The Ghost in the House

What if a ghost were haunting your house? What if you were the ghost?   Everything in Fay's life is perfect--living in the house she dreamed of as a child, married to a man she loves, and planning her life as an artist. Her life seems full of possibility. Then, late one night, Fay realizes that something has gone wrong.   Things have altered in the house and some­how time, and Fay's husband, Alec, seem to have gone on without her. Fay--who thought her life was on the verge of beginning--finds it has abruptly ended. And she comes to learn that sometimes the life you grieve may be your own.   This glimmering and darkly comedic novel explores both the domestic and the existential, delving into the dark heart of marriage and the meaning of a life.

Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing

"Sara O’Leary's The Ghost in the House, riven by ambiguities and dissolutions, is a story of both love and profound solitude. Piercing, disorienting and tender."

Lynn Coady, author of Watching You Without Me

"Sorrowful, lovely and funny in equal parts, The Ghost in the House depicts overwhelming love in heartbreaking counterbalance with an inescapable loneliness."

Marina Endicott, author of The Difference

"Sara O'Leary opens the front of Fay's dollhouse life to examine love and grief as only she can, with a penetrating view of the smallest things that make us eternally loving, endlessly lonely and forever indelibly ourselves."

Edward Carey, author of Little

"I so loved this deeply moving tale of loss and acceptance. A ghost stuck in her house, haunting her husband and his new family. (An extraordinary tale for these housebound times.)"

in the best way."

"The Ghost in the House is a beautiful reverie on how we live and love, a dream of a novel that left me stealing furtive glances at my loved ones, willing myself to appreciate them more and tell them so while we’re all still here. If you've lost someone you love, or wondered what it will feel like when it happens, O'Leary's ghost will haunt you

Esta Spalding, author of The Fitzgerald-Trout series

"A thirty-something ghost yearning for her life, a teenage girl toying with ending hers. Can they help each other to move on? This is the extraordinary premise of Sara O'Leary's The Ghost in the House, a novel written with such aching delicacy it will haunt you long after you've turned the final page."

About the Author

SARA O'LEARY is a writer of fiction for both adults and children. She is the author of a collection of short stories, Comfort Me With Apples; a series of postcard stories, Wish You Were Here; as well as a number of picture books, including (in collaboration with Julie Morstad) the beloved This Is Sadie. She first studied fiction at the Saskatchewan School of the Arts and went on to complete an MFA at the University of British Columbia. She has taught screenwriting and writing for children at Concordia University in Montreal.

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