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I AM DUST - Louise Beech

Blog Tour stop for this Outstanding, Haunting and Creepy Thriller of the year

#BlogTour #IAmDust #DoYouBelieveInGhosts @LouiseWriter @OrendaBooks @annecater #RandomThingsTours





"When iconic musical Dust is revived twenty years after the leading actress was murdered in her dressing room, a series of eerie events haunts the new cast… "

Synopsis


The Dean Wilson Theatre is believed to be haunted by a long-dead actress, singing her last song, waiting for her final cue, looking for her killer…


Now Dust, the iconic musical, is returning after twenty years. But who will be brave enough to take on the role of ghostly goddess Esme Black, last played by Morgan Miller, who was murdered in her dressing room?


Theatre usher Chloe Dee is caught up in the spectacle. As the new actors arrive, including an unexpected face from her past, everything changes.


Are the eerie sounds and sightings backstage real or just her imagination? Is someone playing games? Not all the drama takes place onstage.


Sometimes murder, magic, obsession and the biggest of betrayals are real life. When you’re in the theatre shadows, you see everything.


And Chloe has been watching…





My Review


last year this authors book Call Me Star Girl, was one of my most favourite reads of the year this year, I Am Dust is even better! a thriller that to me every other book I read this year now has to match up to!


I Am Dust grabbed me and had me hooked by the end of the first chapter, Playing in to my love of the theatre and my absolute scardy-cat nature, discovering these 3 teens was like looking in to a mirror of my youth in parts!


Relatable to the point of I could almost smell cigs and the cheap perfume and understand the constant quest to challenge and scare themselves as teens, It was almost a teen right of passage to of at least spoken about a Ouija board, Dared someone to do it or to have done Bloody Mary in a mirror.


In my teen years we scared ourselves to death never doing it, as even though we all did not believe I think we all had the what if? at the back of our minds! In the end we drank cheap cider and moved on because nothing happened, but in I Am Dust something does happen...


We meet these teens in 2005 and flit between then and the present in 2019, In 2005 Chloe is part of the youth theatre, she fell in love with the theatre aged 10 after seeing the opening production of "Dust", tradicaly 4 performaces in the lead accress was found murdered in her dressing room.


So years later during the summers production of Macbeth Chloe now 16, her unreqited love Jess and the annoying lead In the youth production Ryan start to do Ouija board sessions in the theatre after dark... Will the ghost of Morgan Miller return and speak to them?


In 2019, Chloe is an user at the same theatre and has been for 6 years her dreams of been on the stage never came true, even now she can not even write the play she has been mulling over for years and sadly she has a history of selfharm which she has hidden from everyone.


She seems to have forgotten almost everything about that summer in 2005, when suddenly it is announced that "Dust" will be returning to the theatre the first time it will be performed again in the 20 years since the murder, slowly the memories seem to be coming back for Chloe, who's footseps is she hearing late at night?, whats that strange muffled voice on the radio? if the threatre is haunted and the play is cursed, is anyone safe?


When I say I could not put this book down I MEAN IT! WOW! from the chilling moment the glass moved to the creepy "YOU NEVER SAID GOODBYE" I had LITERAL goosebumps! I questioned if late at night was the best time for this read but keep going ending at just after 2am with my heart thumping out of my chest!


this was one of the most atmostphric books I have read this year the way the theatre is discribed its almost like a character in itself, with its superstisions and tight backstage areas, bustling during the shows and lonley and creepy at night.


Its is hard to put a label or genre on this read a captivating thriller yes, but also a perfect blend of murder mystery, haunting ghost story and coming of age journey with a twist emotinal hearbreak.


I cannot recommend this book highly enough, this is your next book hangover right here, its been over a week and I cannot stop thinking about it, get it on your TBR, brighten someone day and send it as a gift in these times everyone need a book to take them away and for me this one is just that



Author Bio



Louise Beech is an exceptional literary talent, whose debut novel How To Be Brave was a Guardian Readers’ Choice for 2015.


Her second book, The Mountain in My Shoe was shortlisted for Not the Booker Prize.


Both of her previous books Maria in the Moon and The Lion Tamer Who Lost were widely reviewed, critically acclaimed and number-one bestsellers on Kindle.


The Lion Tamer Who Lost was shortlisted for the RNA Most Popular Romantic Novel Award in 2019.


Her short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice.


Louise lives with her husband on the outskirts of Hull, and loves her job as a Front of House Usher at Hull Truck Theatre, where her first play was performed in 2012.


Purchase Links




Blog Tour




Thank you to the Publisher and Author for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel and for the opportunity to review these works.

All reviews are my own unbiased opinion.

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