the seance – john harwood

The Seance

I got this book as I had really enjoyed John Harwood’s book The Ghost Writer and had a read a couple of positive reviews.

The first chapter of the story really drew me in – the idea of a young woman who’s mother had never got over the death of her sister over 15 years beforehand, and has decided to take her to a seance.

However, once the main part of the story kicked in after that, I got kind of lost.  There was a whole section that it took me ages to work out what relevance the story had to the rest of the book.

The introduction of a crumbling, spooky old hall with a morbid history could only be a good thing – whenever I read about such places, I always want to go and visit them!  I love spooky old buildings!

For me, the story always seemed to promise something around the corner, and yet failed to deliver.  I think that it could have been so much more than it was.

I enjoyed reading it, and I certainly got through it quickly enough, but it was just missing an element of depth and a bit of passion.  I definitely preferred The Ghost Writer.