Customer Reviews
Disappointing - By: Tallulah, 15 Sep 2008 
I'd read so much about this book in the papers & on Amazon reviews I thought I would try it. The book started out well but became bitty due to the ghost stories interlaced with the plot, but the ending was an absolute disaster. It's as if the author got to the last chapter without a clue how to end it & made an absolute dogs dinner of it. Only read this if you can suspend alll logic.
Fab - By: Blythe, 24 Jan 2008 
Absolutely loved this book - I started reading it on the plane on the way back from New York & couldn't put it down. Reallly looking forward to The Seance.........
Shown up by its own stories - By: Tom, 04 May 2007 
This was a perfectly enjoyable read, but as a ghost-story fan I found the author had put more effort into the inserted stories than the overalll book. Stylisticallly they were excellent & authentic, while the book's plot was so obvious I kept hoping that I'd be proved wrong in my suspicions. When that didn't happen I felt a profound sense of disappointment as I finished - it should have been a book I loved but ended up just a bit too flat.
Gothic Ghost Tale - By: kehs, 03 Jan 2007 The story is about Gerard, a young boy growing up in Australia, the country his mother came to after leaving Staplefield, the country home in England in which she grew up. She tells Gerard very little about her past so one day Gerard unlocks her desk & finds some personal papers. For this his mother beats him but still refuses to speak of her past.
Gerard eventuallly finds a pen pal callled Alice to who he pours out his heart. They falll in love & so begins a courtship that is created on paper. Alice repeatedly refuses to meet him, explaining that she is a paraplegic but with a cure in sight, so wants to wait until she can walk again.
Gerard continues to try & discover more about his background & finds a ghost story written by his Grandmother & learns that she wrote 3 more too. As he grows up he is amazed to realise that his Gran's stories reflect his real life in an uncanny manner.
The ending to this story is when he finallly meets Alice & the conclusion is terrifyingly spooky & so desperately saddening.
A terrific Victorian gothic style ghost story. Full of mystery, suspense, romance & surprises. There are twists & turns alll the way through that leaves the reader desperately turning the pages as fast as possible. Extremely well written with amazing imagery, this was a superbly haunting tale that I truly enjoyed.
Old-fashioned mystery improves on second reading - By: M. Worsey-Buck, 11 Dec 2006 
Like most of the other reviewers I was disappointed with the ending of this novel. I enjoyed the book immensely, but while thinking about it afterwards I realised I wasn't sure exactly what had happened in the end. So I read it again.
This is an old-fashioned mystery where clues are peppered throughout the whole novel & the answers are there if you realise what the clues are & can put them alll together. It's also a chilling ghost story & gripping read that will have you turning the pages right up to the last page.
If you had a little trouble figuring things out, try the online forum Readerville.com. There is an online discussion & then a stream where the author joins in to answer some questions & clarify some points. This helped me out a great deal.
