Reviews

The Seance by John Harwood

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msmagoo502's review

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dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

molliewallace337's review against another edition

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4.0

I wanted a spooky novel to read before Halloween and this was perfect!

Gothic horror at its finest. Horror in the supernatural sense, but mostly horror in how truly horrid humans can be to other humans.
Supremely atmospheric, made for interesting dreams as I was reading it just before bedtime for my October horror-fest of stories that I try to do each year.
I felt for a few of the characters. Most were horrid creatures, but the few I felt sorry for were basically innocents that were taken advantage of one way or another. Little to no voice or power due to the times that the book is set.
Dark mysteries abounded, some answered, some not.
I liked it and plan to look for more books by this author.
I can definitely recommend.

avl_book_girl's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

3.75

alysian_fields's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

3.5

in_libris_speramus's review

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2.0

I wanted to like this book, the premise sounded so promising. Unfortunately, Harwood wrote his characters to be absolutely histrionic over each and every little thing that passes in front of them. The men fall over themselves when a pretty lady meets their acquaintance. One of them acts so queerly after meeting one of the female characters that you think he may be having a stroke. That same character can't keep his wits about him after *doing absolutely nothing wrong* but finding himself a "witness" to a possible murder. The women faint everywhere. EVERYWHERE. They lose all sense of reason on so many different occasions that I'm surprised no one smacked them back into reality.

If it weren't for the underlying mystery of this book, I wouldn't have continued on with it. With that said, the ending was a flop. It was tied up far too nicely that it was unsatisfying. The story seems to be heading one way and then POOF!!!! Here's your savior, swooping in at the last second, keeping our main character out of trouble and tidying up all of the lose ends nice and square. And then, just like that, the story fking ends.

batbones's review

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4.0

I loved it; the mysterious setting of the Hall, the complex characterisation but most of all, Harwood's formal-yet-dream-like writing style. His prose has almost all the markings of a traditional Victorian horror novelist, except for the fact that the layout (broken down into differing perspectives) and his relative reticence (as opposed to the verbosity of the 19th century novelist) was decidedly modern. I was initially annoyed at having to deal with a plethora of perspectives from different characters and the first few chapters made it difficult to guess how they were related to each other, or even to the plot for that matter, but at the end when everything came together to a rather startling conclusion, it is a good thing that Mr Harwood managed to weave the story through all his characters - it certainly made it more enjoyable.