ARC Review: Ghosted by Amanda Quain

Hattie Tilney isn’t a believer. Yes, she’s a senior at America’s most (allegedly) haunted high school, Northanger Abbey. But ever since her paranormal-loving dad passed away, she’s hung up her Ghostbusters suit, put away the EMF detectors and thermal cameras, and moved on. She has enough to worry about in the land of the living–like taking care of her younger brother, Liam, while their older sister spirals out and their mother, Northanger’s formidable headmistress, buries herself in her work. If Hattie just works hard enough and keeps that overachiever mask on tight through graduation, maybe her mom will finally notice her.

But the mask starts slipping when Hattie’s assigned to be an ambassador to Kit Morland, a golden retriever of a boy who’s transferred to Northanger on—what else—a ghost-hunting scholarship. The two are partnered up for an investigative project on the school’s paranormal activity, and Hattie quickly strikes a deal: Kit will present whatever ghostly evidence he can find to prove that campus is haunted, and Hattie will prove that it’s not. But as they explore the abandoned tunnels and foggy graveyards of Northanger, Hattie starts to realize that Kit might be the kind of person that makes her want to believe in something—and someone—for the first time.

With her signature wit and slow burn romance, Amanda Quain turns another Austen classic on its head in this sparkling retelling that proves sometimes the ghosts are just a metaphor after all. 

• Title: Ghosted: A Northanger Abbey Novel
• Author:  Amanda Quain
• Publisher: Wednesday Books
• Publication Date: July 25th, 2023
• Genre: Contemporary, retelling
• Source: Digital ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
• Targeted Age Range: YA
• Content Warnings: death of a parent (cancer), grief, absentee parenting
• Rating: ★★★★.5

After reading Amanda Quain’s Accomplished and loving it (you can read my full review here), I had very high hopes for her second novel, Ghosted, and I absolutely loved it!

Paranormal content is something that I’ve always found incredibly fascinating, even from a young age. I loved Unsolved Mysteries as a kid (I still do, really), my mom and I watched a lot of Ghost Hunters together, and I’ve always been drawn to ghost stories. While the paranormal aspect of Ghosted is what initially drew me to the story (well, one of the reasons) I loved that this story was so much more than that.

At its core, Ghosted is an exploration of grief. It’s about how we can lose ourselves in grief and how we try to move forward after an unimaginable loss. As a child, Hattie and her father would spend their time hunting for the paranormal — it was something special that was just for the two of them. When her father died, Hattie pushed away anything and everything in her life connected to the paranormal. Hattie lost not only her father, but also a part of herself, and for her, it was easier to abandon the things that she once loved than to continue and have more reminders of what she lost. 

Personally, I loved following Hattie as our protagonist. I think that she’s an easy character to sympathize with — yes, she makes mistakes and some not so great choices, but honestly, the girl is doing the best that she can. Her dad was definitely an anchor for her, and she’s floating adrift without him. Her mother, who just so happens to be the Headmistress of her school, is…absent at best, her older sister is (in her eyes) an absolute mess, and her younger brother, Liam, just needs someone to care about him. She’s holding the family, and herself, together by the thinnest of threads, and because of this Hattie keeps everyone in her life at a distance, until she meets Kit.

Kit is the sunshine to Hattie’s grumpy, and I absolutely adore him. While Hattie now ignores and denies anything supernatural, Kit is a believer, and he lets everyone know it. Kit is so open with his belief in the paranormal, and I loved that about him. There was just something so…heartwarming about Kit and his characterization, I really adored him. 

Kit and Hattie had such a fun dynamic and I loved how their relationship progressed throughout the book. I loved seeing Hattie — the perpetually closed off girl with the high walls built around her — open up to Kit and let herself be vulnerable with him, practically from the start because she could tell that he would provide a safe space for her. 

Now, I’m going to be super honest, while I’ve read Northanger Abbey multiple times, it’s been a while since I last read it so the more minute details are a little fuzzy. However, from what I do remember of the original story, I think that Ghosted is a really great modernized retelling. Something that I feel Quain does so well is retelling these stories in a way that honors the original work, but she definitely makes it her own and doesn’t alienate readers of her books who maybe don’t know Jane Austen’s works very well. 

I definitely hope that Quain is planning on doing modernized retellings of the rest of Jane Austen’s works, because I’ve loved what she’s done with both Accomplished and Ghosted. Regardless, I will continue to read anything that Amanda Quain writes. Ghosted comes out July 25th and I can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy.

Links for Ghosted: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop