If my description sounds a bit hokey, I’m told that it is not and that there is a powerful payoff as the TV show viewers get a lot more than they bargained for. It becomes a massive hit, even as some detractors wonder if the whole thing is an Amityville Horror-like scam. In essence, A Head Full of Ghosts is a book about a book about a TV show about a real-life event whose facts have never been fully established, with running meta-commentary by a blog that. That leads them to an exorcist, and by that point, the family is in such desperate financial straits that they agree to have the whole thing filmed for a reality show called The Possession. A chilling thriller that brilliantly blends psychological suspense and supernatural horror, reminiscent of Stephen Kings The Shining, Shirley Jacksons The Haunting of Hill House, and William Peter BlattysThe Exorcist. Helpless to stop her descent into madness as their home turns into a house of horrors, her parents turn to a local Catholic priest for help.

The focus is a suburban New England family that is torn apart when 14-year-old Marjorie Barrett begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. The book blends domestic drama, psychological suspense and modern horror. Deals are being closed for Ben Collins & Luke Piotrowski to write the script and for Dan Dubiecki’s Allegiance Theater to produce with Team Downey, the shingle run by Robert Downey Jr and Susan Downey. Focus prevailed in an auction that also had TriStar in hot pursuit. Tremblay’s novel is a slow boil towards a tragic end, but so much of the horror lies in the journey along the way, not just a climactic jump scare.

William Morrow publishes the book next month. Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the author of Growing Things, The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, and the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland. A Head Full of Ghosts starts a little slow, and the perspective of an eight-year-old may take a little bit to get used to, but if you pick up this book, stick with it. EXCLUSIVE: Focus Features just won an auction for rights to make an elevated genre movie from A Head Full Of Ghosts, the upcoming thriller novel by Paul Tremblay.

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay