the london séance society a novel sarah penner

Perhaps my favorite research book was Chris Woodyard’s The Victorian Book of the Dead. SP: Oh, the research was such a blast! All things ghosts, London, the Victorian Era. TGBC: What kind of research did you do for this novel and how long do you spend researching before beginning to write? A real séance, not a fake one.” At that very moment, a lightbulb went off: I love the word “séance,” as it feels sultry and mysterious, and I decided my book would, somehow, incorporate a woman who was known worldwide for her skill in conjuring spirits during séance. Then, one day while chatting with my mom, she said to me, “we should go to a séance. SP: I’ve always wanted to write a ghost story, but haunted houses are so common in fiction, and I could never settle on a fresh take to the trope. TGBC: Where did the inspiration for London Séance Society come from? But soon, they begin to suspect they’re not only out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves…

Together with an exclusive mens’ society in London called the Séance Society, the two women try to hunt down the truth. She is sought out by a young woman named Lenna Wickes, whose sister recently died under suspicious circumstances. My story is about a woman named Vaudeline D’Allaire, an internationally-esteemed spiritualist who conjures the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identity of the people who killed them. Sarah Penner: The London Séance Seance Society takes place in high Victorian London, when séances and ghosts were all the rage. She holds her seances, for which she is very well paid, only at the scene of the murder - hence that eerie chateau.The Gloss Book Club: What can you tell our members about your novel The London Séance Society?

The souls she speaks for are murder victims whose killers have gotten away. These were not the casualties of war, valiant men who’d known what they were getting themselves into.” The spirits she summons and speaks for are “not old grandmothers in white nightgowns, lives lived long, stalking through corridors. Vaudeline has a very particular specialty as a medium. That’s how Lenna finds herself, as the novel opens, as a participant at a hair-raising seance late one night in an abandoned chateau in Paris during a snowstorm, with the parents of another murdered young woman and a legendary medium - Evie’s former teacher - named Vaudeline D’Allaire. Until the night she finds Evie murdered in the garden of the small London hotel run by their parents. She has argued about spiritualism, mostly good-naturedly, with her younger sister, vivacious Evie, who’s studying to become a medium. She’s a bright young woman with a burgeoning interest in science - the era’s flurry of discoveries of fossil remains thrills her with a new understanding of the world. For Lenna Wickes, the main character of “The London Seance Society,” it’s the latter, although Lenna is no true believer.

The london séance society a novel sarah penner