I can honestly say that I agree with the other reviewers in that this book was bizarre but still had a way to captivate the reader. The ghost takes over and the fight begins. The author keeps you interested with the characters contained within the book. The girlfriend and the alcoholic father both trying to see it for what they know it cannot be. Maybe not a 5 star for me but very close.

What in the hell did I just read? This was the most bizarre storyline ever. Not written very well either. It may be other people's cup of tea but certainly not mine. Expected way more than it delivered.

I received this book via Netgalley in return for an honest review. I liked this story quite a bit. The paranormal aspect, ghosts feeding on human spirits, and spirits inhabiting other beings, was a bit farfetched, but all in all a fun summer read.

If you are in the mood for something different and off beathe pick this up. The writing is spot on and the story engaging enough to keep you turning the pages. Happy reading!

A hungry ghost escapes from a dark realm into the human world, where it enters the unconscious body of a woman named Sam. When Sam appears to miraculously awaken from her accident-induced coma, her lesbian lover, alcoholic ex-husband, and well-meaning family must come together to try and stop the ghost from devouring everything Sam once loved. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Boston, a mysterious new kitten has just been born who holds the key to understanding what has happened to Sam.

Will Sam’s loved ones be able to put things back in their proper place, or will the ghost destroy them first?



Thank you to net galley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book it was a first time reading anything from this author and it was interesting

This is a very short novel, I read it in a couple of hours yesterday.

The protagonist is possessed by a cannibal(?) ghost, after a terrible car accident (semi vs compact car). There's a twist involving a cat. I didn't understand much of anything else that happened. Maybe if I were more familiar with Buddhism or something, it would have made more sense?? IDK...

Sam was still being pulled into her alcoholic ex-husband's orbit even as Madeline is trying to forge a new relationship with her. A car accident leaves Sam in a coma, which leaves her body vulnerable to possession by a ghost that knows nothing but hunger, and her soul winds up being reborn as a cat. The ghost is willing to devour everything that Sam once loved in its quest to feel full again.

The Hungry Ghost is a well written and hard to describe story. The ghost that winds up inhabiting Sam's body is real, and also parallels the novel that Madeline is trying to write, exorcising her feelings for Sam. Jimmy, in charge of the Used Cat Emporium, seems like a completely separate story thread until Sam's soul twines with that of a sickly kitten that would have otherwise died during birth. It's clear that everyone in the story wants to belong somewhere and with someone, but have difficulty doing so. Sam was hurt emotionally by her ex and has difficulty connecting with Madeline. Madeline's desire for Sam is clear and she isn't going to push where she isn't wanted, so that frustrated longing gets diverted into her writing. Jimmy was hurt by life in general and then found his purpose in helping the cats of Boston.

The beginning of the book is mostly that of dissatisfied relationships, grounded in an ordinary world. Once the hungry ghost inhabits Sam's body and Sam is born as a kitten, the supernatural elements start and we veer a bit into horror. That leads to a bit of tension and surprise because the story doesn't go exactly where you would expect it to. It's because of this that it's difficult to categorize this into a single genre, but it still works. The varying genres meld well together, and the story closes with a satisfying and complete ending. It's not exactly a happy one, but we're not left with any questions at the end. This was definitely an interesting read, and because it's a rather slim volume, it's just as easy to devour as the ghost would want.

Very well written
 Plot and characters were fab. 
Had me gripped from the start. Could not put it down. Realy enjoyed and will be recommending to others

This wasn’t my favorite possession sadly. I liked the diverse representation but it was a bit too soap opera esque for me - having the story be the thing that made it possible for the possession to her soul moving into the Body of a cat. I think I also wanted more from the story, it was a bit too empty for me. Had it not been for a few sexual references and gory parts I would have thought this was a YA book. Thank you for the opportunity regardless!

When Sam ‘s car is hit by a semi in the rain, she ends up in the hospital.  She is in a coma.  In another realm, a ghost searching for food sees a light and follows it into Sam’s body.  Sam ends up being born as a kitten — the cat mother doesn’t want this kitten.  Fortunately, Jimmy feeds and loves her.  Jimmy is the proud owner of a shop that has second hand cats.  Yes, they are cats that he has rescued off the streets.  They are loved and fed by him among other cat necessities.  Before Sam had her accident, she had been teaching a writing class where one of her female students have a crush on her.  Sam has been kiss by her but Sam resists her.  When her student finds out about Sam in a coma, she is upset.  When Sam comes out of the coma,  Sam acts strangely saying she is hungry.  Only her student finds Sam’s new behavior strange.  Why?  Her ex-husband visits her in the hospital but doesn’t seem to think she is different.  Her relatives including her mother doesn’t think she is strange.  Will they realize Sam isn’t Sam?  Will they find the Sam they knew?

A novel that has love, fear and horror mixed together in a story that flows smoothly making the unbelievable believable.  All the characters have a purpose in this novel.  It’s a novel that kept my interest throughout the story.  It was a fun novel to read.  I enjoyed seeing how the family and friends responded to Sam.

