THE RECKLESS AFTERLIFE OF HARRIET STOKER BY AUTHOR LAUREN JAMES
PAPERBACK PUBLISHED BY WALKER BOOKS 3RD SEPTEMBER 2020
Congratulations new kid. Welcome to the afterlife.
When Harriet Stoker dies after falling from a balcony in a long-abandoned building, she discovers a group of ghosts, each with a special power.
Felix, Kasper, Roma and Leah welcome Harriet into their world, eager to make friends with the new arrival after decades alone. Yet Harriet is more interested in unleashing her own power, even if it means destroying everyone around her. But when all eternity is at stake, the afterlife can be a dangerous place to make an enemy.
MY REVIEW
Oh my I’m crazy about this story. Every now and then I love to read a ghost story.
Eighteen year old Harriet Stoker had passed Mulcture Hall on the day she toured the University of Warwick. One night Harriet went into the abandoned Mulcture Hall to take some photos for a project, then get back to see her gran. When a freak accident happens, her foot got caught in something, tripped over the edge of the stairwell, crashing to the ground, with a pool of blood from the split of her skull.
We’re all ghosts. And so are you.
With Harriet coming too, she sees a boy looking at her. But how did she survive? She would have died. Then Harriet is told she died. She is dead. She didn’t quite believe him, but decided to play along and hope she could get rid of all of the ghosts that are in Mulcture Hall. But now Harriet is a ghost can she leave Mulcture Hall. She couldn’t be stuck there forever, with no way to return to her old life. What if death is only the beginning?
With so much more of the story to look forward to, I have to say this is the perfect Christmas present 🌲
First Page Of Chapter 1
Twenty minutes before her death, Harriet Stoker stare up at the hazard sign peppering the entrance of Mulcture Hall. The signs were very informative, stating in huge black letters: DANGER – DERELICT BUILDING! THIS BUILDING HAS BEEN FOUND TO CONTAIN ASBESTOS; UNSTABLE STRUCTURE – UNAUTHORISED PEOPLE FOUND ON THIS SITE WILL BE PROSECUTED and DANGER OF ELECTROCUTION ! Harriet was impressed. Confident of her life choices, she began to climb the chain-link fence.
Harriet thought that even when the newly built, Mulcture Hall must have looked like a place where architecture came to die. This colourful graffiti covering the pebbledash walls didn’t detract from the overwhelming greyness of the old halls of residence.
She picked her way carefully through nettles to the entrance. It was nearly dusk, so she used her phone to shine a light through a crack between the plywood boards covering a window.
When a face lunged at her from the other side, Harriet skidded back on her heels. She laughed. It was her own reflection.
About author Lauren James
Lauren James is the twice Carnegie-nominated British author of many Young Adult novels, including The Loneliest Girl in the Universe and The Quiet at the End of the World. She is also a Creative Writing lecturer, freelance editor and screenwriter.
Her books have sold over a hundred thousand copies worldwide, been translated into five languages and shortlisted for the YA Book Prize and STEAM Children’s Book Award. Her other novels include The Next Together series, the dyslexia-friendly novella series The Watchmaker and the Duke and serialised online novel An Unauthorised Fan Treatise. Her upcoming release is The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker.
She was born in 1992, and has a Masters degree from the University of Nottingham, UK, where she studied Chemistry and Physics. Lauren is a passionate advocate of STEM further education, and all of her books feature female scientists in prominent roles. She sold the rights to her first novel when she was 21, whilst she was still at university.
Her writing has been described as ‘gripping romantic sci-fi’ by the Wall Street Journal and ‘a strange, witty, compulsively unpredictable read which blows most of its new YA-suspense brethren out of the water’ by Entertainment Weekly. The Last Beginning was named one of the best LGBT-inclusive works for young adults by the Independent.
Lauren lives in the West Midlands and is an Arts Council grant recipient. She has written articles for numerous publications, including the Guardian, Buzzfeed, Den of Geek, The Toast, and the Children’s Writers and Artist’s Yearbook 2021. She teaches creative writing for Coventry University, WriteMentor, and Writing West Midlands, providing creative writing courses to children through the Spark Young Writers programme.
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