T.E. W. (terez93) reviewed on 6/12/2024 + 345 more book reviews

This is a curious tale of two parallel lives with a curious connection. In 1910, a small rural town in Michigan is rocked by a series of murders, including two sisters. Their deaths are investigated by a spiritualist, her self-taught healer daughter, Perliett, a mysterious newcomer, and a series of townsfolk, including the town doctor, who doesn't think too highly of the two women, especially the latter who has undertaken to offer medical services to the community. All must work together, however, to solve the mystery of the deaths of the two sisters, one of whom was Perliett's friend, before the killer can strike again.

In the same small town, a century later, where it seems everyone is still related, intermarried or connected somehow, Molly and her husband return to his hometown after suffering tragedy, purchasing a dilapidated farmhouse in which are buried generations of secrets.

It seems that Molly also has a gift, inherited from her ancestors: she can see and sense the presence of the departed, and her new house is haunted, in more ways than one. With friends and neighbors in tow, Molly and company must solve the mystery of what happened there before she, too, falls victim to a mysterious killer.

This is a good example of where the parallel-story scheme actually works fairly well. They are two different rather than interwoven tales, which mirror each other until the very end, when all is revealed. It's a fairly well-though-out story which has some genuinely terrifying moments, even if it's a bit slow at the outset.

It's also a complex tale, with multiple elements drawn from life, which lends a great realism to it that many other fictional novels of this type greatly lack. The characters are people you know, or, maybe, even have been: for example, the main character struggles with depression and a seriously strained relationship with her husband after suffering a series of miscarriages, because the two partners dealt with the loss differently.

It's also one of the more philosophical fictional stories I've read in a long while, even discussing the biblical views of attempting to communicate with the dead, and the differences in opinion on the subject, delving fairly deeply into conversations on the nature of death, the soul and the afterlife, so it's not just all fluff. It seems that it's in some ways autobiographical, and even according to the author's afterword, is drawn from elements in her own life, which definitely shows in the way the characters are portrayed.

This is one of the books I just picked up at the library in passing, and I'm glad I did. It's definitely one of the better suspense novels I've read of late, and highly recommended for those who like that particular genre.

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