Calling it quits at 54%. I am not normally a reader of sci-fi books, but I was intrigued by the intersection of sci-fi and horror Ghost Station offered. The beginning of the novel worked fairly well as Barnes executes solid world building; however, I feel as though things stalled out around the 30% mark. This may just be the wrong time for me to be reading this particular book, but I did not feel a great sense of attachment to our MC or really enjoy (what seems to be) the romance subplot. The small scares that are implemented at the end of each chapter toward the beginning of the novel do not go very far in setting the tone given that they don't advance past initial shock value. Perhaps I'll come back to this at a later time, but for now, it's just not working for me. A huge thanks to Tor Nightfire for allowing me to read this title, I so desperately wanted to love it!

S.A. Barnes is very quickly becoming my go-to for sci-fi horror! What's more scary than the vast expanse of unknown space? Heck if I know, but this is a great read that will keep you on the edge of your seat!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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📖 I received this digital copy of Ghost Station from @netgalley and it was an easy 4 star read! This is my second S.A. Barnes book, and it did not disappoint. I feel like only she can write a book that is sci-fi, future, horror all rolled into one and have it make sense!

This story had a lot of creepy vibes which I loved. If you are looking for a unique book with an interesting genre combo, this is it! The only thing I wish I had more of was character development and more of “what happened after.” Overall, great book!

Imgur link goes to Instagram graphic scheduled for April 12th
Blog post goes live April 9th
Will be discussed in April Reads Pt 1

**TL;DR:** S.A. Barnes hits that sweet spot of horror where the gore is high, but it’s not SUPER scary - because I’m a wimp. I enjoyed this immensely.

I was a big fan of S.A. Barnes’s book last year, Dead Silence. This year Ghost Station hits that same sweet spot for me. In this one we follow a psychiatrist as she departs on research mission with a team that’s recently lost a member. She struggles both with her identity and the dynamics of the team as they’re trapped within a station that’s empty and haunted by something or someone.

This is a fairly introspective novel at first. Ophelia spends a lot of time waxing melodramatic about her family, her mistakes, etc but once past that her story is actually very interesting. Her father was a mass murderer, famous and notorious for his murders. While her mother is part of one of the richest, ruling company families in the galaxy. She has grisly memories of the massacre perpetrated by her father, and she fights that ghost while everyone else sees nothing more than a spoiled rich girl.

The story does seem a big hung up on that inner conflict and turmoil but in the later half I truly enjoyed the insidious and creepy horror of the novel. It’s gory and gross, and just the right amount of creepy for me. There is a lot of ignoring obvious red flags but it still managed to surprise and spook me.

Overall another solid win for me with Ghost Station from S.A. Barnes. If you like Sci-fi horror I do think she’s an author to try.

4 out of 5 creepy wandering shoes

What an introduction to S.A. Barnes! I love claustrophobic sci-fi horror books and this was no different. One could argue it's sci-fi thriller but I definitely see the horror elements coming through. My main critique is that I feel the description of the book gives away a major plot point that doesn't even happen until we're ~60% through the book so it felt a bit anti-climatic because I knew it was coming. I also wish the epilogue was a bit longer but overall I loved this book and I'll definitely be checking out Barnes' other book soon.
*Thank you to NetGalley and TOR for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel to read in exchange for an honest review.

Ghost Station was a great read. I enjoyed it from start to finish. The book is the perfect balance of science fiction and horror that fans of both genres could find entertaining. But on top of that it's also just a very well-written book that tells a good story, two things that don't always go hand-in-hand in the horror genre. I was pulled into the story right away, and kept immersed throughout by the rich details the author used to weave into the world. From the rich history belonging to the main character to the clear motivators driving supporting characters, it felt well thought out. You could tell that this was a world the author crafted with care.

I haven't previously read this author's work, but just based on how much I enjoyed this book I'm going to go back and read her other novel, Dead Silence. I will absolutely be looking forward to this author's future work.

