Ghosts

Nina Dean has, by most measures, arrived. In her early thirties she is a successful food writer with a book to her name, a flat of her own, close friends, and parents she adores. When she matches with Max on a dating app — and he tells her, on their very first date, that he intends to marry her — it feels like the last piece falling into place. And then, without warning or explanation, Max simply vanishes.

As Nina tries to make sense of being 'ghosted,' the rest of her carefully assembled life begins to shift beneath her too: her oldest friendships are changing shape, her mother has reinvented herself almost overnight, and her beloved father is disappearing in slow motion into dementia. Sharp, funny, and unexpectedly tender, Dolly Alderton's debut novel captures a very modern kind of grief — for the relationships that fade, the parents we lose while they are still here, and the versions of ourselves we quietly leave behind.

Ghosts is a wry, wise, deeply felt story about love, friendship, and growing up long after you thought you already had.