Happy Release Day!
Congrats Sarah
on the release today of
Paper Ghosts!
Paper Ghosts by Sarah Addison Allen
Magical Realism, Fiction, 288 pages
Published September 1, 2026 by St. Martin's Press
Part ghost story, part love story and steeped in magical realism, Paper Ghosts will transport you to a place where old secrets echo through the years and love finds a way of bringing us home.
Every family has its secrets . . .The Wester women live inside theirs.
For decades, the women of Wester House have unsettled and fascinated their small, timeless North Carolina town. Their home is full of whispers, old griefs, and uncanny knowing. But when Willamena Wester reaches out to the granddaughter she once pushed away, long-buried truths begin to stir.
1976:
Restless young Willamena falls for a stranded musician who brings freedom and the promise of another life to her carefully controlled world. Their brief, incandescent love story promises to escape the pull of the Wester legacy until Willamena makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever.
Present Day:
Returning home is the last thing Bailey Wester wants. Yet as she reconnects with Willamena, the grandmother she feared, Bailey begins to understand the love, heartbreak, and impossible choices that shaped the women in her family and realizes the past may not have been trying to haunt them after all.
A luminous novel filled with Sarah Addison Allen’s stunning prose and signature blend of romance, Southern charm, and wonder, Paper Ghosts reminds us that in order to have the future we really want, sometimes we need to live with the past, and not let go of it.
My thoughts about Paper Ghosts ~~
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)
First line—"1976 - The morning was bright and clear with a whisper of fog floating around the edges of town, blurring the periphery."
I love it when I can escape into one of Sarah Addison Allen's novels. And what better way to escape than into this wonderful ghost story. I loved everything about it and was completely satisfied when I finished Paper Ghosts. What a beautiful story of the past and present coming together to make everything right.
I don't know it this is a spoiler or not so I'm not going to say much here, but when I found the reference to 'paper ghosts', I thought it was perfect. I had never thought of it that way.
I've read all of Ms. Allen's books and have loved each one more than the last. I highly recommend this one!
I received an eARC of Paper Ghosts and this is my honest opinion.
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About the author
Sarah Addison Allen is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of eight novels. A native of Asheville, North Carolina, Allen is credited with bringing "Southern Magical Realism" to a mainstream audience. Her work, characterized by its romantic, lyrical prose and its exploration of family dynamics through a supernatural lens, has been translated into more than thirty languages and sold millions of copies worldwide.
Allen’s debut novel, Garden Spells (2007), became a breakout success and an indie bookseller favorite, spending weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her subsequent works—The Sugar Queen (2008), The Girl Who Chased the Moon (2010), The Peach Keeper (2011), Lost Lake (2014), First Frost (2015) and Other Birds (2022)—have each been bestsellers, garnering acclaim for their quiet magic and subtle, folkloric elements integrated into contemporary Southern life.
The daughter of a journalist father and a mother who was a celebrated cook, Allen grew up in a household where storytelling and food were the primary love languages, elements that now define her fiction. She attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, graduating with a degree in Literature. At age 39, Allen took a hiatus from publishing following a diagnosis of late-stage breast cancer. Her return to writing was marked by a shift toward more poignant narratives.
Allen’s most recent project, Paper Ghosts (2026), continues her tradition of blending mystery with the supernatural. She currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina with her family.
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