Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - The London Séance Society

This was a great shorter read! I thought that some of plot dragged towards the end but overall I enjoyed the story.

The unexpected twist was a little surprising and the character development for Lenna was meaningful.

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mbedrosian's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
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

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levesc17's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

If you like a murder mystery, this atmospheric, spooky read is for you! It was very suspenseful— the last 100 pages I read in one sitting because I was spooked and had to know what happened. It was a perfect Halloween time read.

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blackcatkai's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-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

3.0

CW: blood, murder, death, lite sexual content, ableism, body shaming, gaslighting, sexism, sexual assault, alcohol, fire, classism, homophobia, toxic relationships, grief, some gun violence

it was ok. I would've liked it more without Morleys POV but whatever. love me a good sapphic love story with ghosts. more of that, please!

honestly my biggest issue was the constant framing of a port wine stain birthmark being ugly. I know this is a historical novel, but it is so frustrating seeing it constantly mentioned throughout the book. ready player one did this too and it pisses me off.

your birthmark is not an imperfection, a problem, nor is it disgusting. there is nothing wrong with any type of birthmark, regardless of where it is. what size it is. nor its colouring. and dont let anyone or any book make you feel otherwise.

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caitlyn_rehs's review

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Despite enjoying the storyline, something about it just made it a slow read for me.

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felofhe's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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? No

3.25

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unboxedjack's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

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

1.75

Really disappointed with this one. It read like a sixth grader dabbling in queer fanfic: no character development, a predictable and lackluster plot, and eye rolling prose (if it can even be called that).

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melliedm's review

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mysterious medium-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? It's complicated

1.5

I loved and devoured The Lost Apothecary and was certain I would love The London Seance Society, but I’m afraid it’s been maddeningly disappointing.

Do you ever watch HGTV-style shows, where they leave you with a cliffhanger before the commercial break, and then when they come back they replay all of the clips leading up to the cliffhanger so that if you just landed on it by channel flipping you wouldn’t be lost? This book does that. Each chapter begins with what truly feels like a recap of what I literally just finished reading, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Lenna’s spiritualist sister was murdered. Despite her skepticism, Lenna approaches her sister’s mentor Vaudeline to ask her to return to London to perform a seance, but the medium has good reason not to return.

The mystery is unfolds through two perspectives: Lenna’s, and a man named Mr. Morley who similarly entreats Vaudeline to return to London to perform a seance. Not for Lenna’s sister, but for the chair of the London Seance Society.

Conceptually, it sounds pretty great. Add in the thorough research and the sapphic relationship brewing between Lenna and Vaudeline and this should have been The One for me. Alas…

Despite Seance Society being a mystery, there’s very little patience and an extraordinary amount of explaining. Reveals happen so frequently that it’s almost exhausting, and each is paired with a thorough description of how the clues connect. It was frustratingly difficult to invest in characters when several passages would be spent spelling out the clues the author had already made clear. There was also an avoidance of holding any cards back: characters would frequently confront another with incomplete information and gain little from it, disposing of any dramatic tension we could have felt by knowing that, say, Lenna had access to secrets that other characters weren’t aware of. Instead, she would learn something and then a few paragraphs later reveal it.

Remember when I said Lenna is a skeptic? Well, in this novel spirits are absolutely real, and she’s given reason after reason to believe in them. And yet, she denies it over and over. Yet, this skeptic is also not skeptical enough for it to really matter: it’s a point of interpersonal conflict and doesn’t really engage with the rest of the world. She’ll have a disagreement with Vaudeline, and then by the end of that chapter or the start of the next she’ll shrug and move on. Perhaps if she was shown through her behaviour as more skeptical and was consistent in this I could have believed it, but it just came across as someone trying to write a character they don’t understand.

The final problem is Lenna’s relationship with Vaudeline. When we meet these characters there’s already (supposedly) a romantic tension between them. We’re told again and again that there’s something there. But we really aren’t shown it. I so desperately wanted to believe that these two women were attracted to one another, that they wanted one another enough to put aside their beliefs on the occult—but I couldn’t. They had little to no chemistry and because we were dropped into their relationship when they had already acquainted themselves with one another we didn’t get to see what that push/pull was like.

All in all, this sapphic seance mystery was sure a sapphic seance mystery, but that’s about it. I truly hope this, and not Lost Apothecary, was a one-off—I want to like Penner’s work so much. Next time, though, I’ll probably wait for my library to get a copy.

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