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    Ghostwalk
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    Ghostwalk
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    Ghostwalk
    Audiobook11 hours

    Ghostwalk

    Written by Rebecca Stott

    Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A Cambridge historian, Elizabeth Vogelsang, is found drowned, clutching a glass prism in her hand. The book she was writing about Isaac Newton's involvement with alchemy-the culmination of her lifelong obsession with the seventeenth century-remains unfinished. When her son, Cameron, asks his former lover, Lydia Brooke, to ghostwrite the missing final chapters of his mother's book, Lydia agrees and moves into Elizabeth's house-a studio in an orchard where the light moves restlessly across the walls. Soon Lydia discovers that the shadow of violence that has fallen across present-day Cambridge, which escalates to a series of murders, may have its origins in the troubling evidence that Elizabeth's research has unearthed. As Lydia becomes ensnared in a dangerous conspiracy that reawakens ghosts of the past, the seventeenth century slowly seeps into the twenty-first, with the city of Cambridge the bridge between them.
    Filled with evocative descriptions of Cambridge, past and present, Ghostwalk centers around a real historical mystery that Rebecca Stott has uncovered involving Newton's alchemy. In it, time and relationships are entangled-the present with the seventeenth century, and figures from the past with the love-torn twenty-first-century woman who is trying to discover their secrets.
    A stunningly original display of scholarship and imagination, and a gripping story of desire and obsession, Ghostwalk is a rare debut that will change the way most of us think about scientific innovation, the force of history, and time itself.


    From the Compact Disc edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMay 8, 2007
    ISBN9781415938638
    Unavailable
    Ghostwalk
    Author

    Rebecca Stott

    Rebecca Stott is a novelist, broadcaster, historian and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is Professor Emeritus at UEA. Her books include Darwin’s Ghosts and Darwin and the Barnacle, the novels Ghostwalk (a New York Times bestseller), The Coral Thief, and the Costa Award-winning memoir In the Days of Rain. She lives in Norwich.

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    Reviews for Ghostwalk

    3/5

    358 ratings44 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Elizabeth, a researcher studying Newton's alchemical connections for an authorative book is found dead in suspicious circumstances. Her son's lover, Lydia, is called upon to finish writing up the book.Lydia finds an entanglement of events in Newton's life with those in the current world. Just coincidence? Or an uneasy spirit seeking revenge? Or did Newton stir up something in his alchemy?The writing is good, but measured. I get the sense the author had done this research for her degree and was getting some more mileage out of her work by publishing it as fiction.
    • 3/5
      Great story from the Issac Newton/Cambridge angle. An okay story as far as historical mysteries go. Subpar on the whole plot/character development. End result: an average read. I tried to read this one back in 2009 and ended up abandoning it then. The audiobook made for an easier, somewhat more enticing read, but the end result is that the story will probably only appeal to readers that enjoy stories steeped in the Cambridge setting or will gravitate towards anything with an Issac Newton angle. For me, glad to finally get this one off the TBR pile.
    • 1/5
      This book is said to be a thriller, but it isn't. Instead, what could have been an intelligent historical novel was spoiled by supernatural silliness. Lydia was ghostwriting the last couple of chapters of a scholarly work on Newton and alchemy that was being written by Elizabeth until her death. Cameron, Elizabeth's son, asked Lydia to do this. Cameron and Lydia are former lovers, and Lydia narrates this story as a letter to Cameron. But the author lost me when she went supernatural, when Lydia visited a psychic and when she began to notice too many coincidences. It is too easy for a writer of fiction to explain mysteries with ghosts.
    • 3/5
      I've seen some reviews of Rebecca Stott's Ghostwalk compare it to The DaVinci Code, but it's an extremely superficial comparison. Books about modern-day people who investigate mysteries from the past existed long before Dan Brown hammered out his infamous novel; he did not create a new genre.In Ghostwalk, Lydia Brooke is asked by her ex-lover to ghostwrite the final chapters of an Isaac Newton biography that his late mother was writing. As she completes the work, Lydia finds the seventeenth century creeping into the present as mysterious deaths mirror the deaths of Newton's contemporaries.It's not exactly a murder mystery; Ghostwalk focuses more on Lydia's own entanglements with her ex-lover and his dead mother than it does on the victims. The narration is lyrical; the entire novel is Lydia speaking to her ex-lover, referring to him in the second person. The result is dark, moody, and dreamy. There are also chunks of the Newton biography included, providing interesting details about the scientist's life.Many other reviews mark it down for requiring a suspension of disbelief, but they seem to miss the point that this is a ghost story (did they not read the title?). I really enjoyed how subtly the two eras collide, and things were just creepy enough without being sensational. Ghostwalk is one of those impressive debut novels that makes one look forward to the author's next book.
    • 3/5
      Just 50 pages in, but it's quite promising. very much my kind of thing in that it resonates and plays with words. Hopefully not too obsessive on the romance (past tense).
    • 5/5
      I hate to say this because I am beginning to sound like a broken record but I finished another really spectacular book yesterday. Ghostwalk is Rebecca Stott's first novel and it is a treat. Ms. Stott has discovered an actual mystery surrounding Newton and his alchemy and she has created an intellectually challenging tale around it. Her story mixes the 21st century and the 17th century with multiple murders, alchemical details and contemporary terrorism.The narrator, Lydia Brooke, has been asked to complete a biography of Isaac Newton. She moves into the home of the writer who has had an untimely death. Immediately she finds coincidences that cannot be explained rationally and ultimately is vouchsafed contact with Seventeenth Century figures. How this is possible is left to the reader to ponder. At the same time there is a campaign going on in Cambridge against animal use for scientific research. As Lydia struggles to complete the book the animal rights campaign escalates into violence and murder. Or does it? You will have to read it to find out.As with The End Of Mr. Y, I now want to know everything about Isaac Newton and alchemy. This is why my shelves are always overflowing.
    • 1/5
      I really don't know how to feel about this book now that I have finished reading. Warning, there may be some spoilers in this review.