How can I begin to explain the confusion and the provocative nature in this book. I have experienced so much in this book, I should just start with the goods things about the book first.
   I really enjoyed how fast the story went, but it also was at a steady pace.  Their was no lap in time or confusion about where someone was because she showed her audience.
  I like the fact that was reinforced, that everyone deserves a second chance....even peter. 
   The one think I couldn't comprehend is.......what happened at the end????? When you bring a character into a story, shouldn't they be given a happy ending too.  Or at least closure. I am just very confused right now.
   Over all, I did enjoy the story.  It was very different, than some of the other books I have reviewed. 

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The concept of the hungry ghost has been around for centuries, mostly in eastern religions but has sneaked into Christianity as well. The concept is that a demon-like creature inhabits a realm of the living and crave so much that it destroys everything. This concept is prevalent and strongly illustrated in Dalena Storm's debut, "The Hungry Ghost." The story of Sam, a woman who is vulnerable to becoming a vessel for this hungry ghost through a coma, becomes the focus of the hungry ghost, a creature that knows no limits around Sam's ex-husband, family, and lesbian love interest. What unfolds in a well written, fast paced novel that makes takes the reader on a trip that is worth taking. Ms. Storm has a novel that works on several different levels. There are questions about the afterlife, reincarnation, identity, and the stress of a family where things are just not quite right. A nuance that is well illustrated and might be missed is the way the family so badly wants Sam to be back after the coma that they are willing to neglect her behavior, say that it is part of her recovery, and the stress of her illness and her returning home in a completely different form is something that many families experience after a loved one has been sick for an extended period of time. I could feel the disappointment in the way they just wanted everything to be better but it was not going to happen. 

This is a fun novel with good, compelling characters, and a plot that does not get too out of hand considering how it is possible. Even though this is based on hungry ghosts portrayed in many religions (with some very strong ties through descriptions and actions), it is not something that is described in any way. It is as if this is not a story to educate on a religious concept but to use it as a story telling device. I like fiction that does this: fiction that leaves it to the readers to research what a hungry ghost might be, and once the reader finds out, it opens up an entirely new dimension to the story. This makes me like "The Hungry Ghost" even more. 

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Hungry Ghost
by Dalena Storm
due 6-11-2019
Black Spot Books
4.5/5 0
#TheHungryGhost.        #NetGalley 

Ghosts. Lesbians. Ouija. Kittens. HELL YEAH!

Original creative, and diverse characters drive this unique and excellent ghost story. It has twists of eeriness and circumstance made this hard to put down- I read it in one sitting!

Sam, a writing teacher in Boston, lays in a  coma after a car accident with a semi. Her unconscious body awakens, but is possessed by a hungry ghost that has escaped the dark side to take host in her body as it looks for others to devour.
Sam's alcoholic ex- husband, her lesbian lover and her family all come together to help her battle the ghost controlling her before she comes for them. The answer lies in a mysterious kitten, that can help them realize the secret to helping Sam.
I totally enjoyed this story and look forward to more by Dalena Storm and Black Spot Books. 
A must read.
Thanks to Black Spot Books, Dalena Storm and Netgalley for sending this e- book ARC for review.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This was one weird, trippy tale. I enjoyed it immensely. If you are into strange stories that make you think, this one is for you. Loved the cat in the tale. 💕 This was really impressive for a debut novel. Hope the author writes more because I can only imagine how well she will do in the future. This book won't be for everyone as it has a lot of moments that you must interpret for yourself. Including the ending.

I was agreeably surprised by this novel as it proved to have a quite unexpected depth and richness of quality. Not strictly an LGBT narrative, not only metaphysical, not simply a metaphor of love attempted and failed (although it encompasses all and each of these), at heart I found it a treatise on writing and creativity, an exploration of how Imagination creates Reality. I tremendously enjoyed it and I know it will remain in my imagination while I ponder what tulpas I may create.

The story took a minute to come together but once it gained momentum, it was easier to get through. The storyline was different than what i expected. The ending was a bit abrupt but I could see a sequel being written.

*An ARC of this book was provided to me by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.*

This is a creative and creepy little ghost story! The characters are surprisingly complex for as short as the book is and I appreciated that kind of attention from the author. Bianca, the mother, is a real roller-coaster of infuriating and completely sympathetic, as mothers truly can be. The ending was completely satisfying. A quick, weird, and fun debut novel.

I'm a sucker for a ghost story, so the title immediately caught my attention.  This was not a typical ghost story however; rather, it was a possession story by an entity which is referred to by the narrator as a ghost.  

The entity here, the "Hungry Ghost" is based on Buddhist, Taoist, and other Eastern texts which describe a demon-like creature that is afflicted with insatiable hunger or thirst as a result of bad deeds or evil intent carried out in their lifetimes. They're typically described as human-like wraiths with long necks and extended stomachs. This was my first exposure to this idea, and I felt that it made for a fascinating premise in this novel.

