We Are All Ghosts in the Forest

Years after the death of the internet, herbalist Katerina is entrusted with the care of a strange boy, amidst rumours of harvest failure and a new digital disease. Accused of witchcraft, Katerina and Stefan must flee into the dubious safety of the forest, hunting for his missing father to uncover the truth behind the disease.

When the internet collapsed, it took the world with it, leaving its digital ghosts behind - and they are hungry. Former photojournalist Katerina fled the overrun cities to the relative safety of her grandmother’s village on the edge of a forest, where she lives a solitary life of herbal medicine and beekeeping. When a wordless boy finds her in the marketplace with nothing but her name in his pocket, her curiosity won’t allow her to turn him away. But haunting his arrival are rumours of harvest failure and a rampant digital disease stirring up the ghosts, and the mood in the village starts to sour. Accused of witchcraft, Katerina and Stefan escape into the forest, searching for his missing father and the truth behind the disease. If there is a cure, Katerina alone might find it, but first she must find the courage to trust others - because the ghosts that follow her aren’t just digital.

Autorentext

A conservation scientist and third culture Scot, Lorraine lives by the sea writing stories influenced by folklore and the wilderness. She has a PhD from the University of St. Andrews but left academia and turned to writing due to disabling illness. Her debut novel, the dystopian thriller This Is Our Undoing, was a multi-award finalist. The follow up, a dark folkloric mystery The Way The Light Bends, was longlisted for the BSFA Best Novel award; her third book, Mother Sea is an exploration of motherhood, climate change and belonging, and was called ‘complex, rich and beautifully crafted’ by Claire North, author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Lorraine has been stalked by wolves and befriended pythons, she also runs the Rewriting The Margins mentorship scheme for marginalised writers.