      I didn't start enjoying Ghostwalk until the last 40 pages! Maybe it's because that is when the author stopped insinuating and hinting and got to the point.

      The major issue I had trying to read this book is how the point of view kept changing from first person, to second, to third, and back to first. It was very confusing to read and I often had to force myself to continue reading the book just so I could move onto another novel.

      Aside from the changing point of view, it annoyed me how the author shifted time periods so much. As far as I can tell, the book is written by future Lydia talking about how she lived in Cambridge writing a book several years before. Then, in the book, the author would flash forward a year past the book being published to describe what happened while she wrote the book. If this sounds really confusing, imagine reading it!! I'll paraphrase an example from the book: "If I would have known before what would happen if I let you go to Germany, I wouldn't have let you go." See? Confusing! However, as far as I can tell, nothing really came of Cameron going to Germany to cause her to say this.

      I am so glad that I am done with this book.
    • 4/5
      First things first. If I finished the book, thats an indication that I enjoyed it, at least to some degree. Life is too short to continue to read a story that frustrates me or that loses my attention to the degree that I would give anything less than 3/5 stars. That said, I would give a bit less than 4 stars, as I use the 4 star rating quite a bit, but after scanning other readers reviews, I will try to balance the scales a bit and give a higher mark than I would normally. I cheated, I guess.
      I found this novel on the sale rack at my local library, and for $1, I dont need a NYT bestseller quality read. The synopsis hit on enough of my like buttons to hand over the dollar and feel that I came a way with a good deal. And I did. No doubt. This one will remain in my library, perhaps with a few notes in the margins upon second reading.
      To be honest, the narrator did get on a nerve or 2 at some points. There seemed to be too many interrupted sentences, if you know what i mean. A comma does not give you license to tell another whole story before slipping in another comma and finishing the first sentence. This is excusable once or twice, but it seems we exceeded the limit here. On the other hand, the internal dialogue is very much like this, so there was more a feel of authenticity.
      The story line was appealing and drew me in. The authors timing in revealing secrets was very good too. I was anticipating right to the very end, and the ending was very good. She did not go overboard and cross the threshhold into the supernatural too far, which would be unrealistic, but neither did she draw back so far as to disappoint those, like me, who bought in to the possibilities. That in itself is an accomplishment.
      I loved learning more about Newton, his contemporaries, and his times, and did learn a little science, but the book could have been a 5 in my eyes if the science story line was expanded to help me learn even more. Alchemy, proven as truth or not, gives great potential for scientific exploration that I would drink it up. But the author chose to draw the line shy of a science book and instead balanced science, politics, love, and the progression of the world over the span of a few centuries.
      This is where i scratch my head at the low ratings of my associates. The author gave some wonderful insight into the time period, the politics, the science, and even the man, Isaac Newton. What more could we want?
      As a matter of fact, I take back my original review explanation and call this a solid 4-4.25 stars!
      Thank you Ms. Stott. I will look forward to reading more from you in the future.
    • 2/5
      I found this book murky and difficult to read. The concept was interesting (as nearly as I could understand it), but the characters told conflicting stories, and I had a hard time distinguishing between what was true and what wasn't. Was the main character going mad? Who was lying to her and who was telling her the truth? I'm still confused.
    • 3/5
      Very obvious ending, but good history mystery.

      The romance was unnecessary though.
    • 3/5
      Interesting. I'm still not sure how to review, I'm mulling the story over in my head.
      A lot of exhaustive (and interesting)research on the life and times of Isaac Newton. She plays with perception and how mysteries and clues are disseminated to come up with the right (or wrong) conclusion.
      I guess I would have liked a little more of the 1600's and less of the romance, but she wrote it as a letter to her lover and maybe that wouldn't have worked.
    • 3/5
      I suspect that a check through the reviews might turn up some complaints about the blunt foreshadowing fulfilled by rushed and shadowy denouement, but on the whole, the book successfully presents the problem of human places: the way that places accrue intentions and acts and connotations and reputations until it is impossible not to see connections, particularly between acts of violence. In a neat and subtle pairing, it also raises the ugly problem of knowledge and application, the fact that science (or literature) can imagine things that take us ‘forward,’ but those same things can be turned into weapons just as easily as into tools and improvements, and the discoverers and writers are never able to prevent that.
    • 3/5
      I found this book more tedious to get into than The Coral Thief but do find it fascinating the way she interweaves characters and events from the past and the present.
    • 1/5
      I had high hopes for this because of the academic setting. The sense of place was great, but the mystical elements just weren't convincing. Also, do any academics have happy marriages? Not according to books like this.
    • 1/5
      A Cambridge historian, Elizabeth Vogelsang, is found drowned, clutching a glass prism in her hand and thus begins the novel Ghostwalk. Her son, Cameron, asks his former lover, Lydia Brooke, to ghostwrite the missing final chapters of his mother’s book on Isaac Newton and his early involvement in alchemy at Trinity College. Lydia agrees and moves into Elizabeth’s house. Lydia is soon entrenched and entangled in the deaths of five people in the late 1660s that may or may not be connected with several modern-day murders that have taken place; as well as an animal-rights group, who may or may not be killing animals in and around Cambridge. Ghostwalk has all the elements of a modern gothic mystery novel: murders, secrets, passion rekindled, and ghosts. However, after a promising beginning I simply had a difficult time sustaining my interest in the various storylines. This is one novel I would have a difficultly recommending—1 out of 5 stars.
    • 1/5
      I've had better times trimming my nails than I had reading this book. Don't bother.
    • 2/5
      Slightly interesting in re 17th c. history & alchemy & modern cambridge intelligentsia. However, the dual plot lines never satisfactorily coalesced although there seemed to be a hint that they would. Thereby the plot, pacing, and timeline of the novel seemed muddled to me. Perhaps I missed the point where they converged, but that, then, is equally problematic. I think there were too many layers in the novel attempted and unresolved. So, a spotty first novel, but I did learn a bit from it. Felt she could have left out the entire NABED issue and the book would have been stronger for it.
    • 4/5
      This was a fairly engaging story which mixes a little bit of historical fiction, some supernatural, some mystery & murder, all mixed in with a contemporary storyline. Throw in some little-known facts about Isaac Newton, & it makes for an interesting storyline. However, I think having listened to the abridged audio on this one, the story was not given justice. I felt like parts were missing & transitions were not exceptionally smooth. The reader was decent enough, but I did have trouble distinguishing between who was saying what, & which thoughts were spoken & which were only thoughts running through the narrator's head. I suspect I would've enjoyed this more had it not been abridged. As it were, it will probably become a fairly forgettable story for me.
    • 3/5
      Rebecca Stott clearly knows here History and is passionate about it. I read the coral thief first and thought it was a fantasti read. Here we are in historical investigation territory again looking at Newton. There are several novels rolled into one here - thriller, historical fiction, romance even. While none of the styles on their own is that satisfactory as a whole it does generally work. For a first piece of work it is definitely worth a look and if you do like it, you will surely love the Coral Thief.
    • 4/5
