Pharos : A Ghost Story

young woman is washed up on the shores of Jacob's Rock, a remote lighthouse island off the coast of Scotland. She does not know who she is or how she got there. She has no memory. The keeper of the lighthouse and his assistant take her in and feed and clothe her. But this mysterious woman is not all that she seems, and neither is the remote and wind-swept island. Pharos is an imaginative ghost story from an award-winning author.

Alice Thompson's first novel, Justine, was joint winner (with Graham Swift) of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. For her second novel, Pandora's Box, she was shortlisted for the Stakis Scottish Writer of the Year. She has been Writer in Residence for the Shetland Isles and for St. Andrews University. In 2000 she won a Creative Scotland Award. Her work has been translated into six languages. She lives in Edinburgh.

"A haunting, powerful story of ghosts and enslavement. I read it in one sitting."
-Ali Smith, Booker and Orange shortlisted author of Hotel World

"Ingenious...Pharos rejects the classic ghost story, for an impressively disorientating opening out of its generic rules."
-Times Literary Supplement (UK)

"The elegance and accuracy with which Thompson uses language is formidable"
-The Independent (UK)

"An extraordinary work...Thompson's unrelenting intellect and distinctive imagination is once again at the helm of Scotland's bravest writing."
- Scotland on Sunday

"A highly original tale full of evocative images."
- The Glasgow Herald

"Highly enticing."
- The Bookseller (UK)

"From the watery depths emerges a story dripping with human evil."
- The Scotsman

"The perfect book for anyone who loves ghost stories."
- Dallas Morning News

"It's difficult to leave it behind and emerge from this novella's ghostly spell."
- RT Bookclub

"A genuinely eerie tale, in a perfect setting and told with just the right amount of ambiguity."
-Kirkus Reviews

"An exciting gothic-like paranormal thriller that entertains from [the start]."
-Midwest Book Review