James's Reviews > The London Séance Society

The London Séance Society by Sarah Penner caught my eye when it was first marketed by the publisher. I was super busy at the time and didn't pick up a copy, but now that I'm reading all the Goodreads Choice nominees/winners from a few genres, this one hit my queue. I'd give it a 3.5 stars but rounding down because I felt it had a number of flaws and confusing moments where I got pulled out of the story too often, trying to figure out how something was and wasn't lining up. When the situations weren't addressed in the conclusion, I realized it was probably that the story was too fabricated in some respects. I'm all in for ghosts, hauntings, historical fiction, and murder. The two main female characters were memorable, and the male one was interesting but there was a case of slightly unreliable narrator and the swapping POV made it difficult to figure out whose perspective was telling truths and lies.

The story itself was great: a famous medium disappears only to be lured back by the death of someone cared for. A sister joins the medium to figure out how her own sister died. Two men run the London Society, but there are imposters in their organization. One is murdered. It comes together nicely, and I liked the deep dive into how a séance runs and how you entrap the dead to lure out their secrets. But the missing parts of the story, too conveniently tied up in the end and to some degree left open, left me wishy washy. I enjoyed the writing and will read another of the author's other novels.