This novel was everything I wanted it to be and what we’ve come to expect from S. A. Barnes. It was suspenseful and thrilling. The oppressive sense that something is about to happen was present throughout and handled masterfully. The characters were not extremely developed but we came to know them well enough to suit the narrative and for us to care about them. A must read!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book.

Dr Ophelia Bray is not only a member of one of the richest and most powerful families on earth, she is also a renowned psychologist whose specialty is one in which her family is deeply involved. It is the syndrome that seems to infect space workers who are subjected to long periods of space travel. Unknown to her colleagues, she is also a victim of a person suffering from this syndrome in its most famous case.

She feels she has made a lot of progress in treating ERS, until the patient who she considers one of her most successful cases commits suicide almost right in front of her. This affects her so badly that she requests to leave her lab and travel on one of the missions with a crew who have recently lost a member, presumably to ERS. The idea is that if she observes the crew while they are actively on a mission she may be able to better understand the syndrome and identify some of the early symptoms.

But the crew is more than upset by the loss of their crewmate, they are secretive and not receptive to any help that Ophelia might provide. And there are strange things happening in and around their habitation. Then one of the crew recognizes her in her former identity and threatens to expose her.

The death of two crew members sends the survivors to find a way to abandon the mission and return to earth, but what will they be bringing back with them?

Quite the read, and I was never sure if Ophelia was the villain or the victim, or who (or what?) exactly WAS the villain. And sometimes neither was Ophelia.

sci-fi horror is right up my alley, and while some of this didn't work for me, it was on the whole a quality read. i didn't really vibe with ophelia as a protagonist (it doesn't help to have a character self-aware about the bad decisions she's making if she STILL MAKES THEM), and i didn't love the climax, but the premise and the atmospheric execution were both great. the tower shape reveal was stellar and really made the book. very much looking forward to reading dead silence

I loved this book! I had previously enjoyed Dead Silence, but I thought Ghost Station was even better! There is so much suspense and dread in this book and the eerie atmosphere leaves you unsettled. Ophelia is a total mess, and has no business being a therapist but it was fun to watch her try. I kept thinking, "Doctor heal thyself!" I really liked Ethan and Liana, and I enjoyed the growth that some of the characters showed. While I wouldn't say this book is truly scary, there were definitely some moments of body horror that gave me the creepy crawlies. The ending was interesting, but I wish there was more of it. Some things were left unexplained, and I would love to know more. Also, there could have been a few less flashbacks. It wasn't a big deal, but there were a lot of them, and it could be a bit repetitive. Overall though, I thought Ghost Station was an excellent space horror and I'm looking forward to seeing what S.A. Barnes comes up with next!

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the ARC!

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of "Ghost Station" by S. A. Barnes in exchange for an honest review.

Psychologist Ophelia Bray, survivor of a mass murder aboard a space station when she was a child, has dedicated her life to fighting ERS, a psychological condition afflicting certain space-based professions and the cause of the mass murder. To this end, she signs up for a planet-hopping expedition with a team who recently lost a member to ERS. They land on a planet that features the remains of a lost, alien civilization with the intent of completing a planetary survey.

The crew dynamics are messy, they all seem to hate and resent her, and after they set up in an abandoned human base, they discover signs which suggest that the last human mission didn't end well.

Ophelia and the others start thinking and acting more erratically, until finally their pilot ends up horrifically, gruesomely dead, seemingly by his own hand. What follows is a taut, scary, sometimes bonkers tale. Ophelia works, sometimes with and sometimes against, her crewmates to get to the truth of what's happening to them.

The first quarter of the book starts a little slow. There's a lot of context to establish, including Ophelia's credentials as a fringe member of a monstrously rich and powerful family as well as her Traumatic Past, both of which loom large throughout the story. But if you push on through, things pick up considerably after that 25% mark. It's scary, weird, and compulsively readable. It's not quite as overtly ghostly as the title might suggest; mostly the haunting occurs psychologically.

One interesting aspect is the explanation for what happened to the previous team and why things are going to heck for the current one. Without spoiling anything, this one felt fairly fresh.

Highly recommended for readers who enjoy space horror, heavy on psychological messiness and relatively (though not completely) light on gore.

