The Apparition Phase: Shortlisted for the 2021 McKitterick Prize

by Will Maclean

4 of 5 stars 1 rating • 0 reviews • 7 shelved
Book cover for The Apparition Phase
Shelve It

Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE 2021

'A delight for both the expert and the uninitiated, this creepy tale is a carapace of cosy nostalgia wrapped round a solid thread of dread ... A page turner that keeps you in dreaded suspense of what you are about to be shown ... A claustrophobic and entertaining read that left me breathless ... Horror for the connoisseur.' ALICE LOWE

'Hallucinatory brilliance ... The Apparition Phase may be the perfect novel for our phantom present.' GUARDIAN
___________________________________
Tim and Abi have always been different from their peers. Precociously bright, they spend their evenings in their parents' attic discussing the macabre and unexplained, zealously re-reading books on folklore, hauntings and the supernatural. In particular, they are obsessed with photographs of ghostly apparitions and the mix of terror and delight they provoke in their otherwise boring and safe childhoods.

But when Tim and Abi decide to fake a photo of a ghost to frighten an unpopular school friend, they set in motion a deadly and terrifying chain of events that neither of them could have predicted, and are forced to confront the possibility that what began as a callous prank might well have taken on a malevolent life of its own.

An unsettling literary ghost story set between a claustrophobic British suburban town and a menacing Suffolk manor, THE APPARITION PHASE is an unnerving novel, which, like all the best ghost stories, pushes us repeatedly over the line between rational explanation and inexplicable fear. It asks us to consider what might be lurking in the shadows, and questions what is real and what is simply a trick of the mind - and whether there's really a difference between the two.
___________________________________
'[T]his outstanding debut is ideal for fans of Andrew Michael Hurley.' METRO

Signed, numbered, and with swirled sprayed edges. Limited to 1000 copies as part of Goldsboro Books' Premier subscription for November 2020.

Each of the 1000 books has one single word handwritten by the author. Together, those 1000 words make up a piece of writing. No one knows what the full text of 1000 words is. To find out, one would have to put all 1000 copies in numerical order to collect all the words.

  • ISBN10 1785152378
  • ISBN13 9781785152375
  • Publish Date 29 October 2020
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 29 November 2021
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Cornerstone
  • Imprint William Heinemann Ltd