Ghost Station introduces you to Dr. Ophelia Bray, a psychiatrist who joins a space mission to investigate a mysterious syndrome affecting astronauts. As her crew explores an abandoned alien planet, tensions begin to escalate, and unsettling events begin to unfold. Barnes masterfully builds suspense by creating a creepy and unsettling atmosphere. The characters are well-developed, each with their own secrets and struggles, making the story even more compelling. If you love space horror with a slow-burn thriller vibe, this book is a must-read.

This book was enjoyable overall, felt similar to The Luminous Deep. Very Psychological focused. The ending felt a little lackluster.

When Dr. Orphelia Bray wakes up from cold sleep as a member of Resilience, a small exploration crew, she knows immediately her job as a psychologist will not be respected or wanted by the crew.

Bray’s life long study of ERS- a space-based condition that leads to patients often committing violent acts-drives her to unravel the mystery of what happened to the crew on their last mission. But when they land on a desolate, ancient planet, a new mystery becomes even more important to solve.

What lead to the hasty departure of the previous colonizers? Are crew members starting to have symptoms of ERS, or is an outside evil infecting the crew?

This is a very, slow-burning horror story. I’d say there is little to no horror until the last third of this book. It’s much more a character study of Bray, her past, her motivations for taking this mission, and her fear of the crew discovering her past.

I enjoyed the slow pace at the beginning, how we came to know the crew, learned how they lived both in space and when they landed on the planet. There isn’t a lot of hard science, but there’s enough explanation of how the space station works, and about the planet itself that I found fascinating!

The horror itself is subtle yet chilling. Barnes does an amazing job of creating an atmosphere of quiet dread, unease and hopelessness, although I wish the horror elements would have been woven sooner into the narrative and that so much time wasn’t taken up with Bray constantly obsessing over her past. We didn’t get much character development for the rest of the crew, which made it harder to care about what happened to them.

If you enjoy space horror, character-focused stories, and alien planets, I’d recommend Ghost Station! I’m looking forward to Barnes’ next novel Cold Eternity coming out in April

*Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the digital arc.

Oh, I gobbled this up. My only regret is that I put off reading this ARC for so long.

In the early pages, I was a bogged down by all the heavy sci-fi themes. A guy named Rayon. Brains hardwired to the internet. Unnecessary digitization of everyday objects. It just didn't feel like this book was for me, so I left it on the shelf for... awhile.

But I pushed on, and once I got a feel for the way this spacefaring world worked and what Ophelia was here to do... it paid off.

The burn is slow, early reveals are more like peeks, and the juvenile characters kind of put me off at first, but once I hit the midpoint, I honestly did not stop reading until the end. Seriously, I lost a few hours of my day to this juggernaut writing style. I also really appreciated the way the overt themes were pounded home while the subtler concepts were just a feather-touch to make your brain itch.

Someone with a better "feel" for sci-fi might not need to get so far into the story before it becomes gripping, but for me, this was cool. This genre (and author) may make more appearances on my reading list this year.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Took a bit to get through this novel. Not because the quality of writing was bad, more that I could feel myself getting absorbed into the world the author creates and felt like I would lose myself reading through it and then I would feel sad it was over. I took my time. Savored it. Really allowed myself to get sucked in page by page. Loved it.

💀GHOST STATION💀 by @authorstaceykade is a horror space mystery that kept me looking for hiding places! Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publishers, @tornightfire and @macmillan.audio for the audio-ARC and finished copy.

Well I sat on this one WAY too long this year and I am not even sure why but I am so happy I finally picked it up! This was my first Barnes but I have heard she has a formula if sorts which is essentially smarty-pants woman gets stuck in a pickle of a mystery while on a space station or spaceship and has to amateur-sleuth their way out of it while fighting for their lives. Liked a locked-in mystery in space with horror elements. This is basically the plot for the movie Alien and I am here for it all day.

So yes, I very much enjoyed this space horror mystery, but feel you should experience the specifics for yourself. If I have a complaint it would be that there were parts that felt like they dragged on a bit so it felt a bit longer than necessary. I will be keeping Barnes in my repertoire of authors for sure!

A quick read and a fun horror/thriller

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this review copy and the opportunity !

This was good quick horror-thriller. The main character was fleshed out well and while the other characters could have been fleshed out slightly more, you still cared about what was happening to them. The setting and the build of the horror all contributed to a well-paced suspenseful read. I will definitely be checking out more books by the author in the future.

This was truly just okay. It all felt a little rinse and repeat to me. It reminded me so much of Dead Silence, and I ended up leaving disappointed. I will try Barnes one more time before giving up.

I don't read a lot of space operas, but my husband reads nothing else, and this was a book that we were both interested in. It's an interesting premise, a group that doesn't quite trust each other sequestered on a foreign planet and trying to solve a gruesome murder while everyone's seemingly got secrets to keep. The characters and their motivations are not quite convincing enough, and the action lags a bit in some parts, but it was a solidly enjoyable read for the most part.

Space horror mixed with corporate green is a timely niche and I'm here for it. SA Barnes knows how to write intense situations and characters with deep heart. I may have preferred a bit more horror but it was a top notch sci fi.

I wasn’t sure about this book at first. The main character is not likeable from the start, but once her very dark story starts to unfold, and the extremely creepy happenings kick off, Ophelia is a very relatable lead. Nobody knows who they will be in a crisis until the worst is occurring around them. And then underneath a creepy story about an alien planet and a dark entity trying to lure everyone out into the cold and dark, there is a deeper story about forgiving oneself for the things that happened to them when they were a child. It wasn’t my fault is such a powerful sentence. 4 stars, would recommend.

