Suspicion

As a writer of ghost stories, author Emma Roth dismisses rumors about her new Victorian house being haunted, until strange things begin to happen, and it seems as though an evil force has decided to focus its attention directly on her. 100,000 first printing. BOMC Feat Alt.

"Sometimes houses choose people," writes Rogan in her sixth novel (A Heartbeat Away), thus setting the mood for a contemporary ghost story. Novelist Emma Roth, who specializes in tales of the supernatural, has mixed feelings when her physicist husband decides that they and their 10-year-old son, Zack, should move from Manhattan to Long Island's Morgan Peak, where they buy the isolated former home of an elderly schoolteacher rumored to have murdered her husband. Emma's sister Maggie provides caustic commentary and good-natured teasing for what she perceives is her sister's quintessentially yuppie move to the country. Other key figures include Caroline, a psychologist who rents the carriage house on the premises; Nick, Zack's soccer coach; and Yolanda, a most unconventional soccer mom. Soon, however, Emma is terrorized by an escalating series of domestic and supernatural disturbances?including eerie personal messages on her computer. It's not clear until the right moment whether Emma's own secrets are haunting her, or whether a technologically savvy ghost is trying to drive her mad. The third possibility is worse: someone close to her wants her to die. As Emma is forced to reevaluate each of her companions, she must also reconsider her skeptical view of ghosts. It takes Emma too long to figure things out, and Rogan employs a trite device to stage the novel's ending. Otherwise, this absorbing tale is artfully told, with cleverly integrated subplots addressing marital fidelity and class anxiety; rising suspense and vividly nuanced characters who come alive through snappy, irreverent dialogue. Agent, Joy Harris. BOMC featured alternate.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Rogan's sixth novel is a tightly woven thriller about a mystery writer who begrudgingly moves from Manhattan to Long Island. Emma Roth, husband Roger, and soccer-playing son Zack take up residence in an isolated house the locals say is haunted. They then proceed to rent their carriage house to a woman they know nearly nothing about, and Emma becomes friendly with another soccer mom with an equally cloudy past. Eventually, Emma begins to wonder if the spirit of the house's former owner is still on the premises. Suddenly, characters in a computer game say nasty things about her, as do characters in the novel she's writing. Hounded by someone who seems to know her most intimate secrets and fearing for her life, Emma suspects everyone. Rogan builds suspense well and effectively updates the classic trappings of the ghost story. Guaranteed to keep readers turning pages into the wee hours. Budd Arthur

Rogan is the author of six novels (e.g., Rowing in Eden, LJ 5/1/96), and this could be her breakout book. Emma Roth, a writer of ghost stories, reluctantly leaves New York with her ten-year-old son, Zack, for an old house her husband has discovered in a village on Long Island Sound. None of them believes in ghosts and haunted houses, but almost immediately Emma, and then Zack, is involved in manifestations of the beyond. Or, given an accident that Emma had seven years ago, does someone from her past wish her harm? Or is it someone from her present? Or is she losing her mind? To reveal more of the plot would be unfair. Rogan weaves classic mystery and ghost-story elements together with modern computer technologies to create a novel that twists and turns right up to the end. A well-crafted book that is a pleasure to read and will surely attract a wide-ranging audience.
-?Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.