#BlogTour: I AM DUST by Louise Beech @LouiseWriter @OrendaBooks @annecater #RandomThingsTours

Publication: 16th April – 2020 – Orenda Books

When iconic musical Dust is revived twenty years after the leading actress was murdered in her dressing room, a series of eerie events haunts the new cast…

The Dean Wilson Theatre is believed to be haunted by a long-dead actress, singing her last song, waiting for her final cue, looking for her killer…

Now Dust, the iconic musical, is returning after twenty years. But who will be brave enough to take on the role of ghostly goddess Esme Black, last played by Morgan Miller, who was murdered in her dressing room?

Theatre usher Chloe Dee is caught up in the spectacle. As the new actors arrive, including an unexpected face from her past, everything changes. Are the eerie sounds and sightings backstage real or just her imagination? Is someone playing games?

Not all the drama takes place onstage. Sometimes murder, magic, obsession and the biggest of betrayals are real life. When you’re in the theatre shadows, you see everything.
And Chloe has been watching…

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I am delighted to welcome you on my stop on the blog tour for I Am Dust, the suspenseful new novel by Louise Beech.

Let me start my review by admitting ashamedly that this is the first novel by Louise Beech. Reading the reviews of other bloggers, it seems that I am very late to the party, but I am planning to catch up quickly, especially after reading this latest gripping novel. Seriously, I was completely blown away by this novel. Once I started reading I couldn’t put it down. It reminded me a bit of The Phantom of the Opera and I loved the dark and claustrophobic atmosphere, the setting of the theatre where most of the story takes place, and the author’s writing style is captivating.

I Am Dust in narrated through two timelines. In 2005, three teenagers attend the local theatre class and play with magic, death, and a Ouija board to call spirits. In the present, one of them is working as an usher in the local theatre. The announcement that a play is going to be back on stage after twenty years brings back to light memories of the past and an unsolved murder.

The author did an amazing job mixing teenage drama and jealousies with ghosts, witches, and cursed plays. You will find yourself immersed in this haunting and gothic mystery with supernatural elements that will take you by surprise, that will give you goose-bumps and keep you on the edge of your seat as you read. Even though sometimes I didn’t like the characters and I found them annoying, they are well-crafted and they fit perfectly with the story.

If, like me, you haven’t read any novels by Louise Beech, I think that I Am Dust is the perfect book to start discovering this author because it will leave you wanting for more. Highly recommended!!!

A huge thank you to Anne Cater and Orenda Books for providing me with a copy of the book and inviting me to join the blog tour.

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Follow the rest of the blog tour:

Recalling the theatre noir of Ngaio Marsh with supernatural elements and a modern spin, this is a bewitching, beguiling and
dark psychological thriller from the critically acclaimed author of The Lion Tamer Who Lost and Call Me Star Girl.
Louise Beech is an exceptional literary talent, whose debut novel How To Be Brave was a Guardian Readers’ Choice for 2015. Her second book, The Mountain in My Shoe was shortlisted for Not the Booker Prize. Both of her previous books Maria in the Moon and The Lion Tamer Who Lost were widely reviewed, critically acclaimed and number-one bestsellers on Kindle. The
Lion Tamer Who Lost was shortlisted for the RNA Most Popular Romantic Novel Award in 2019. Her short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice. Louise lives with her
husband on the outskirts of Hull, and loves her job as a Front of House Usher at Hull Truck Theatre, where her first play was performed in 2012.