An elegant, haunting novel of quiet suspense, rich character work, and lingering philosophical depth.
In Ring’s latest character-driven novel, everyday experience becomes a thoughtful exploration of loss, ambition, and the boundaries of reason. Joshua Stewart’s life seems to be perfect: stellar grades, soaring career, fortune built on logic and foresight. When a ghostly presence turns his life upside down, he’s left to wonder—are some realities beyond even the sharpest mind’s reach?
Joshua is both a prodigy and a pragmatist—drawn to the tidy elegance of numbers and the lure of technology, yet shadowed by the quiet grief that tragedy leaves behind. Ring charts his evolution with a rigorous but invisible hand, letting ordinary decisions accumulate into a life defined by intellect, drive, and a growing distance from the people who once anchored him. Caleb and Marianne are drawn with understated warmth. The secondary characters are more than side notes; they are part of the social fabric that shapes a boy into a man.
For much of the book, the supernatural remains only a rumor, a faint shimmer at the edge of Joshua’s rational world. When the ghost finally arrives it does so without spectacle, more idea than apparition, a challenge to the very systems of proof and analysis that have guided Joshua’s rise. Ring’s prose is crisp and quietly musical, carrying the story forward while leaving space for the reader to feel the unease of things that cannot be measured. What begins as a careful portrait of a gifted boy becomes, almost imperceptibly, a meditation on belief in an age flooded with information. The result is both an absorbing character study and a modern ghost story. Unsettling and luminous; a true page-turner.
Pub date September 22, 2025
ISBN 978-1997579014
Price $11.00 (USD) Paperback, $4.95 Kindle edition, $0.00 Kindle Unlimited
