A darkly humorous YA story about the demons that h(a)unt us and how we can choose to fight back — for fans of the movie Obsession and the Scary Movie franchise!
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Ghosted by Talia Tucker, which releases on November 10th 2026.
An entirely unhinged and spooky story about getting ghosted and getting revenge. What if you got ghosted and had the chance to do the funniest thing by haunting him right back? What if it consumed your every waking thought like a girl possessed, fighting for brain space with your sleep paralysis demon and your first serious girl crush? What then???
Keziah is very familiar with ghosts—after all, a sleep paralysis demon has been her closest companion for the last few years, and she’s constantly getting ghosted. Which isn’t really helping her get a date for the Homecoming dance. And then she meets a guy who just transferred to the all-boys school nearby. He’s charming, cute, and—unlike with her other dates—she actually sees potential with him.
Too bad he ghosts her, too.
This time, though, she isn’t going to take it so easily. Not when Guy and his friends mess with her real true love, Mr. Kim’s food truck, and especially not when she finds out the real reason Guy transferred in the first place. If he wants to ghost, she’ll haunt him right back to where he came from.
Enacting revenge while her sleep paralysis demon keeps bugging her certainly won’t be easy but, with help from a cute girl, let the real (and well-deserved) ghosting begin!
EXCERPT
PROLOGUE
IT STARTED IN JUNIOR HIGH—the nights when my consciousness would be awake while my body remained asleep. I’d be trapped within myself, unable to move or scream. I could only watch, wait, and regain control by moving one finger at a time, until my hands worked, then my arms, then the rest of me.
Naively, I believed I could simply outgrow my need to sleep. But after a few days without it, I felt like I was being followed by unseen eyes—yet no one would be there when I turned around. After a few weeks, a figure began appearing at the foot of my bed at night. It didn’t have a face or a body; it was only a pair of dazzling yellow eyes, deep set in corporeal darkness, staring at me.
Realizing I did, in fact, need sleep, I tried to find rest, only to awaken to those haunting eyes and an unrelenting pressure on my chest. I’d struggle to scream but wouldn’t be able to make a sound.
It didn’t take long for me to realize it was my sleep paralysis demon who had been watching me, waiting patiently for me to close my eyes.
Countless sleepless nights eventually led me to the conclusion that if I couldn’t beat him, I’d have to endure him. We entered negotiations wherein I promised to sleep every night to keep his hunger satiated, and in exchange, he would no longer need to paralyze my body.
I named him Steve, and we’ve been best friends ever since.
