KARA WAS HERE, a novel

Brad Mitchell's life is falling apart. Both his marriage and health are in limbo. The woman he thought he would marry, Kara, has died from an overdose. A friend keeps trying to convince him that Kara was actually murdered. And then there's Kara's ghost. She keeps visiting.

Kara Was Here tells the story of a failed actress whose life and sudden death are only partially understood; her teenage sister, Gwen, who starts taking dangerous steps into Kara's secret world; Kara's college friend, Margot, who went from being the football team's sexy secret weapon to the solitary proprietress of a baked goods business; and Kara's one-time lover, Brad, who stands with one foot in the past and one foot in an increasingly uncertain future.

Conescu's novel is at once a mystery about the dangers of aging into adulthood, an exploration of truth and perception, and a story about the ways we keep those we love with us—the people we've lost, the people we no longer see, and the people we used to be.

From Soft Skull Press, an imprint of Counterpoint Press (2013)

Praise for Kara Was Here

"Kara Was Here is a beguiling shape-shifter. Grief evolves into culpability before turning into something much stranger and more surprising. William Conescu's mesmerizing novel is a taut, exquisitely written psychological tour-de-force."
-- David Gilbert, author of & Sons

"Memories have mass, and they often haunt us. Conescu has found nuanced ways to dramatize this phenomenon, bringing his ghosts to life in visceral and enthralling ways."
-- Joshua Mohr, author of Fight Song

"Kara Was Here is an elegant, witty, profound, and completely fascinating novel. It's brilliant and so quietly suspenseful, I could not put it down."
-- Angela Davis-Gardner, author of Butterfly's Child

"Conescu's latest is a light, engaging novel about a man, his deceased ex-girlfriend, and the mystery of her death….Conescu's characters are believable, and he carries off Kara's ghost scenes without melodrama or portent…[An] entertaining read."
-- Publishers Weekly

"In many ways, Kara Was Here can be read as a contemporary take on James Joyce's The Dead….Conescu's characters are resilient. Reading through their struggles is an exercise in catharsis and compassion."
-- Shelf Awareness

"As the point of view shifts among these three players in Kara's dramatic life, the reader sees how the respective lives of the three survivors become inextricably linked and impacted by Kara's past and her spectral present...[T]he characters are sympathetic and readers will welcome their ultimate successes."
-- Booklist