Paper Ghosts

Coming 9-1-2026!

1976: Restless young Willamena falls for a stranded musician who brings freedom and the promise of another life to her carefully controlled world. Their brief, incandescent love story promises to escape the pull of the Wester legacy until Willamena makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever.

Present day: Returning home is the last thing Bailey Wester wants. Yet as she reconnects with Willamena, the grandmother she feared, Bailey begins to understand the love, heartbreak, and impossible choices that shaped the women in her family. And she realizes the past may not have been trying to haunt them, after all

Creating strong, complicated connections within family relationships and friendships, particularly between women, is one of Allen's superpowers, and it’s on full display here.

- Booklist, starred review

Allen’s latest atmospheric, compelling novel is populated with well-drawn characters, including ghosts, and laced with magical realism. It’s sure to please her fans as well as those of Alice Hoffman.

- Library Journal

The fascinating Wester women will haunt you long after you close the book.

- Meg Shaffer, USA Today Bestselling Author of The Wishing Game

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