The story follows a young woman named Sam who is in a coma following a car accident.  We then follow the point of view of a ghost — a ghost who wanders aimlessly in a hellish purgatory-like world where it hungers and thirst but can never satisfy its cravings.  

The ghost manages to sneak through to our realm and occupy Sam's unconscious body, and to everyone's surprise, Sam awakens, though it doesn't take long for her loved ones to notice that there's something drastically wrong with her (apart from her incessant eating).  She's definitely not the same person she was before her accident.  As the ghost grows more powerful, the safety of Sam's loved ones becomes threatened, and it's up to them to somehow stop this hungry ghost from destroying them as well.

What I especially enjoyed about this novel is experiencing the ghost's thoughts as it tried to get used to its new body and make sense of the world around it.  I thought being in the ghost's thoughts was riveting, especially once it took control of Sam's body and was driven forward by its insatiable and animalistic appetite. Initially, this book had a paranormal thriller sort of vibe to it, but then during the second half, it changed direction and became more of a horror novel. 

I thought this was such a unique story with some interesting twists and turns and have never read anything like this previously.  The premise of the hungry ghost is an entirely new twist on the ghost story genre, and I felt that it worked well in this story, though I wish the author had delved in a little deeper into the ghost's backstory and how it came into existence. This was a short novel - around 200 pages — so a bit more detail wouldn't have been unwelcome. 

The story is told from multiple POVs: Sam's alcoholic ex-husband Peter, Madeline, one of Sam's students who is smitten with Sam and is attempting to seduce her, and of course, the ghost.  It's also worth mentioning that Madeline is writing a novel about a "Hungry Ghost" though I was unclear how Madeline's story related to the entity that occupied Sam's body, though I do believe we were supposed to assume the two were somehow connected.  Perhaps Madeline's hunger for Sam allowed the entity to seep into our world?  I guess that's for the reader to decide.

All in all, I enjoyed this unique and suspenseful ghost story and thought that the blend of human horror and human heart is superb. This chillingly clever and spine-tingling story has compelling characters and an enthralling storyline that kept me turning the page.  Horror novels can be hit or miss with me, and though I would have liked a little more backstory, I ended up enjoying this one.

I received this book for review from NetGalley and Black Spot Books. (Thank you so much!). Well, I was not a fan of this book. I was not a fan of the characters or the writing style. I felt that the conversations between the characters were unbelievable. I didn't feel scared or anxious at all through the story. Everything was so fast and there was no anticipation built up. I was just very disappointed.

Arriving just in time for Novella Month, with a diverse and LGBTQ cast of characters, is debut-author Dalena Storm’s The Hungry Ghost, a chilling tale of love, lust, and desire and the often blurred line between them.

In The Hungry Ghost, a woman named Sam is caught between her alcoholic (and rather pathetic) ex-husband Peter; her young and determined would-be paramour, Madeline; and her own trepidations over letting anyone else inside her heart (or her newly-earned freedom, for that matter, being only six months out from a divorce). She’s been stretched too thin for too long, caught between obligations to her family, lovers, and work that are painfully familiar. The details of Sam’s life are vague and inconsequential, but it’s her condition that’s all too common. Who hasn’t felt bossed around, pushed around, and heaped upon when all they really want is space to breathe? Who hasn’t been faced with the uncomfortable position of having to navigate expectations thrown upon them by someone else—most particularly those who’ve claimed to love us—when they haven’t even fully come to terms with themselves? There is something insidious about that context—a darkness that lingers on the edges of your mind worrying over not only whether we are “good enough?” but “good enough to be desired?” and hints that the consequences of such desire may be more destructive than simply being enough.

There is a nagging loneliness that permeates the pages of The Hungry Ghost, beginning in its first chapter as Sam dresses for a date with Madeline and persists in every page of what is a quick, paper cut-like read—sharp, stinging, and unrelenting. When an accident puts Sam in a coma, she is pushed out of her own body by a hungry ghost, a mainstay in Tibetan Buddhism (Storm has a degree in Asian Studies) that represents beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way. Sam, meanwhile, finds a new emotional and physical security in the body of a newly-born kitten in a pet shop helmed by an African-American orphan-turned-business owner with a big dose of magical predisposition and a tendency to name his cats after music’s greats—Macy Grey, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson. Those who ‘love’ Sam—Peter, Madeline, and her mother, Bianca—are forced to face the garish reality that the woman who Sam has become is not the woman they desperately wanted her to be—a realisation as literal as it could be figurative, while Sam has to learn to let go of…well, everything. It’s a fight for Sam’s humanity in possibly the most disturbing way possible.

With her limited role in her own story, as a protagonist Sam is something of a stand-in for each of us—a mirror reflection that gives us an opportunity to get outside of our own heads and come to terms with the weight of the world around us. At turns chilling and always-haunting, The Hungry Ghost is an essay on modern love and the dark side of desire that gives us the chance to reconsider the balance between our own needs and desire—whether it is “them” who are the hungry ghosts, or if, instead, it is us.