I've been a huge fan of S.A. Barnes since her YA days, and honestly this did not disappoint. It still has the great structure and quick paced plot that made her a tenet of YA collections (for me), while providing and unique and engaging story that kept me reading late into the night. I absolutely loved Ghost Station and cannot wait to see what she'll do next.

I knew immediately, probably about 3 pages in, that the writing was not for me. The prose doesn’t flow very easily, and it seems very disjointed,
I’m sorry, it just was not my favorite.

Ghost Station was unsettling and satisfying at the same time. The story slowly pulled me in from the start not knowing what was real on the abandoned station. I could feel Dr. Bray's sense of vulnerability and aloneness along with the horror and eerie atmosphere. This is one of those books that will stick with me though I might not understand exactly why.

After reading Dead Silence a couple years ago, I was so excited to read another scifi horror from this author. The cover is stunning and the synopsis brought me in immediately. I am sorry to say that this one didn't work for me as well as the first.

Now, I do love this author's writing. I get sucked into her books easily and am so invested throughout. I did enjoy following these characters and I do think the horror elements were well done. However, it took way to long to get to those horror elements that I was looking for.

There is a part of the synopsis that doesn't even happen until over half was through the book. While I do think the buildup was needed to get to know these characters, I was just waiting for the change to happen and the horror to start. I can enjoy a slow burn horror, but I felt like I was just waiting too long for it to hit. When it did, I was really enjoying but that was so little of the book.

I really wished that I had enjoyed this, but I just felt unsatisfied with this by the end.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the arc.

I read and loved this author’s debut Dead Silence so I was really looking forward to reading another spooky sci-fi book from her! And overall, I liked it! Not as much as Dead Silence, but it was still good.

Ophelia is a therapist who sees patients after they return from space with ERS—a space-based mental health condition that is characterized by hallucinations and violence. The first case of ERS was a literal massacre, so Ophelia takes this very seriously. But now, instead of waiting for patients to come to her, Ophelia is going out to space to see a crew before the possibility of ERS even has a chance to set in—a crew that recently lost a crewmember. Prophylaxis. I liked the idea. Unfortunately for Opehlia, these guys are hiding something and they don’t entirely trust her...

And on top of that, the planet they landed on is... not great. I mean, it’s cool because it’s a planet with former intelligent life (that’s what the crew is there to explore—ancient ruins), but the weather conditions are brutal, but more importantly, they find their pilot freaking dead!!

Ophelia is worried that she’s too late and that this may be the work of ERS. Or maybe not 👀 But she and the (remaining) crew are gonna have to start getting along long enough to figure out what the heck is going on, before another one of them ends up dead.

Like I said previously, I didn’t quite enjoy this one as much as I did Dead Silence, and one reason is because it didn’t start off that great for me. First of all, I was excited for another creepy sci-fi book, and while this was at times creepy, we got a lot of fakeouts in the beginning and I just am not about that. Listen, I have read a ton of R.L. Stine books and he tends to overuse fakouts, so now I’m sick of them. But this is definitely a me issue. Sometimes they can be done right, but here it was just nonstop eye-rolls from me.

And this goes hand in hand with my second issue: I felt like it started off pretty slow. For me, it started to pick up just over the halfway mark. It took a while for me to really get invested in the book and story, but once I was invested, let me tell you, I was INVESTED. I just needed to know what was happening! Crazy things kept occurring and you didn’t know whether it was the sequel to the Blood Bledsoe massacre or... something else 👀 Even though I didn’t find this book to be as creepy as Dead Silence, it had some pretty good body horror and overall gore! There were parts that made me cringe and shudder, and that’s how you know that descriptions were well done! 😆

Despite the fact that I didn’t find this book to be as atmospherically creepy as Dead Silence (which was my favorite thing about that book actually), I still did enjoy this one! I really liked the premise and the direction the story went—it was wild! And even though I guessed a couple of plot twists and honestly could’ve done without the fakeouts in the beginning, the second half of the book was very engaging! I really enjoyed unraveling the mystery of what was going on with the crew and the creepy abandoned planet they were on.

