What do you think?
Rate this book
Heather: A Ghost Story
When Fern moves into a one-bed flat for her secondyear of university she knows it will be tough to live alone. Then the dreams start. The lifeless face of a girl, an Edwardian school and an old well appear to Fern in her sleep. But who is the girl, and what is she trying to tell Fern? Fern uncovers Heather's story piece by piece before discovering the horrific way those pieces fit together.
Heather is a ghost story spanning 100 years that will keep you guessing till the end.
Heather is a ghost story spanning 100 years that will keep you guessing till the end.
171 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 21, 2024
About the author
Charlotte Wood
34 books15 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2024
Woooooooof. Every time I thought it was going to be over, it wasn’t. And so many typos.
September 26, 2026
"Heather" is a book I physically had to force myself through at every step, just to try and give the author a chance to turn it around. It felt equally hard as I met the author at HorrorCon, but I cannot lie.
"Heather" is a mess of a book. It suffers from an inconsistency in pace, inconsistency in tone, identity and character voice whilst also, physically, suffering from a severe lack of proof reading. This book had grammar and punctuation mistakes, repeated words, poor formatting and more that made it a challenge to read.
Charlotte Wood presents the bare bones of an idea, but fails to deliver in any sense of the word. I also find irony in the fact she decided it to her GCSE teacher as if I were him I would be embarrassed at having failed in teaching. Whilst I appreciate the fact that this is her first book, there is no excuse for a lack of proof reading.
Overall, this story is not a horror or dark read, it merely suggests the theming without doing anything meaningful to deliver it. It cannot decide whether it's a teen novel, a romance, a comedy of errors or something indescribable.
The main character, "Fern" lacks any kind of depth. She is one dimensional and cannot decide on a tone of voice. She is either whiny, needlessly pathetic, insufferably overdramatic or plain. It cannot be understated how weak this character is when the story revolves around her experience.
Obviously, the story is about "Heather", something I hoped to be the redeeming factor. Her story had so much potential, but fell flat with little to no emotional connection.
The story also suffers from being extremely repetitive. It feels like the author used AI to write parts of this and it kept repeating itself. I feel like I've reread parts of the story 100 times with no reason as to why. It feels like the author attempted to pad the story to make it longer, but did not care how she did so. It really feels like she genuinely had an idea and got bored with but instead of giving up, wrote for writing sakes.
The story also jumps between modern day and historical context a lot, on multiple occasions talking through the voice of someone from that era. What is clear is that the author did not do her research into how to write as someone from the era she chooses. Any time she tries, it is inconsistent and every time, I lost whether it was the diary of who we were meant to be reading, or just our main character.
I could go on around how frustrated I felt reading this, but I read it just to ensure it lasted throughout and would be deserving of this review. Again, I appreciate it's a first book, but this feels more like a creative writing project for a GCSE English class, much like the one in which she dedicated this book.
"Heather" is a mess of a book. It suffers from an inconsistency in pace, inconsistency in tone, identity and character voice whilst also, physically, suffering from a severe lack of proof reading. This book had grammar and punctuation mistakes, repeated words, poor formatting and more that made it a challenge to read.
Charlotte Wood presents the bare bones of an idea, but fails to deliver in any sense of the word. I also find irony in the fact she decided it to her GCSE teacher as if I were him I would be embarrassed at having failed in teaching. Whilst I appreciate the fact that this is her first book, there is no excuse for a lack of proof reading.
Overall, this story is not a horror or dark read, it merely suggests the theming without doing anything meaningful to deliver it. It cannot decide whether it's a teen novel, a romance, a comedy of errors or something indescribable.
The main character, "Fern" lacks any kind of depth. She is one dimensional and cannot decide on a tone of voice. She is either whiny, needlessly pathetic, insufferably overdramatic or plain. It cannot be understated how weak this character is when the story revolves around her experience.
Obviously, the story is about "Heather", something I hoped to be the redeeming factor. Her story had so much potential, but fell flat with little to no emotional connection.
The story also suffers from being extremely repetitive. It feels like the author used AI to write parts of this and it kept repeating itself. I feel like I've reread parts of the story 100 times with no reason as to why. It feels like the author attempted to pad the story to make it longer, but did not care how she did so. It really feels like she genuinely had an idea and got bored with but instead of giving up, wrote for writing sakes.
The story also jumps between modern day and historical context a lot, on multiple occasions talking through the voice of someone from that era. What is clear is that the author did not do her research into how to write as someone from the era she chooses. Any time she tries, it is inconsistent and every time, I lost whether it was the diary of who we were meant to be reading, or just our main character.
I could go on around how frustrated I felt reading this, but I read it just to ensure it lasted throughout and would be deserving of this review. Again, I appreciate it's a first book, but this feels more like a creative writing project for a GCSE English class, much like the one in which she dedicated this book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews