The London Séance Society

"Sarah Penner weaves an absolute literary masterpiece of a novel, from beginning to end (each piece of dialogue, each story beat, each moment of lesbian pining and yearning). Each moment of fear and atmospheric writing had my heart racing and me tugging at the collar of my shirt as if it were too tight to breathe correctly. It is clear that an excellent amount of research went into the creation of this novel - apparent in even just the discussions about France and London in the 1870s and the differences in their attitudes towards same sex relationships between women. <br/><br/>The subtlety, the brushing of hands - of lips on the backs of them, was all written so beautifully - almost lyrically but never over the top - in nature. The stressful miscommunications and misunderstandings that come with the drama of a historical relationship were all resolved in just the right amount of time to make me frustrated with whichever character was seemingly being stupid - but also was always resolved satisfyingly. <br/><br/>Despite Evie being dead right at the beginning of the novel, the relationship between her and Lenna is made painfully clear throughout the length of the novel, with the resulting seance tying up all the loose ends, and not tugging, not pulling, but tearing and ripping at the heartstrings of any one that is an older sibling. I nearly forgot that there was a seven year age gap between Lenna and Vaudeline due to how respectfully and beautifully their relationship was written. As someone who doesn't care for **** in any form, the way that the scene of Lenna is written early on was enough that I genuinely found myself enjoying it - the gay yearning of it all. The relationship was well developed - especially for a standalone not even near breaking 400 pages, and a very respectful representation (in my opinion that is, as a lesbian myself) and I adored every minute we got with them. <br/><br/>As far as our dark mystery, it was exceedingly well paced and plotted, and the big bad is "hidden" so well to the point that I may have put the happenings together and was able to guess of the larger evils, I could never have guessed at the identity of the big bad of the story. Overall this was gorgeous, well thought out and researched murder mystery historical fiction, complete with a beautiful side romance. The sibling relationship was heart breaking as an older sister to a younger sister, and the feather and amber scene (I won't say more so I don't genuinely spoil it) was so beautiful I cried. <br/><br/>Bravo Sarah Penner, you did amazing!"

"Fun Fact… [b:The Lost Apothecary|53288434|The Lost Apothecary|Sarah Penner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593013000l/53288434._SY75_.jpg|74516135]by[a:Sarah Penner|19788573|Sarah Penner|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1582667763p2/19788573.jpg] was groundbreaking for my reading, as it was my first audiobook ever that I actually enjoyed! (I laugh thinking at my .75 speed then). <br/><br/>I knew that I couldn’t read this book without getting the audiobook also (2.5 speed nowadays"

"Wow! Wow! Wow! Sarah Penner knocks it out of the park with this one. I couldn’t put this book down, the magic, the suspense and the chapters had me staying up late to keep turning pages. "

"This was amazing! There were so many twists! 100% recommend! "

"3.5 stars"

"This was a slow read for me. I actually like the story about Evie. Her character had more personality than her sister Lenna. Lenna’s character has two major focuses. Finding out who killed her sister and her obsessive crush on her boss. I just done see the hype for this book."

"This was so good."