For some reason I’d been a bit reticent to dive into Ghosted by Rosie Walsh. I’m not a fan of romance but the idea of being ‘ghosted’ by someone who seemingly had no reason to disappear / ignore you was kinda intriguing.

And thankfully I decided to give the book a ‘try’ because I enjoyed it far more than expected and it ended up consuming my Friday night.

Ghosted
by Rosie Walsh
Published by Pan Macmillan
on June 12th 2018
Source: PanMacmillan
Genres: Romance, Women's Fiction
ISBN: 9781509886432
Pages: 304

Goodreads

Imagine you meet a man, spend seven glorious days together, and fall in love. And it's mutual: you've never been so certain of anything in your life. So when he leaves for a long-booked holiday and promises to call from the airport, you have no cause to doubt him.

But he doesn't call. And he doesn't call. And he doesn't call.

Your friends tell you to forget him, but you know they're wrong - something must have happened - there's got to be a reason for his silence.

What do you do when you finally discover you're right? That there is a reason - and that reason is the one thing you didn't share with each other? The truth.

I was a little bewildered (and therefore distracted) by the timeframes initially and I’m not sure if that’s Walsh’s intention or the fact I’m easily confused.

The book opens with a letter from Sarah to someone who’s been gone from her life for 19yrs. Eddie, presumably?

Then the story proper starts – kinda…. as we lob in on Sarah and Eddie 7 days into their romance. He’s about to go on an overseas holiday and she can’t decide whether to tell him about some pivotal moment from her adolescence.

We then jump to 15 days after Eddie disappeared from Sarah’s life. We learn she’s 37 (which is what had me confused and counting on my fingers) and embarrassed to be acting like a smitten schoolgirl whose crush hasn’t returned her calls.

Anyhoo, she’s with her besties Jo and Tommy, sure something terrible has happened to him that causes him not to remain in contact as planned. Her friends wonder if he was just playing her – getting her in bed and moving on. But it wasn’t like that Sarah says, and finds herself over-analysing their every moment together… looking for clues: something she did or said wrong; something that might have indicated Eddie’s true intentions.

I’m not even sure why I’m embarrassed to admit I was kinda enchanted by the burgeoning romance between Sarah and Eddie. Walsh doesn’t spend a lot of time on those seven days – rather focuses on their meeting and then offers us snippets. But it’s kinda that lightning bolt connection of fairytales. That possibly doesn’t exist in real life.

Which of course is why Sarah’s more cynical friends aren’t too sure it was as real as Sarah liked to think.

There’s a twist of sorts. Not overly dramatic but Walsh cleverly builds to the ‘reveal’ and it’s not quite as expected – which I appreciated.

This is Walsh’s first book under her own name though she wrote a love and dating column and published a number of books under the pseudonym Lucy Robinson.

It’s an enjoyable read with great characters and cleverly plotted.

Ghosted by Rosie Walsh was published in Australia by Pan Macmillan and is now available.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.