However, as I suspect is the case with a lot of debut novels, Alderton’s insightful introspection, embodied in her imagined characters, often feel as if it may be based on her own experiences. Having already published a memoir, as well as recently announcing that she has moved on from writing about her personal life, this book is supposedly fictional. It’s difficult to say how much of this novel could be interpreted as autobiographical. Combined with a story of her fragile relationship with one of her best and oldest friends, alongside her ageing father’s deteriorating health, Alderton brings Nina’s life to the page in a way which makes it impossible not to empathize with character and author both. Inevitably, things don’t go quite according to plan, and the fallout from this forms the basis of the novel’s narrative. After a recommendation from a friend and a time-sensitive desire to ‘put herself out there’, she downloads the dating app Linx, automatically matching and meeting someone who she begins a semi-serious relationship with. The book follows schoolteacher turned food writer Nina George Dean as she navigates life, love and loneliness throughout the year following her thirty-second birthday.

Acting almost as a fictional companion to her non-fiction memoir, Everything I Know About Love, released in 2018 to critical acclaim, Ghosts contemplates many of the themes which have earned Alderton her status as ‘the voice of the millennial generation’. Dolly Alderton’s long-awaited debut novel is a perceptive and entertaining reflection on modern romance, female friendship and growing older.

Ghosts dolly alderton