I would describe myself as a voracious reader of books. At any given time I tend to be reading at least three books, devouring a few chapters of each and then switching them up until they are all finished, and of course more are introduced. This has been my habit since my early teens.

Over the past several years most of my reading has been confined to non-fiction, but over the past year I have rediscovered the joys of fiction. I'd like to blame my middle daughter who is an English major for this renewed love of fictional works. On her recommendation I have been reading both Margaret Laurence, and Margret Atwood. I have also been getting into supernatural thrillers, and gothic horror.

It started out a few months back with the fairly new release of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith, (I believe it is being made into a movie) which I found to be a lot of fun, and a perfect lazy summer day read. Since then I have read several titles of a similar genre. Just last night I finished John Harwood's The Seance, which I read in the span of two days because it was too good to put down.

Here is a snippet from Amazon:

A haunting tale of apparitions, a cursed manor house, and two generations of women determined to discover the truth, by the author of The Ghost Writer Sell the Hall unseen; burn it to the ground and plow the earth with salt, if you will; but never live there . . .” Constance Langton grows up in a household marked by death, her father distant, her mother in perpetual mourning for Constance’s sister, the child she lost.Desperate to coax her mother back to health, Constance takes her to a séance: perhaps she will find comfort from beyond the grave. But the meeting has tragic consequences. Constance is left alone, her only legacy a mysterious bequest that will blight her life. So begins The Séance, John Harwood’s brilliant second novel, a gripping, dark mystery set in late-Victorian England.

It is a world of apparitions, of disappearances and unnatural phenomena, of betrayal and blackmail and black-hearted villains—and murder. For Constance’s bequest comes in two parts: a house and a mystery. Years before, a family disappeared at Wraxford Hall, a decaying mansion in the English countryside with a sinister reputation. Now the Hall belongs to Constance. And she must descend into the darkness at the heart of the Wraxford Mystery to find the truth, even at the cost of her life.

I put this book high on my recommended reading list, particularly for those who like a good Victorian style detective story with strong supernatural undercurrent.

Very spooky!