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Hi!
Following the success of her memoir Everything I know about Love, fellow egg mayo sandwich connoisseur (the superior sandwich filling and I WILL fight you) released her debut fictional novel, Ghosts, in October 2020. It's released in paperback today, July 22nd, and I jumped at the chance to be a part of the blog tour having enjoyed Dolly's writing in the past.
In Ghosts, we meed Nina George Dean. She's doing a job she loves (writing about food), living in the city she loves (London) and she has a genuinely lovely family and friend circle. All that's missing is someone to share that with - so Nina agrees to take her friend Lola's suggestion of using dating apps seriously and dives into the murky world of blurry profile pictures and DM roulette to try and find a connection with someone who won't mess her around. Then she meets Max.
I enjoyed this book a lot - it's witty, warm, funny, and Nina is really likeable. I also liked the other characters in her life - in particular it was nice to see a thirtysomething who had a good relationship with her parents. So often we see books where the mother is this stereotypical busybody who gives out about her husband, but not here. Nina's parents are facing a very tough journey together, and I really felt for her mother.
The ghosts in the novel are everywhere (not literally) - we have parents getting old, a friendship that may possibly be coming to an end, an ex moving on, and boyfriends being twats. We go through so many stages in life and each one comes with a new set of challenges. Unfortunately, none come with a guide book - we're all just supposed to know what to do and how to cope with the fact that we're getting older or might need to move on from something that's not making us happy anymore.
Friendships definitely change when one person has children - your day as a parent becomes consumed with trying to keep tiny humans alive and cling on to some semblance of a personality (then dealing with the guilt of wanting to retain your pre-baby personality) and it can be really hard to maintain friendships and remember that everyone is dealing with their own set of responsibilities and expectations. We're all just bloody winging it, really. I appreciated this part of the storyline a lot and really liked where the friendship with Katherine went.
I would be very confident in recommending this to anyone looking for a Summer read with a bit of depth - it made me teary on more than one occasion.
Thank you to Hannah at Penguin Random House for having me on the blog tour, and please do check out the other stops on the tour below if you'd like some more opinions on the book.
Ghosts is out now and available at all good bookshops including:
and of course your local library and on Kindle.