A Christmas Ghost Story is a delightfully demented chilling mysterious ghost story within a story. It’s dangerously addictive as you begin the haunting climb to the unexpected ending. It’s a book which should be read in the daylight only… at night if you are brave!
It’s the Christmas season in England for Rust, a teenager and his mother Angie, a struggling novelist. It’s just the two of them and they don’t have much but come Christmas they splurge! But this Christmas everything seems to be off, and they don’t quite understand what is going on. Their first hint of a problem is when on December 1 Rust opens the first day of his advent calendar and there is something wrong with the taste of the chocolate.
Then, they begin to receive unsigned Christmas cards with ominous poetic writings in them. Rust wants to throw them out but Angie for some reason feels scared by doing that so they begin to put them on their mantel. Each day.
They try to figure out if this is some sort of a sick joke and even attempt to fool the writer of the cards and try to see who is putting them in their mailbox and on their property with no luck. They begin to feel it must be a ghost, but really, they are both too sensible. Each card is more frightening than the previous.
Worse, strange things begin to happen to them and their surroundings. Rust feels sick after eating the chocolate. A strange plant begins to overtake their backyard. And the Christmas turkey, well it just goes bad in the refrigerator.
But Angie fears she knows what’s happening and it has something to do with when she was a child and she secretly watched a Christmas horror story on the television without her parents knowing after they had gone to bed. More importantly is if she is correct, Rust is in danger. She must figure out how to stop this.
As she searches the internet for clues of the story she watched, she finds nothing. It’s as if it never existed. Did she imagine the whole thing? And as the days towards Christmas get closer, her fears grow because she knows what happens on December 25. How do they stop this?
A Christmas Ghost Story is a spine-chilling tale in which you won’t know the outcome until the very end. How can such a happy time take such a terrible turn? Well, you will certainly find out!
Thank you #NetGalley #TritonBooks #KimNewman #AChristmasGhostStory for the advanced copy.
Lisa's Cubby 