Oh, this was another fantastic read! I really enjoyed her first sci fi horror under the name S.A. Barnes, and this story sounded just as good, and I had to keep reading it, to find out what creepy horror was going to happen next!

The idea of mental health in a sci fi horror is such an interesting one, since space is pretty lonely and dangerous, and that's no great on a person's psyche. So playing with that idea, that was definitely one of the biggest creepy factors in this horror book!

Ophelia is running from her past, from her rich family that disapproves of her, and the secrets that she holds, that make her passion for this space-based condition, all the more understandable. And as things got worse and worse, and the tension mounted, I needed to know what was going on!

Once all the pieces were put together, it was interesting to see how they were going to navigate their way to safety. This story was thrilling and engaging until the end, and I just had to keep reading! I just wonder, was there a romance brewing? I'm not sure, because I saw some moments that seemed to indicate something maybe was, but there wasn't anything concrete...

Loved reading this book and I can't wait to read more by this author, under S.A. Barnes or Stacey Kade!

Ultimately this entertained me enough to keep going, but I was missing a bit more creepiness. I thought there would be a bigger twist, but this basically did what I was expecting it to. The ending was unsatisfying, and I didn't really like the main character—her past gets hyped up so much at the beginning, but it takes a long time before we find out what, exactly, happened. She was easily manipulated by the other characters, and, for someone who specializes in psychology, she's sure blind to her own shortcomings. There was also no need for the hints at a possible romance.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishing company for this Digital Advanced Readers Copy! I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Look, I don't know what to say. S.A. Barnes is amazing at space horror. I have read Dead Silence more than once, and I will reread Ghost Station. Also, I, as a library employee, love the fact that she is a high school librarian (she posted on facebook when she got to catalog her own book to put in her library and it was adorable!). I have not yet read her books written as Stacy Kade - I think they might be YA/different genre and I'm here for the horror.

Ophelia is not a well liked person right now. She blames herself for a mass murder, and while that is misplaced, the guilt is real. People are judging her, so she is put on a crew that's going off to do space things. They land on a weird planet that had previously been explored, but everyone was missing. Then...the pilot is murdered. Who did it? Is someone still alive? What are these weird things happening?

I am of the mind that stories in the sea and in space are just creepier because they are both so vast and unknown, and I love the way S.A. Barnes plays into that in her writing.

Free eARC provided by NetGalley for reviewing purposes.
DNF this book at 21%.
Unfortunately, this book was not for me. I requested it because I was intrigued by the premise and I had heard great things about the author's first space horror book, Dead Silence, so I went into this book with high expectations. However, I cannot get past my dislike for this main character/ narrator. It's very much giving poor little rich girl, as well as therapist who needs a lot of therapy herself. I don't want to listen to her tell this story anymore, and the rest of the characters and the plot are just not compelling enough for me to want to see this through. Maybe someday in the future I'll come back to this, but for now, I can only say that this book might suit some other readers better.

This science fiction story is about the adventures of a small exploration crew (plus a guest psychologist) as they investigate an eerie, ancient planet and attempt to unravel the mystery behind the strange structures left behind by the planet's original inhabitants and the previous colonizer's hasty departure.

However, the initial focus is on interpersonal relationships. We meet psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray as she prepares for cold sleep. She is running away from a professional disaster (which may or may not be her fault, but she feels guilty) and fending off her family (from whom she is largely estranged). When she awakens from deep sleep on an exploration vessel in space, she is immediately thrown into interactions with a crew recovering from losing a member. Plus, they do not want her there.

So, there is plenty of drama even before they land on Lyria 393-C for six weeks of investigation. Things become increasingly surreal as the days go on: Ophelia starts experiencing nightmarish hallucinations that are very personal (going back to a horrific event in her childhood that she has tried to keep secret). The crew's pilot is found horrifically murdered. Other crew members begin acting strangely, and they are finally convinced that it has something to do with their exploration of the alien ruins and the samples they took.

The climax is full of revealed secrets, an alien possession that justifies the "Ghost Station" title, and the sort of skin-of-the-teeth escape frequently found in science fiction films. So much happens in the concluding chapters that it made me question the storytelling pace. There was a very slow buildup, but the finale was satisfying.

Thanks to NetGalley for the Advance Readers Copy.

Ghost Station sounds a lot like the cult classic film, Event Horizon, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t expecting something like the movie. Unfortunately Ghost Station was trying to cramp too many storylines and everything ended up sort of confusing at the end.

There were just so many things left unexplained or would’ve been better if the story focused on one thing and explained the backstories?

Instead, we get complicated family history of FMC Ophelia, secret past of her current spaceship crew, some weird alien organism, all of them felt half baked and the ending just wrapped up super fast too.