      It's a nice speculative, historical fiction about Newton. Before reading this book, all I knew about Newton was he discovered GRAVITY. This book gives you a different perspective on Newton, a very different one. One thing I've noticed from Ms. Stott is that she loves words. She uses words repeatedly, exploring them and their different meanings, e.g. lie, embroil, entangle, etc. She's got a rich vocabulary. The only thing I didn't like about it is the lack of excitement leading to the BIG reveal. Stott just dumped everything in one go and I didn't quite expect it (not in a good way). the start and middle of the story was quite slow for me then towards the end, the story hastened, Stott seems to be in a hurry to finish the book. If the pacing was really good, I might have given this 5 stars.
    • 2/5
      I was interested by the historical background of this book, but could never get interested the modern-day part of the story. I read it to the end, but it was a chore.
    • 4/5
      Kept my interest all the way. My neighbor gave me this book to read. Knowing that I truly respect and admire one of the greatest scientists that ever lived, Sir Isaac Newton. Well, I jumped at the chance to read a story where Newton was given a role, maybe even center stage. Needless to say I never became bored with this book. The author created a great tale blending the new world with olden times of Newton. It was very apparent that Ms. Scott did a tremendous amount of research into the subject matter, which I appreciated. I enjoyed the book and it kept my interest all the way until the last page.
    • 1/5
      Firstly, let me make myself absolutely clear on this one: I hated this book!!I was lured by promises of the 'seventeenth century and the story of Isaac Newton as an alchemist' the 'ghost-writing of an unfinished book', 'unexplained seventeenth-century deaths, a network of alchemists and a ghostly figure'. I bought this hook, line and sinker and was really looking forward to an exciting read. Wow, what a disappointment. The narrator was adressing the story to a lover in the past tense (I think) and it kept jumping to the past and present, not including the visits to the seventeenth century. The attempt to make this story a thriller was a failure as far as I'm concerned. The basic plot idea was to insinuate that an acquaintance of Isaac Newton had fellows at Trinity College in Cambridge 'murdered' to allow Isaac to gain a fellowship. The book was going to publish this theory, and change history. As a result of a ghostly figure and her relationship with her lover, (who was married by the way, and I hate books containing adultery), she changed the ending and published a 'safer version'. Ugh, what a disappointment!Ultimately a really crappy book, and a H-U-G-E disappointment. No wonder it took me so long to finish it.
    • 5/5
      Ghostwalk is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. I absolutely loved every sentence. The story is littered with musings on the philosophy of science and the historical investigation was brilliant. The ancient streets of Cambridge come alive and you can almost smell the teeming humanity in the 17th century. I enjoyed this book so much that I will now read Ms Stott's other books and was delighted to find that I already have Darwin and the Barnnacle.
    • 2/5
      Could not get into this book.Read 90 pages and the writing did not engage my interest at all.Good premise, but, did not deliver for me.
    • 3/5
      When Elizabeth Vogelsang, Cambridge historian, is found drowned, her son Cameron contacts his ex-lover Lydia to ask if she will complete Elizabeth's final manuscript - an investigation of Isaac Newton's alchemical research, which is missing two critical chapters. Lydia's own research draws her into dangerous revelations about the Cambridge of 1665 and a series of murders there, which are reflecting into - bleeding into - modern Cambridge. You probably didn't see what I did there, with the "bleeding" and "reflecting", but if you read this book, you will. Rebecca Stott is okay with beating a motif to death.Alas, this is a book that suffers from a brilliant idea, indifferently executed. One of the back-cover reviewers refers to "shimmering prose" (enough already with the Newtonian light metaphors!) and it IS pretty good prose. But Stott spends so much time on lovely metaphors and lush descriptions and Newtonian light and color motifs that the actual story moves at a glacial pace. If I were her (which I'm not, and anyway the book is already published so it's too late anyway), I would have spent a lot more time on developing more fully-formed characters and telling a marvelous story.
    • 1/5
      Whoa! This was a rough one. Did not enjoy at all. Took 2 weeks to get through. That's really bad.
    • 4/5
