Ghost Month by Simon Wroe was one of those books that quietly pulls you in and completely takes over your attention. It’s atmospheric, unsettling, emotional, and beautifully written without ever feeling overly heavy.
What stood out most to me was the way the story balances grief, mystery, and the supernatural with such a human and grounded tone. The writing feels immersive from the very beginning, and there’s a lingering tension throughout that kept me turning pages.
I also loved how reflective and thoughtful the story felt underneath the darker moments. It’s haunting in more ways than one, but also deeply moving.

This is a book that is going to stay with me for a very long time to come. The premise of the book is exactly as the title suggests, one day at the start of September the dead come back as ghosts, stay for a month and then disappear as the sun sets on the last day of the month. This novel follows a group of people in London whose lives intersect.

This was a deeply sad book but in an almost medicinal sense. I expect that different people will read it and take different things.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this astounding book in exchange for an honest review. A well deserved five stars

The novel "Ghost Month" by Simon Wroe is a fascinating literary work that is highly unusual and philosophical at once. The return of the dead each year in Ghost Month is an intriguing idea, which contributes to the creation of a captivating aura. This novel demonstrates a great degree of warmth, humor, and sensitivity in examining various aspects of human nature such as grief, memories, and personal truth.

This book took me totally by surprise. It's a fascinating concept, that the dead come back each year, so the book was funnier than I expected, yet more moving than the humour might have suggested. I raced through it, keen to know how each of the characters' stories would end.
The characters are the key to this book, in particular Eddie, who I can picture so clearly in my mind's eye. He and his little friends are incredibly well drawn, and had me laughing out loud on the train - crenelated being my favourite moment. He's also the tale that I found most upsetting, because his sadness and confusion at the strangeness of his situation, his powerlessness, is palpable.
I found this book well-paced, never feeling that I was being rushed to a crescendo or bogged down in prose, yet still with a world and characters that were written so well I knew them inside out. It helped that it is set in London, which I know well, and has a very British wryness, which I love - Simon Wroe's is a voice I hope to hear more of.