Could’ve been an interesting sci-fi thriller but I was left with more questions.

What a dark and uncomfortable tale. The dread and unease absolutely jump off the page!

Ophelia has joined a space crew out to bop around to a few planets to get samples and status checks, and then head home. The crew itself is suffering from a recent loss and Ophelia is there as a new psychiatry check to ensure they are all still mentally well enough to be traveling. She's there to ensure everyone keeps their cool.

But as soon as they arrive to the first plant, a very cold and storm riddled spot, the first station shows signs of distress and misuse. From there, the whole crew must decide what is going on and what they will do pull through.

The story was compelling. At first I wasn't sure who was the weakest link and I actually worried our own mc Ophelia might be the most unstable of them all. But as soon as they pull the prank and then the left over suit, the dread and discomfort were absolutely in every part of the story. S. A. Barnes excels at making me uncomfortable but also completely unable to stop reading!

Spooky, creepy - this is the perfect fall season read!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

This book seems to please everyone who likes SF Horror. Alas, I don't and I should never have asked for this title. I didn't finish but not because the book isn't good it's just that I really don't like horror.

I had such great hopes for this book. The synopsis caught my interest right from the start. I even loved the first few chapters and was very engaged. Sadly, I started losing interest towards the middle of the novel., I just needed more layers to the various characters beyond the protagonist. I give Ghost Station 3/5 stars.

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

I also received a copy of this book for free at StokerCon, and I definitely wanted to read it based on the plot. Space horror? Yes, please!

Set in the far future, an exploration team is exploring an abandoned planet trying to figure out why the previous team never made it home. As it is an alien planet, the team is trying to understand who the native inhabitants were, as they are long gone. Because this is a horror book, the characters have to deal with some terrible things along their journey.

The main character is a psychologist who is there to support the team because the team had a previous team member die. She watches the team be infiltrated by some health issues that their medical equipment can’t identify. This book was good but a bit slow for me. The characters are well-developed and interesting, and I did enjoy it. But it could have been shorter and more intense.

3.5 ⭐️
After the success of Dead Silence, I was stoked to find out that S.A. Barnes had a new book coming out. I got this on NetGalley as an ARC ages ago but had difficulty getting into it and enjoying it. It was slow going and I’ve been picking it up and putting it down since I got it. Over the last week I got into it again and finished it off quickly - more so to be done with it than anything else. This story just didn’t do it for me like Dead Silence. I wanted to love this so bad, but where I can rant and rave about Dead Silence, I sadly can’t say the same about Ghost Station; the scariest part of this one is its name.

While it did have some great parts, the ending was disappointing, I thought there would be more OMG! moments and shock and scare, but it was just blah. I’m all for “happy” endings but this one seemed rushed and left me with several unanswered questions.

I know Barnes has another book coming out next year that I’ll definitely be reading, as I do love her style, I just won’t get my hopes up like I did with this one..

After loving Dead Silence, my first proper foray into reading space horror, I was excited about Ghost Station, SA Barnes' second novel. However, Ghost Station lacks the consistent creepiness that Dead Silence has in spades, in part due to more languorous pacing. I wanted to know what was going on, and I found out, but it would be a more thrilling movie than a book, in my opinion.
The plot focuses on Ophelia, a psychologist brought along on a cold sleep mission to a deserted alien planet to provide aid to a team who recently lost one of their members in an accident. Ophelia is familiar with ERS, a mental illness that can gestate under the stress of living in space climates; she's very passionate about her work, and takes it very seriously, especially after her father was diagnosed with the syndrome after he brutally murdered 28 people on a station. But Ophelia's new team isn't happy to have her there, because stigmas against mental health and corporations still run deep even in the future.
And then shit gets weird. But unfortunately, not freaky or unnerving enough for me.
I will say that I like how both of Barnes' novels have had a big theme of mental health and illness in them. I just wish that Ghost Station had nearly the same amount of structure and sinister tone to it as Dead Silence. I had an e-ARC that I put off in favor of a hard copy, but even in the finished version, I found a few typos that slipped all way to publication. As I said before, it would be a better movie than book.

I was fairly disappointed in this book. After reading other books by this author, namely Dead Silence, I had hope for similar pacing and writing. Unfortunately this did not live up to that expectation. This was definitely a bit slow and had no creepiness that the name would lead you to believe. I found Ophelia, the main character annoying, and I was questioning her decisions the whole way through reading. TLDR not my fave book by this author but Dead Silence will have me coming back to try again. I was provided a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion by NetGalley.

I loved S.A. Barnes’ last book “Dead Silence” so I was really excited to read this, sadly I was a little disappointed.