      Historian Stott blends 17th century history surrounding alchemy and Sir Isaac Newton with a contemporary mystery taking place in Cambridge. The plot structure was original and Stott shines by bringing in fascinating historical information about Newton and his contemporaries. However, the plot sometimes depends on mysticism to explain the action which always seems like an easy out for an author. Maybe Stott was trying to contrast Newton the rationalist with Newton the alchemist here, but I ended up enjoying the rationalist side better than the spiritual. And in the end, the connections between a series of murders in Newton's time to some violent encounters in our time depended too much on the magical for my taste.
    • 3/5
      Rebecca Stott’s Ghostwalk was a frustrating novel. Her writing is very good, often compelling. But she didn’t seem to be able to decide what type of story she wanted to tell. Is it a love story, betrayal, ghost story, secret government society ruling the world story, you can’t go home again story, etc… Instead of choosing one or two of these, she decides to just go with all of them. Stott is a very talented writer; her various plots are certainly well written. But because she can’t seem to make up her mind which one is the main theme, she jumps from one to the other. It becomes quite frustrating because right when one plot starts to get interesting, it stops and we are off to another one. Thus we pinball from one plot to another all the way to the end. And when we get to the end, the plots have become so muddled that the ending tries to wrap them all up in just a few pages. Ms Stott is a writer I would certainly read again, but I would hope in the future a better editor would keep her a bit more focused.
    • 3/5
      9-26-2008When Lydia Brook learns of the sudden mysterious drowning of an old mentor, Cambridge scholar Elizabeth Vogelsang, she finds herself pulled into a dark and complicated web spanning a timeframe as wide and as far back the 16th century, and involving the life and career of none other than Sir Isaac Newton. Elizabeth’s son Cameron, with whom Lydia once had a doomed relationship, asks her to temporarily move into Elizabeth’s cottage in Cambridge, study her papers and complete a book Elizabeth had been writing about something significant she had apparently discovered about Newton. Lydia doesn’t really want to be near Cameron and had left the area several years before specifically to end their relationship, but she has finished her most recent novel and is at loose ends at the moment, and more importantly, she feels she owes it to Elizabeth, who had been an important figure in her life. What Lydia soon realizes is that there may be quite a bit more to Elizabeth’s death than anyone imagined, and that it was no accidental drowning that took the scholar’s life. In reading through the stash of papers and research Elizabeth left behind, Lydia stumbles onto a dangerous truth: that there are centuries-old secrets and deceptions involving Newton’s career and his time at Cambridge that several interested parties wish to remain undiscovered, and yet other parties – not all still living – just as eagerly wish to see full light. Rebecca Stott is a renowned British historian taking her first stab at fiction, and while the mystery itself is compelling and Stott’s language and prose is breathtaking, the whole thing ends up a bit muddled. At the end of the story there is no real conclusion, and I was more confused than when I started. The author’s detailed knowledge of 17th century history, and in particular of Newton, alchemy, and the excitement which filled that dawning scientific era, was engaging enough to keep me going, as well as her talent for clever foreshadowing, but as far as I could tell the question at the heart of the mystery is never really answered. Another big problem for me in reading this is a personal one only and not necessarily a slight on Stott’s writing, but it did severely hamper my enjoyment of it. I did NOT like Lydia, the main character. The reason is perhaps a silly one - because she’s having an affair with Cameron, who is married (not a spoiler; it’s right at the beginning). It’s both a moral thing and a respect issue. I have a hard time holding even a marginally good opinion of any woman who would sleep with another woman’s husband, and stoop to being some guy’s sloppy seconds when she could obviously do better. It made Lydia seem both nastily selfish and annoyingly pathetic, and while I want a few flaws in my protagonists for realism’s sake, I want those flaws to be things with which I can empathize. Stott’s use of language is so lovely, however, that even though this debut is a little disappointing, I’d definitely give her another go and would like to see more from her. Definitely great potential and talent here.