitely be fleshed out and expanded. Some original ideas. Likable characters you can relate to. I would read another story by Marc & I would definitely listen to another narrated by Megan Mackle.


The bells were a bit annoying, especially when they were ringing while the narrator was still talking.


I was voluntarily provided this review copy at no charge by the author, publisher and or narrator.

this is a qwesome short atory

i loved the story and the narrator india indian accent is perfect. i would recpmmend this short story

Nice story with a lot of twists.

I had no real thoughts going in on how I felt the story would turn out, I am happy to say this story shocked me with how good it was. The overall plot sounds so crazy, but once you see how thing unfold it starts to pull you into the world, and you really get to see things from the characters POV.
I love all the twists and turns, and how each character brings something to the plot, be it big or small each moment is worth hearing. The voiceover is amazing and brings the action to life, and I really enjoyed the ending of the book.
I was given this free copy in return for my honest review.