The London Séance Society – A Novel

A Review by In Ivy & Ink

“The dead speak, but only if we listen.”

There’s something entrancing about a novel that beckons you into candlelight, holds your breath in suspense, and whispers secrets from the shadows. The London Séance Society does just that — pulling you into a world of loss, deception, and ghostly reverberations, where every glance could be a warning and every silence could be filled with the unseen.

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✨ The Real Spirits Behind the Story: Séances in the Victorian Era

What makes this novel even more compelling is the reality that lingers beneath the fiction. Séances weren’t just story devices of the Victorian imagination — they were a cultural phenomenon, a spiritual salve, and a subtle revolution.

🖤 A Nation Obsessed with the Dead
The 19th century was a haunted age. With death ever-present — from war, disease, and heartbreak — grief became ritual. Queen Victoria famously mourned Prince Albert in black for 40 years and was sought to turn to spiritualists in her sorrow. So did countless others. Séances offered what religion sometimes could not: a way to say what had been left unsaid.

⚙️ Where Science Met the Supernatural
Strangely, spiritualism rose alongside the telegraph, electricity, and photography. If messages could travel invisibly across wires, why not from the other side? Victorians weren’t gullible — they were curious. Seekers. The séance was less superstition and more experiment.

🕯️ Women in the Circle
Perhaps most fascinating: séances gave women power. In candlelit parlors, female mediums led circles, channeled voices, and held social sway that Victorian society otherwise denied them. They spoke — for the dead, and for themselves.

🗞️ Public Spectacle or Private Healing?
London brimmed with séances, secret societies, and spiritual salons. While some performances were surely staged, many participants weren’t looking for proof — they were searching for presence. For connection. For hope.

It’s this rich, haunting backdrop that gives The London Séance Society its deeper resonance.

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🔍 Twists, Turns, and What I Didn’t See Coming

As a mystery, this book weaves its own web. I had my theories — and yes, the real murderer did cross my mind — but so did several others. The narrative is expertly layered, allowing suspicion to shift like shadows in a séance room.

It’s not a story that shocks for the sake of it. Instead, it slowly uncoils, leading you with candle in hand through suspicion, betrayal, and emotional truth.

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👻 Séance Shadows and Missed Connections

Still, if I had one lingering desire, it would be for more spirit. The opening séance was gorgeously written — full of atmosphere and potential — but the outcome was left unanswered. I longed for that moment to have weight, to ripple through the story more fully. For a novel centered on the spiritual world, I hoped for a few more visitations.

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⭐ Final Thoughts

The London Séance Society is not a loud book, but it is a powerful one. It blends fiction and historical mystery with a feminine pulse — quiet strength, lingering grief, and hidden courage.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
Beautifully atmospheric, with clever twists and deeply rooted themes — though I would’ve liked the séances themselves to play a stronger role in the plot.

📖 Find the book on Amazon — free with Kindle Membership.
✨ This is not a paid review — just a quiet recommendation from one reader to another.

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💬 Reader’s Circle

In Ivy & Ink, we live between the lines. So tell me, if you read the book:

• Did you guess who the real murderer was?
• Were you satisfied with the role the séances played in the story?
• Which character stayed with you — haunted you — long after the book closed?
• And would you ever attend a séance, even just once?

Light a candle, and share your thoughts.
We read not just to escape, but to listen — even to the silence.