The London Séance Society by Sarah Penner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars**
The London Seance Society is a Historical Mystery following Lenna Wickes, a young woman looking into the untimely death of her younger sister, Evie.
Lenna is an apprentice for acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire in Paris. Vaudeline is summoned to London, after the death of an old colleague, which provides Lenna the perfect opportunity to investigate Evie’s final days, as she was living in London at the time of her death.
We also get the perspective of Mr. Morley, the Vice President of the London Seance Society, a secretive men’s club.
Mr. Morley is looking into a murder of this own, that of his friend and fellow Seance Society member, Mr. Wolckman. Incidentally, both Evie and Mr. Wolckman were killed on All Hallow’s Eve. Dun, dun, dunnnnn.
I really enjoyed the opening of this. The vibes that Penner created in the beginning, as we met the two main characters and discovered the dual mysteries, that pulled me in right away. I enjoyed learning about the Seance Society and Vaudeline’s work as well.
By five or six chapters in though, I realized we weren’t just shifting perspectives, we were going back and forth in time as well. I had no clue prior to that. Then I was wondering if I knew what I think I knew…
I think part of that issue for me was that I was listening to the audiobook. Though fabulously narrated, I wasn’t able to refer back to the beginning of each chapter to check the date, so if something I wasn’t sure about happened, there was no quick way to reference where I was in time.
In spite of that, at that point, I was still finding the story itself quite intriguing. Around the middle it did begin to drag for me a bit and I felt myself thinking about other things while reading. In other words, it was a mixed bag.
I think in the middle there were also aspects, particularly surrounding a romance, that I didn’t care for. It felt unnecessary to me and I wished that certain characters could have just been two people working together towards a common goal, instead of wanting to jump each others bones.
Obviously, I am being a little blunt about it, but that’s how that relationship made me feel. However, with my mini-rant out of the way, I did enjoy this. It’s a good book.
Overall, it was entertaining and I definitely enjoyed the atmosphere and mystery elements Penner included. I’m interested in checking out more of her work.
The ending got twisty and I did enjoy some of the things that were revealed. I would say my interest started hella strong and slowly went down as the story continued.
I wish I could have enjoyed this one a bit more, but I am definitely in the minority opinion. There are many glowing reviews and I’m happy that so many people loved it and connected with it.
If you haven’t read it yet and the synopsis sounds intriguing to you, I recommend you give it a go. You could find a new favorite book. It’s especially a great selection for this time of year; quite Autumnal in feel.
