brilliant read if you are into Victorian era. this novel is a hauntingly delicious read, the mysteries and suspense keep the storyline in place with its sense of foreboding.

Eleanor has grown up with a strange gift - she has visitations from the dead. Her family finds this disconcerting, but interesting as well. While she tries to find the answers to her strange power, Grace also has to beware the charletons that prey on the innocent with their phony operations. This book provides a portrait into the past century when people believed that spirits were a part of the everyday world.

A Victorian mystery complete with a haunted estate mansion, rumours, and creepy characters. I found it a little slow and hard to get into at first but it picked up and was worthwhile.

A good read that kept me far more engaged that the author's previous novel, "The Ghost Writer." I found that I could imagine the setting, especially Wraxford Manor, in great detail.

Although the heart of this Victorian novel is the search for identity and the quest for love, it is distinctly a mystery novel about a haunted mansion in the English countryside and the imaginary (or are they real?) goings-on of a secluded gentry. Don't be put-off by its slow start, let it envelop you in the era with engaging writing, looming suspicions and a wish for some dastardly and fiendish activity to satisfy your inner ghost-seeker, you. The first half is quasi-Sherlock Holmes as the plot is generously laid out, the story develops and the tale is fleshed out. The heroine struggles to find a reason to explain her love-less life as we are easily manipulted by her tragic childhood and riches to rags story, but then she reads a strange notice in the Times, and her fortunes are soon to change or get worse? The second half is the inevitable exploration of the mansion. There's the imposing house with guarded secrets that begs to be explored. It is haunted, it is huge, it is draughty, it is ugly with a series of strange deaths and disappearances to add to its creepiness. An expert party of do-gooders try to de-mystify it, but wind up stirring up more dust than they intended. The heroine is a pretty keen observer and reaches conclusions worthy of Mr. Holmes. The shattering climax and the surprising dénouement will satisfy and make you yearn for more from author Harwood.