“Ghost Station” started out really strong. The premise is good. Ophelia with all of her family issues, wanting to prove herself to the crew. The eeriness as they entered the abandoned station was great. But once all of that settled, I was a little bored. There was too much of Ophelia and all of her problems. It really got repetitive.

The last quarter of the book picks up a little, but some of it was so outlandish. I felt the “romance” with the Captain was totally unnecessary. It added nothing to the story.

Overall, I was disappointed. The plot really held so much potential, but it fell short.

This was kind of a disappointment. It was okay however it was slow and we spent so much time in the main characters head. I liked the idea of aliens but it left with so many unanswered questions.

Many held great anticipation for the follow up novel to the author's previous release, "Dead Silence". The books are included in the Space Horror genre. While the previous book was considered a success, there was a noted space for improvement upon a great potential.

Unfortunately, the anticipation for Ghost Station, exceeded the reality. A slow start and slow build that led to a lackluster peak. Overall, a creative story concept. However, the horror aspect took a long time to develop. Stunting it's impact. The reader is asked to be patient while developing connections to the characters. As such, those connections come to fruition a bit too late, near the end.

The author still has potential, shown again here. A third novel in an exciting genre is encouraging and many readers will again look to it's release with anticipation.

I was absolutely thrilled to have gotten a copy of this book, because I love space horror, and I know that no one else does it quite like S.A. Barnes. So when I started reading this book, I was massively disappointed with it. I don't DNF books, but I was so sure getting through Ghost Station would be a total slog - and for the first 40%, it was. But the last 60%? Holy shit, what an incredible read.

Aside from just some pacing issues in the first half, what really weighed me down with Ghost Station was how lore-heavy it was. Despite Ghost Station being marketed as a horror book set in space, the front half of it is so intense with lore and context and backstory that you forget what you're supposed to be reading. It's really like jumping into Star Wars for the first time, and trying to keep up with all of these new societal systems, planets, and vocabularies. I genuinely thought I must've downloaded the wrong book onto my Kindle, because for half of Ghost Station, nothing even remotely scary happens. It's all Barnes infodumping about the world she's created, to the point where you're more confused than intrigued. That, combined with the fact that it was slowly paced, and written in present-tense (something I don't see a lot in books, and for good reason, in my opinion) really halted my desire to continue with this book.

But then, you start hitting the actual horror of Ghost Station, and it's absolutely phenomenal. Barnes's descriptions are so vivid and eerie, and you can absolutely picture every single moment of how this book plays out. My favourite kind of horror is one that's just constantly creeping in the background, just out of sight: no big, sudden scares, but this constant sense of unease and wrongness, and Barnes absolutely nailed that in this one. Even when everything seems perfectly fine between major scenes, there's this presence throughout every interaction that reminds you something is coming.

If the first half of the book was way too lore-heavy, then the distinct lack of lore in the second half really worked to Ghost Station's advantage. You understand vaguely what's happening, but you don't know why, or how, or what to do about it. It's all of these unanswered questions - and the fact that so much remains unanswered by the book's end - that capture a very classic horror feel to me. You don't always get to know why the bad guy is out to get you, or how he came into existence; you just know that you have to survive it, and try and make sure the bad guy gets defeated.

It's also incredibly rare for me to find that I really enjoy the way a book ended, but Ghost Station nailed that, too. I was worried that the last chapter would be one big 'you never know what happens to them' cliffhanger, but the epilogue was short, succinct, and really gave a good wrap-up to the story. You don't need a full 'ten years later this is what happened to all of the characters' sort of thing to have a neat ending, and you don't even have to tie up all the loose ends from the story. Ghost Station is a great example of how to end a horror story, and I'm so glad I made it through the first half.

Now that I sort of know what Barnes's writing style is like, I'm definitely going to go into her books knowing what to expect, and I can't to read Dead Silence next! The TL;DR of Ghost Station for me is that you really have to be okay with heavy sci-fi aspects if you're going to enjoy this book, and once you make it past the straight sci-fi, you're in for some absolutely amazing, atmospheric horror.

Ghost Station by S A Barnes
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Dr Ophelia has signed up to join a small space exploration crew assigned to an abandoned planet. The planet holds secrets, the crew holds secrets, and when Ophelia starts experiencing strange symptoms she realizes that they all could be in real danger.
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What I liked:
-The mysteries in this book were written well, it was very captivating and kept me reading.
-The tension between Ophelia and the crew she joins was thick. It added to the suspense.
-I loved books set in space.
-I liked how the story ended.
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4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ghost Station was a good sci-fi mystery/thriller. I still liked Dead Silence better but I would recommend both.

I have read both sci-fi horror books by S.A. Barnes and have loved them both. The author does a fantastic job of writing very real people with relatable reactions. And of course the sci-fi horror aspects are very atmospheric and eerie. Highly looking forward to the next book.