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kevinscorner 's review for:
The Spirit Engineer
by A.J. West
The Spirit Engineer is a paranormal historical fiction based on real people full of mystery and spiritualism. Set in the early 1900s, it follows professor and engineer William Jackson Crawford who discovers that his wife has been participating in séances in order to communicate with diseased relatives. A skeptic man of science, he resolves to prove the medium Kathleen a fraud. But what if Kathleen isn’t as false as he believes her to be?
I really wasn’t feeling the book from the very beginning. The tone of hellish domesticity and lack of redeeming values in William failed to draw me in despite the gothic atmosphere and increasing creep factor. As a sceptic myself, I could not help but roll my eyes with how easily some of the characters were taken in. However at the halfway mark, something happens and the book finally won me over. And thereafter, the book painted a vividly believable picture of the psychology of believers and what makes them susceptible to things even against their better judgement.
The book is twisty and leaves you questioning whether what’s happening is real or if everything was a con all along. I was genuinely becoming a believer myself. There were some horror elements, but I don’t think it ever became truly scary (but if this were a film, I definitely would have been scared). That final reveal really took me by surprise and I did not see it coming at all. It probably won’t work for everyone because it can be quite a controversial twist, but looking back, there were definitely hints and harbingers that I overlooked.
The Spirit Engineer is a twisty paranormal historical fiction that will leave you questioning what is and isn’t real.
I really wasn’t feeling the book from the very beginning. The tone of hellish domesticity and lack of redeeming values in William failed to draw me in despite the gothic atmosphere and increasing creep factor. As a sceptic myself, I could not help but roll my eyes with how easily some of the characters were taken in. However at the halfway mark, something happens and the book finally won me over. And thereafter, the book painted a vividly believable picture of the psychology of believers and what makes them susceptible to things even against their better judgement.
The book is twisty and leaves you questioning whether what’s happening is real or if everything was a con all along. I was genuinely becoming a believer myself. There were some horror elements, but I don’t think it ever became truly scary (but if this were a film, I definitely would have been scared). That final reveal really took me by surprise and I did not see it coming at all. It probably won’t work for everyone because it can be quite a controversial twist, but looking back, there were definitely hints and harbingers that I overlooked.
The Spirit Engineer is a twisty paranormal historical fiction that will leave you questioning what is and isn’t real.