Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Old Dark House, 1 Jun 2008
It is sometimes remarked that inanimate objects can have such a strong presence within a story that the object almost becomes one of the characters. I think this is certainly true of the sinister Wraxford Hall. This crumbling manor house has accrued its reputation down the years thanks to its eccentric inhabitants and its location. Its spooky setting amidst overgrown grounds and the surrounding sprawl of woodlands, known as Monks Wood, has caused the local poachers to pursue their game elsewhere. A pack of vicious hounds is said to roam the area and the ghost of a monk is believed to haunt the woods. Anyone who sees the spectre is reputed to die within the month.
`The Seance' is John Harwood's second novel and is set in Victorian England. Events unfold through pages of narrative seen from the perspectives of three of the story's main characters: Constance Langton, John Montague and Eleanor Unwin.
Constance's distraught mother is inconsolable following the death of Constance's sister. In desperation, Constance and her mother attend a seance in the hope of providing some much needed comfort. John Montague is a barrister and amateur artist who is charged with tracing the heir of Wraxford Hall. Montague decides to commit the hall to canvas and on taking up his brushes, finds himself suffused with artistic powers that he had not, previously or since, possessed. Eleanor Unwin suffers from blinding headaches and an overbearing mother. Her headaches are the result of so-called visitations from the dead.
The social niceties of the time are particularly well drawn in the women's narratives and journals. Unchaperoned ladies and unsuitable husband material are almost as much to be feared as the manor house that binds the various characters. Eleanor's toxic mother is especially outraged when marriage to an artist threatens to heap social stigma on her family.
The scenes in and around Wraxford Hall are deliciously creepy. The weather-staples of Victorian mystery stories - the bone-chilling cold, swirling mists and lightning - are much in evidence as the protagonists attempt to uncover the secrets that they and the house share.
If you've already enjoyed John Harwood's excellent first novel, `The Ghostwriter', or, if Victorian-era mystery stories are your thing, you won't want to miss `The Seance'. This is a compelling and highly atmospheric novel from a superb writer.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gothic horror of the classic kind!, 13 May 2008
Think 'The Woman in White' mixed with something by the Brontes and you'd be on the right lines. If you really enjoy a thrilling classic gothic Victorian novel, then you'll relish this. I really enjoyed reading this book. I've already read The Ghost Writer by the same author - it was good but I definitely prefered this one.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Channelling the ghost of Wilkie Collins, via Stephen King..., 3 Jan 2009
This is a fantistically gripping, multilayered and clever little novel. As other reviews have mentioned, it harks back in its style, its subject matter and its overall flavour to the great Wilkie Collins at the height of his powers. Yes, think 'Woman in White' and 'Moonstone' but the one it reminds me most of is the, (in my opinion) ,far superior 'No Name'. They share a spirited heroine, with courage and daring beyond her time and numerous nefarious deeds.
Indeed it is easy to forget that John Harwood is not a Victorian great himself, so powerfully does he evoke the best sensationalist and gothic fiction of the time....perhaps, in keeping with the subject matter, a little spirit guidance is at work?? Only Harwood is also clearly subject to modern conventions of storytelling too and knows his readers now have a far greater cannon of sensationalist literature and film-making to draw upon and his novel is a modern work in the best sense:- lean and muscular, where older fiction can be flacid; unafraid of playing with conventions and most importantly, unpredictable. Its almost as if Wilkie Collins had been able to read Stephen King, Joe Hill and other modern horror icons, before popping back to Victorian England to pen this one!
This is a clever, involving and tautly spiraling work that rewards the reader with a cracking story, clever mystery and chills aplenty. You will want to stay up late into the night reading this one. Buy it...and if you haven't also read 'The Ghost Writer', the first novel by Harwood get that too. And spare a thought for old Wilkie Collins... read No Name its fab too.
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