#BlogTour ‘The Unforgetting’ by Rose Black

About the book…

1851. When Lily Bell is sold by her father to a ‘Professor of Ghosts’ to settle a bad debt, she dreams of finding fame on the London stage. But Erasmus Salt wants Lilly not as an actress, but as his very own ghost – the heart of his elaborate illusion for those desperate for a glimpse of the spirit world . . .

Obsessed with perfection, Erasmus goes to extreme lengths to ensure his illusion is realistic. When Lily comes across her own obituary in the paper, and then her headstones in the cemetery, she realises that she is trapped, her own parents think she is dead, and that her fate is soon to become even darker . . .

A spellbinding story of obsession, the lure of fame, and the power of illusion.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the blogtour invite and to Orion for my gifted review copy of ‘The Unforgetting’ by Rose Black which is available now in ebook, audiobook and hardback editions.

WOW!

There is not a lot else I can articulate about this quite incredible story and how is it a debut novel, how?!

This is ,quite literally, an eleventh hour review after someone thought she was having a lovely day off, writing blog posts and dreaming inside the pages of books.

However, dear reader, this was sadly not to be as a bemused phonecall from my boss at 7.20 asking where I was (eating porridge and reading about Victorian music halls) led to me rushing into the hospital and working a full day shift.

It was pretty challenging dragging myself out of ghosts and limelight, to the world of bedpans and drug charts, but hey, we did it, go team nurses!

Anyhow, I digress, and the book is the thing which I want to talk to you about, so gather closer….

Ghosts-how can you live both a haunted life and yet haunt others whilst still living?

Sold by a man who gave her his name when he married her mother, but was never a father let alone a dad, Lily Bell is handed over to Erasmus ‘Ras’ Salt, Professor of Ghosts.

Lily tries to make the best of this situation as her dreams of an actress could yet be springboarded by Ras’ intentions to use her as a living ghost in his stage show.

But even when the debt of her step father is paid off, how can she leave or start her own life when, technically, she is dead?

Thanks to an obituary, a death certificate signed by the man who sold her , and a gravestone with her name on, Lily is a living ghost. Tormented and chaperoned by Ras’ sister Faye, she lives a nightmare existence where she is not allowed outside in daylight, and is confined to the backstage area of The Tivoli theatre.

Will she ever break free and who is genuinely on her side?

As things go from bad to worse, it appears that Lily is aspiring to invisibility….and her enquiries into her predecessors, the previosu ‘ghosts’ bring her ever closer to danger….

This complex and satisfying plot is played out against a brilliant sea side backdrop where Lily wants to be swept out of the life she has been cornered into, whilst every night her feet tread the mausoleum of the Tivoli, a grand dame theatre that has seen better days.

The short chapters give a feeling of urgency and intensity to the almost soporific, dreamlike feel of the narrative. So much is packed into a relatively short book, and that is becuase of the deftly handled multiple narrators-Lily, Ras, Faye and Ruth Bell, alongside occasional interludes from actor Tom Ames who is determined to track Lily down.

You have your heart in your mouth as the pages spin ever quickly through your fingers, waiting and hoping for rescue and retribution-I could not wait to rub home and dive into the world of ghosts again. The level of detail and historical scene setting is so sublime, that the atmosphere is difficult to shift.

At once, the reader feels like a ghost inhabiting the pages, haunting the narrative and watching over Lily from afar. This deserves to be a modern classic!

About the author…

Twitter  @orionbooks @annecater