I was fortunate to have a chance to read and review an ARC
of The Seance and I enjoyed it very much, you can find my review
here. The Seance is due out on the
31st of October, it's a perfect Halloween read , so be sure to grab yourself a copy and settle down for a good creepy read.
The
Victorian age of credulity saw the rise of Spiritualism, and with it a
slew of shysters and fraudsters seeking out the vulnerable with promises
of establishing contact with otherworldly forces.
Albert
Kench returns to London, where he seeks to discover the true nature of
his sister's sudden mental illness. What he discovers takes him beyond
the illusions of the tricksters, and into the path of a man with true
knowledge of the Dark Arts.
All Albert has to do is believe...
I really enjoy the writing style of Jack Rollins, the tales he weaves
are both original and atmospherically dark and gothic. The way he builds
the Victorian age and atmosphere in his stories pulls me effortlessly
into another time and place.
I
have always been fascinated by spiritualism and the mediums of the
Victorian era. There's just something about it that captures my
imagination. Reading Seance was like bringing all those old black and
white photographs - of darkened rooms with candles, of people sitting
round tables holding hands to contact the dead, of spectral ectoplasm
and tables tipping - to life.
 |
| Table-turning or table-tipping is a type of séance
in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and
wait for rotations. The table was purportedly made to serve as a means
of communicating with the spirits; the alphabet would be slowly called
over and the table would tilt at the appropriate letter, thus spelling
out words and sentences. | | | |
If you're not already tempted to go and grab that copy, let me give you a little sneak peek at the first few pages:
When I arrived at the
gates of Oakbridge Asylum, I could not have been more surprised.
Through the sculpted iron gates, my eyes discovered what looked like
a stately manor, rather than a place for society to hide its idiots,
lunatics and madmen. Prior to that time, I’d had little need to
visit such a place and so the mind had always conjured up images of
shackled living skeletons howling and screaming long into the night.
This thought may at
first seem like nothing to anyone else, but when one attends the
asylum to see one’s sister, well, the mind simply races.
A man in a navy blue
uniform, with waistcoat, cap and bow tie opened the gate. He glanced
at a small slip of paper in his hand and asked, “Mr Albert Kench,
is it?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Follow me,” he
said, opening the gate further, so that I could pass.
“I am John Hayward.
Dr Ellis said you were coming today, and I am at your service.”
“’Obliged. One of
the guards, are you, Mr Hayward?” I asked.
Hayward frowned at me
and shook his head. “Guards? No guards here, Mr Kench. I’m an
attendant. I work in the gentlemen’s wing, and I am captain of the
male attendant’s cricket team, as well as trumpeter with the asylum
band.”
“No guards?” I
asked, barely registering the other parts of Hayward’s response.
“Why, who keeps the lunatics in?”
Hayward chuckled and
spread his arms out to either side, drawing my attention to the
cultivated gardens at either side of the road. “Keep them in? Who
would want to leave? The only thing we would need guards for is to
keep others out, sir. The patients have been through enough, without
the outside world burdening them further.”
I was stunned, and for
a few moments I was in silence. Here we were in an island of
tranquillity in the North West of London. I did not know whether it
was the fact that the sun was able to permeate the thick atmosphere
this far from the city proper, or the sound of the birds singing in
the trees to my left and right, but for a moment I felt as though I
would never leave Oakbridge.
“You said
‘gentlemen’ before. That explains the beauty of the grounds,” I
said, assuming myself to at last be on the same track as Hayward.
Hayward stopped, his
moustache raising at the sides as he smiled. I had amused him, it
seemed. “Mr Kench, we refer to all of the men who live here,
low-born or high-born, as gentlemen. And all of the ladies are ladies
to us. You are here to see Sally, yes?”
“I am.”
“Your sister?”
Hayward guessed, still smiling, eyebrows raised in anticipation of my
response.
“Yes, Sally is my
sister.”
“Perhaps, when your
visit with poor Sally is over, you will better understand the ethos
of our beloved Oakbridge. Perhaps you will understand that when I
play the trumpet for the asylum band, there are two trumpeters next
to me who are more capable than me, but who are called insane and
idiot by the world outside. There is a man who can drum better than
any I have heard, who lives here very safely, but who wanted to bring
his own life to an end out there in that cruel city.
“Perhaps you will
come to understand how it was that last Sunday the patient cricket
team beat the attendants most decisively, and how we will do our
damned best, beg your pardon, to beat them this Sunday if the Lord
sees fit to withhold the rain.” Hayward continued to walk up the
road, and I followed him, quite dumbstruck at how… improper it
seemed that high-born and low should be so closely associated in a
place that concerned their private health.
The Seance is available now on Amazon and other stores to pre-order and will be released on the 31st October. Don't miss out on a great Victorian horror!
