The Seance

So I'm a little late linking up today, but I guess it's better late than never. Since I got off work early and I'm waiting for Chad to come home so we can be domestic and go grocery shopping, I figured I better write my post up now before I miss my chance!

The Seance by John Harwood

Constance Langton grows up in a household marked by death, her father distant, her mother in perpetual mourning for Constance's sister, the child she lost. Desperate to coax her mother back to health, Constance takes her to a seance: perhaps she will find comfort from beyond the grave. But the meeting has tragic consequences. Constance is left alone, her only legacy a bequest that will blight her life.

So begins The Seance, John Harwood's brilliant second novel, a gripping gothic thriller set late in Victorian England. It is a world of apparitions, of disappearances and unnatural phenomena, of betrayal and blackmail and black-hearted villains - and murder. For Constance's bequest comes in two parts: a house and a mystery. Years before, a family disappeared at Wraxford Hall, a decaying mansion in the English countryside with a sinister reputation. Now the Hall belongs to Constance. And she must descend into the darkness at the heart of the Wraxford Mystery to find the truth, even at the cost of her life.

The only reason I read this book was because a) it was on clearance sale at Barnes and Noble for, like, $1.50 and b) my mom was paying :) 

But it did grab my attention because it has that sort of eerie ghost story appeal, which is something that I do enjoy. 

I ended up REALLY liking it. It has so many plot twists... everytime you get into one portion of the mystery, another complication comes up.

I do think that the ending leaves a LITTLE something to be desired. You expect this big, supernatural outcome, but then it ends up being something completely scientific.

I give it 3 out of 5 stars. Good book, entertaining and engaging, but leaves something to be desired.