Reviews tagging 'Death'

The London Séance Society by Sarah Penner

77 reviews

whimsylee's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Loved the Victorian spiritualism  and the sapphic romance. The mystery pulled me in and compelled me to keep reading. Some of the writing was redundant and I personally disliked the use of misogyny in this book. If you like spooky/historical mysteries and sapphic romance, I recommend this book. 
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cassie7e's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? No

2.5

Best thing about this book is the gay and bi rep. Too slow and somewhat predictable for me, often re-explains points already shown in the scene, and was really not into how big a role predatory men played in the plot.
Not a bad book, just didn't grip me and I finished out of obligation.
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ailiscr32's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Lenna is irritating and quick to jump to conclusions, often wrong ones. Vaudeline seems to lack personality at any moment that Lenna's ability to come to erroneous conclusions relates to her. Mr. Morely is bland until the end where he suddenly has some type of personality. 
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emilywemily6's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This one is kind of hard for me to rate, especially because I loved Penner’s first book! The writing at the beginning was hard to follow and so I was confused for the first half of the book that the beginning seance was Evie’s. The first half was kind of slow while the second half got more interesting and definitely picked up speed. I feel like these characters were overly sexualized and the focus on lust detracted from the story and from the other personality traits of the characters- literally everyone is obsessed with sex in this book. I found the society’s secrets very intriguing and how the scandal kept growing, though some of the “twists” were very predictable. I also feel like the ending wrapped up too nicely because of the paranormal being able to do things these characters could not. Lenna did some stupid things and often didn’t even try to fight her way out of tricky situations. I would have appreciated a bit more effort on her part. This book feels  different than Penner’s previous and while I generally enjoyed it, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.
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goldenjunegem's review

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fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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daepyonimst's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

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adalora's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Nice and quick easy read. 
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blucbell's review

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mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.5

it was difficult for me to get along at first, but the further i read after chapter 30, the tense started to intrigue me, it was a relief after all. i enjoyed the ending. personally, this book gave me the combined vibes of enola holmes, peaky blinders and fantastic beasts, thus its a merely reason for me to finish it
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mckiheather's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

A great book, it had so many twists but they all unfolded so naturally I just had to think like “of course”. I loved how the whole depth of the conspiracy was never unveiled at once, there was never a moment with like the villain monologue that gives away the whole plan. You alternated POV between Lenna and Morley and pieced together the story as they unveiled what they each knew, and what they each discovered.
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mrsmishler's review

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

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