Author: Sonia Gensler
Publisher: Alfred Knopf
Rating: WORTHY!
This is the first of a pair of reviews on Sonia Gensler's work, the first two of her novels that I've ever read, and it speaks highly of her writing that after I'd read this one, I immediately started tracking down other books by this writer. She seems to have made this genre her specialty, but unfortunately, the second one I read, The Revenant was far less satisfying.
This novel reminds me a lot of Haunting violet by Alyxandra Harvey which I favorably reviewed back in May 2013. It has that same 'medium working with a younger female assistant who helps perpetrate fraud, and the subsequent exposure and consequences' as this one does, although the two are different stories.
Kate Pool is a fourteen-year-old whose entire existence is dependent upon aiding Mrs Martineau, a spirit medium (I don't say fraudulent medium because the two are synonymous in my experience) to rob mourners of their money. When the medium is exposed and seeks to devolve all the blame upon poor Kate, the latter throws herself on the mercy of one of the men who exposed her - Oliver Thompson, who is employed at nearby Summerfield College in Cambridge, and who has a connection with the man Kate believes is her father.
To his credit, Thompson steps up, and it's through this association with the college that Kate meets Elsie Atherton, a true clairvoyant (not that such a thing exists in real life, mind!) who believes she's ill and is required to take an addictive drug to combat this "mental illness" she supposedly has, and Asher Beale, a young American who is traveling in England. It turns out that Elsie, Kate, and Asher are all indirectly connected because of a rather evil and highly abusive scheme the three of them begin to uncover as Kate takes-up residence in the college and they start to interact on a regular basis. Soon the three are investigating unusual murders which begin to crop-up in town
Kate really is the unwanted child of Frederic Stanton (a man with whom Thompson is very closely associated through psychical research), who died in strange circumstances, the interpretation and understanding of which is one of the drivers of this novel. While Kate is the proactive, practical planner of the trio and Asher is a strong, protective, capable but not invincible resource, Elsie is at first a rather drug-addicted dreamer and romantic who puts herself in difficult situations because of her infatuation with an art teacher she once studied under. Not surprisingly, she's the one who makes the most growth, but her romanticism somehow fails to clue her in to the fact that Asher has fallen for her.
I was impressed with the realistic way this novel was written, and with the inventive and intriguing characters. It was based in some real history (the psychic research society coming out of Cambridge, for example) but wove that into the credible fiction which kept me turning pages despite my total disbelief in such things in real life. It's nicely-plotted and makes for a quick and comfortable read.
