The London Seance Society by Sarah Penner

If you read The Last Apothecary and loved the author’s style and story telling, any reader would naturally gravitate towards her second book. The story telling was still very good, but the pacing of the story slowed the story telling down and may make it harder for a reader to get hooked into this story and not yell at the book towards the end as it took what felt like forever to reveal the last few plot twists.

Lenna Wicks is not a believer in the spiritual world, but after her younger sister, Evie, is she seeks out Vaudeline D’Allaire to help her learn so she can find out who killed her sister (and why). Mr. Morley is a Vice President at the Society and in an attempt to help the London Police learn who killed the president of the society, Mr. Volckman, he requests that Vaudeline come back to London and perform a seance. There were plenty of plot twists and turns in the story, it just seemed to take a long time to pull the reader into the story to know why or how some of the information was so important. The final scene in the crypt with Detective Becks, Mr. Morley, Lenna, and Vaudeline felt like it was too drawn out and switching too often between narrators. Yes, it was needed but it still made it feel like the reveal was taking too long. It is not until Lenna breaks free from Mr. Morley’s locked room that the reader realizes the extent of the secrets the society has and why Mr. Volkman and Mr. Morley cared so much about the true money maker for the society not be discovered. Enjoyable story, but giving a character list would either be creating a false character description or giving too much away. It may feel like a boring start to the book but it is well worth it for the twists and turns the story takes.