Who will prevail - the woman or the ghost? For five years Edie has worked for the Elysian Society, a secretive organisation that provides a very specialised service- its clients come to reconnect with their dead loved ones by channelling them through living 'Bodies'. Edie is one such Body, perhaps the best in the team, renowned for her professionalism and discretion. But everything changes when Patrick, a distraught husband, comes to look for traces of his drowned wife in Edie. The more time that Edie spends as the glamorous, enigmatic Sylvia, the closer she comes to falling in love with Patrick a and the more mysterious the circumstances around Sylvia's death appear. As Edie falls under Sylvia's spell, she must discover not only the couple's darkest secrets, but her own long-buried memories and desires - before it's too late. 'I was totally immersed in the strange, beautiful world of Sara Flannery Murphy's The Possessions. A gripping, chilling read that's part love story, part mystery, and completely original, it's sensuous, scary, and utterly thrilling. I've never read anything quite like it.' - Anton DiSclafani, author of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls 'The Possessions might be the most affecting, riveting novel about love and obsession I've read in a decade. Sara Flannery Murphy possesses the dystopian imagination of Margaret Atwood and the keen feminist incisiveness of Heidi Julavits, but the haunting, seductive prose is all her own. This is a literary ghost story for a whole new generation.' - Christopher Bollen, author of Orient 'An enthralling meditation on grief and memory cloaked in suspenseful psychodrama, The Possessions dissolves the boundaries of past and present and artfully, heartbreakingly maps the consequences of transgressive desire. Sara Flannery Murphy has written the best kind of ghost story.' - Robin Wasserman, author of Girls on Fire