Publication Date: February 21, 2025
New York Times bestselling ghostwriter, Samantha Rose, steps out of the shadows to unravel the mystery surrounding her mother’s suicide. What begins as a solitary journey of grief shifts form when her mother slips back from the darkness beyond to reconcile her irreversible choice. Raw, deeply revealing, and with resilient humor throughout, Giving Up the Ghost explores the layered complexity of mental health, the love between mothers and daughters, and how, in the aftermath of inconceivable loss, we can release our inner ghosts and write a new story for ourselves.
Reeling in the aftermath of her mother’s suicide, Samantha Rose delivers a personal account that is both raw and cathartic.
Giving Up the Ghost takes readers through not only the various stages of grief, but it also illustrates the repercussions that accompany suicide. For Samantha and her two sisters, dealing with the sudden death becomes almost a full-time job requiring a whiteboard, checklists, and a never-ending desire to know why.
At times humorous, the author bravely puts her emotions on display. The gut-wrenching scene where she has to break the news to her 7-year-old son serves as a stark reminder of the ripple effect a sudden death can have.
From an adult perspective, the author delivers a compelling message that we can control only our own choices, not other people.
Giving Up the Ghost serves up an impactful lesson about honoring a mother’s final act of free will.
Samantha Rose is an Emmy award-winning television producer and a New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling ghostwriter of nearly twenty titles, some that have been selected as Reese’s Book Club and Target Bookmarked Picks and featured in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah and Harper’s Bazaar. Her new memoir, Giving Up the Ghost, was awarded the top prize at the 2025 San Francisco Book Festival and is her first book written under her own name.