S. A. Barnes second book, Ghost Station continues to meld the promise of a sci-fi future with the uncanny horror of the unknown. Ghost Station is focused on Dr. Ophelia Bray and the research and exploration team she is tasked with keeping sane and stable as they head out to their next mission, grieving their lost member, who died on their prior posting.

Interstellar travel is possible, but humans must undergo a cold sleep process. This comes with risks to long term mental health and Dr. Bray and her colleagues are focusing on learning more about Eckhart-Reiser syndrome (ERS) as well as treated its causes before those afflicted harm themselves or others. ERS is the name given to the mental breakdowns contributed to by working and living in space, loss of circadian rhythm, isolation, stress, poor diet and lack of privacy.

Bray comes from a very wealthy family that runs one of the corporations making space exploration possible. However, she is a black sheep wanting as little to do with the family as possible, having gone her own way in both career and employer. The family still seeks to control her in the name of the family and their image. As we join the story, the family is adamant she not undertake her new posting.

Bray continually has to fight against the expectations of others, but she goes on the mission. The team is tasked with visiting the claim of another R&E team and securing samples and information for the good of the company they work for. Discoveries can fuel both understanding and technology. The planet was inhabited by a sloth-like people that had mastered space travel between the planets of their local planet. Due to some unknown cataclysm they have died off and the planet is now their crypt, desolate and frozen.

Ghost Station has a great setting and atmosphere. Bray is a conflicted main character trying to do her best and move out from both the shadow of her privileged upbringing and a traumatic past that is first hinted and then detailed in full. Much of her internal voice is the balance between trying to maintain her status as a competent professional and her deep insecurities.

The the plot is driven by the interpersonal tensions in the R&E team down a member, seeking to adjust. Grief is heavy, but much more so is keeping sane when your day job requires constant danger that is not always acknowledged or properly compensated. There is also some class conflict as the R&E team have a variety of backgrounds and often are looking for possible ways to increase their earnings. In a nod to our present, many took to the stars because artificial intelligence had left them no other Earth based possibilities.

Ghost Station has a slow start but tensions build to a dramatic and fitting climax. It is reminiscent of The Thing or Alien a small crew of humans are tasked with exploration and come across something unknown that, at first slowly, forces them to question their sanity or if something hardly seen is starting to influence their actions. They are working at the behest of larger corporations that properly are more profit focused than concerned with their health and safety.

Recommended for fans of Kali Wallace or spookier/scarier science fiction.

This book was fine. I had heard a lot of good things about the author’s other book so I went in with pretty high expectations that I can’t say were quite met. Maybe it was a me issue but I just felt like the story moved a little too slow.

Ghost Station is a new sci fi horror novel about a group of people who go to a new planet and discover something. Dr. Bray is a woman who is trying to help people with a disease that is similar to PTSD and is caused from space travel. She goes on this mission to try and help this crew.

I liked the characters of this book and the setting. Everything was described well and very vivid.

Unfortunately, I didn’t like this book. I felt very bored throughout and it wasn’t very scary to me. I’m not a huge sci fi reader and all the technical stuff was just so boring for me. The action and horror didn’t start for a long time either.

This book was not for me but I hope others love it. Thanks so much to netgalley and tor for the arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Wow, what a page-turner! I've never considered myself a huge horror fan, but after reading Barnes's last book, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for allowing me an ARC! Barnes has a way of weaving visceral description into extraterrestrial worlds, and making the reader reflect on their humanity while exploring these imaginative sci-fi settings. The cast of characters is strong, the twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat, and I finished reading it in a day!

The story follows Ophelia Bray, the estranged daughter of a wealthy family, who has spent her whole life fighting to define her own identity beyond her last name. Ophelia is a psychologist specializing in ERS, a syndrome that has caused deep-space travelers to meet violent ends, even attacking their own crews. She is assigned to accompany a small exploration crew following the death of one of their own, to help them avoid a similar fate. When they reach their assignment on an abandoned planet rife with alien ruins, it becomes clear that things are not as they should be.