The Seance

"Did not finish. I thought it was boring"

"This book was written in the style of a Victorian Gothic and in many ways it achieved that, but frankly, I found the book to be VERY slow until nearly halfway through the book. The book is divided into many parts, timelines, and person’s views. Some people found it confusing - I didn't find it confusing, just annoying at times, but about halfway through the reader starts to see how the narratives start to connect and certainly by the end you definitely see that. <br/><br/>To be perfectly blunt, I found the first chapter with Constance boring and I had no connection to her character. There is a seance but it takes a while to get there and really didn't add much to the narrative. <br/><br/>The second chapter (I won't say from whose perspective because as you progress it could give things away) things do pick up a bit and the ambience of the creepy house and woods comes into play. <br/><br/>Chapter 3 at first is very jarring. This character comes out of nowhere. At this point I had already put the book down several times thinking it just wasn't going to go anywhere or get interesting. This 3rd chapter is a mixed bag because parts of it were just slow and again the narrative was a bit irritating from this character's point of view. But plodding through to the end of this chapter the reader finally starts to see how things led up to this and how things might play out.<br/><br/>From then on the book becomes more interesting - more circuitous yes, but not confusing to me. I had my suspicions about who certain people were and like the main character I was wrong about one but right about the other (knowing or not knowing doesn't really matter). <br/><br/>So by the end I understood what the author was trying to do and the story made sense but was it worth it? I'm still undecided. The first half was definitely not as interesting to me as the second. And frankly, I was irritated by the female narratives (yes it's a Gothic but come on, the supposedly brave heroine doesn't need to faint or feel faint at nearly every turn). <br/><br/>In a weird way the twists and turns reminded me a little of the writing in the 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle although I felt that one was done a lot better (although a lot of people found that one confusing and it is NOT a Gothic at all), mostly because the reader became invested in the main characters. I never really became invested in any character until Nell and only until the book was 3/4 over (and still wondering why she waited so long to do anything). I also didn't understand why the plans were so complicated. For example, if the guy really wanted to be rid of his wife, there were so many easier ways to do it that didn't rely on so many different factors - one specifically kept coming up. Also, why such an elaborate plan only to reappear 20 years later?? That really made no sense to me.<br/><br/>I will say the writing made me believe it was written by an author of the time period vs the modern age but the writing of that period wasn't always done well either. So I would say if you're going to give this a try then try to stick it out - it does become a more interesting story. A great story? Not really although I do give the author credit for thinking of the story and explaining the mystery and the idea of different narratives - just for me the execution was lacking."