I loved the concept and the interesting cover that pulled me in. The story is very eerie and stays true to the sci-fi genre here in terms of its storytelling.

I loved the idea of this group exploring ERS — a space based condition that wears away at your mind leading to aggression and mental degradation. This psychological thriller did a marvelous job with keeping the tension tight and thick.

I absolutely LOVED this book.

this felt like the equivalent of those ads for games where they are playing it so frustratingly wrong you just want to take over. I have never felt so much hatred for a main character that wasn't supposed to be unlikeable before and have never needed to take a breather because I'm so frustrated by the clearly dumb choices made before. The first 75% of this book is filler and "gotcha, that one wasn't real" and the rest was "how many obviously wrong choices can we make to add conflict"

I’m not big on sci-fi but this book sounded interesting. It starts out pretty slow and I’m not going to lie I wasn’t sure I would make it to the end but after taking a break I got back to reading.
It has more of a creepy strange feel to it than a straight up horror novel and I wasn’t too fond of the characters. Overall it’s written well, just not my style nor genre.

#GhostStstion:

Massive thanks to @tor for my gifted copy!

If you’ve been around here for a minute, you know Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes is one of my favorite books (and audiobooks) ever. The atmospheric sci-fi horror gave me nightmares in the best way. I was hooked on Dead Silence and could not stop reading.

Holy Ghost Station viberonies. If there’s one person I can count on to scare me and my nightmares it’s S.A. Barnes. Zura Johnson was creepy, but not Lauren Ezzo creepy. I ended up reading more underneath a blanket with a flashlight like I was 8 again because I was scared, but the audio was decent enough for when I was traveling to and from work.

I’m not sure why I waited so long to read this book, maybe when I first picked it up, I wasn’t in the mood for dark, atmospheric, grim science fiction? Not quite sure. I do know that once I finally opened it for a second time the other day, I read it straight through to the end in one sitting.

Ghost Station is told from the POV of Dr. Ophelia Bray, a psychologist with a complicated backstory who ends up on a small exploration crew to study ERS (a condition commonly suffered by crews when they are in deep space or cold sleep too long) and to support the crew after a death of one of their members.

They arrive on an isolated planet that has mysteriously been sold by her family’s company to the competitor she currently works for. Immediately things start to go wrong, and Ophelia can’t tell if she’s in the beginning phases of ERS herself, or the things she’s seeing and imagining are real.
As the other members of the crew begin to experience similar physical and psychological problems, a grisly murder occurs, and everyone must work together to fight an unknown entity and find a way to get off planet and save their lives.

I will admit that the beginning of this book was slower paced as the backstory and worldbuilding were built. But once Ophelia finds herself on planet, and mysterious things began to happen, I was all in. The bleak, cold, surroundings and Ophelia being an outsider to the group lent an ominous feeling almost immediately. Every page ratcheted up that feeling until I was gripping my Kindle in worried anticipation of how they would manage to save themselves and who would be left alive in the end. I was thankful for the epilogue that definitely calmed my nerves

This is my first read by this author, but it won’t be my last. I look forward to whatever S.A. Barnes releases in the future.

I received an ARC of Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes through NetGalley. This was my first time reading this author, and I found the book to be a gripping and atmospheric read that kept me engaged throughout. Ghost Station follows Dr. Ophelia Bray, a psychologist specializing in the study and prevention of Eckhart-Reiser Syndrome (ERS), a space-based condition that can lead to mental deterioration and violence. Ophelia joins a small exploration crew on a mission to an ancient, abandoned planet. As they begin to establish residency, they uncover disturbing signs left by the previous colonizers, who departed hastily. The situation escalates when their pilot is found gruesomely murdered, leaving Ophelia to question whether ERS is to blame or if something more sinister is at play. The narrative is a slow burn, building tension as Ophelia tries to integrate with the crew, who are initially resistant to her presence. The crew's investigation into the planet's eerie history and the mysterious disappearance of its previous inhabitants adds layers of suspense. As the crew members' secrets come to light, trust becomes a scarce commodity, and the line between reality and paranoia blurs. The climax is both surprising and satisfying, tying together the various threads of the story. Overall, Ghost Station is a well-crafted science fiction horror novel that combines strong character development with a suspenseful plot. I highly recommend it to fans of the genre and look forward to reading more from S.A. Barnes in the future. #netgalley #ghoststation

Well that was definitely not what I thought it would be. Who's reading for Therapy in Space? and also Gaslighting in Space? and also huh???? Very confused all around with stuff. I didn't think the romance was at all necessary for the plot and could have done well without. I feel like I didn't get to know any of these characters really and Ophelia pretty much annoyed me almost the entire time. I just feel let down. Glad I got through it but oof that just was not the spooky space time that I wanted. It did get a little good in terms of action by the end but so much of the book was spent with just Ophelia trying to get in with the crew that I feel like it wasted so much time.

Ghost Station was the second book I've read from S. A. Barnes. Though I will admit that I enjoyed the previous title, Dead Silence, even more I did overall enjoy Ghost Station.

Ghost Station is full of space travel, shady corporations and a deadly virus that makes for some possibly unreliable narrators so if that isn't your thing you may not enjoy the book. But I did, even though it did get a little confusing with some of the flashbacks/psychosis going on.

I liked the characters and the descriptions of the abandoned planet. I felt as though it was described in a way that helped me to visualize how it looked. I liked how all of the characters were pretty fleshed out with faults and personality traits. And I liked how the mystery of the place and everyone's backgrounds kind of unraveled throughout the telling of the story.

Overall, I very much enjoyed Ghost Station by S. A. Barnes.