A haunting tale of apparitions, a cursed manor house, and two generations of women determined to discover the truth, by the author of The Ghost Writer
Sell the Hall unseen; burn it to the ground and plow the earth with salt, if you will; but never live there…
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 s├®ance; perhaps she will find comfort from beyond the grave. But the meeting has tragic consequences. Constance is left alone, her only legacy a mysterious bequest that will blight her life.
So begins this brilliant and gripping novel, a dark mystery set in late-Victorian England. It is a world of apparitions, of disappearances and unnatural phenomena, of betrayal and blackmail and black-hearted villains—and of murder. 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.
Download and start listening now!
“Many
of the creepy late Victorian familiars abound in The Séance: the dark woods of the English countryside, the ruined
mansion with secret passages and hidden chambers and fog on the moors. There’s
even a sarcophagus in a dead fireplace, a tricked-out suit of armor and some
apparatus for collecting electricity when lightning strikes. Drafts blow out
candles at the most inopportune times. The literary conventions of the
Victorian suspense novel are present as well: the nested narratives that arrive
in mysterious packets, abandoned diaries and even a family tree—complete with
married cousins. Australian John Harwood, whose Ghost Writer won an International Horror Award in 2004, writes with
Poe and Dickens peering over his shoulders, shaking their wizened heads perhaps
over one modern twist: the strongest characters in The Séance are two women of action…The two stories—Constance’s and
Eleanor’s—mesh in the thrilling conclusion…Indeed, the ways in which Harwood
plays with the conventions of the form provide the main source of delight.”
—
Washington Post Book World