The Ghost Writer

by Loreth Anne White

Claudia has been variously described as Daphne du Maurier meets Shirley Jackson, a female Edgar Allan Poe melded with Stephen King.

I stick to my own dark superpower, which is to disappear behind the scenes and deliver novels in the voices of others.

Despite her overt fragility, she exudes an aura of steel. I realize this house is a personification of Claudia Blackwood.

Idiot. Do not panic. Panic causes accidents. Panic is the main reason people make stupid decisions and die.

She’s cunning, and manipulative. The prosecution demonstrated her obsession with death. This is a killer who feels superior to others and will play games for her own amusement.

Help! Someone on island trying to kill me. Doesn’t want her to tell Secret. Wants to silence me. Trapped! Nora

In the art of battle, the first move is to throw your opponent off balance, both physically and mentally.

“That’s the thing about a terrible secret, Grace. You think you’re keeping it, but really, it’s the secret that keeps you.”

“Nothing in nature is intrinsically evil. Nature just is, and does what it does for survival. Good, bad, evil—those are human value judgments we bestow on things, depending on our cultures, traditions, history. And we use this to keep our communities, tribes, societies in check and functioning as a whole because, really, we are just herd animals.”

“People justify what they do in this way all the time. By changing their inner narrative of things. The bigger worry becomes whether they’ll get caught, not that what they’re doing is bad.”

I’m locked in my room.

Nothing is ever quite what it seems . . . always things lurking beneath.

“Everything is narrative, Grace, even memories and the so-called ‘truth.’ We can only see the world through our own eyes and within the context of our own biology and our own pasts.”

Just as she was about to confess, about to be freed from the prison of her guilt, the release visible in her body, tangible in the afternoon air, when—