The Shabti by Megaera C. Lorenz; Phony Mediums, Egyptian Curses, and a Charming Gay Romance Makes a Chilling Historical Supernatural Horror

 The Shabti by Megaera C. Lorenz; Phony Mediums, Egyptian Curses, and  a Charming Gay Romance Makes a Chilling Historical Supernatural Horror

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Megaera C. Lorenz’s The Shabti has a lot going for it: An engaging historical setting, an inside look at the Spiritualists movement and the tricks that frauds pulled, a genuinely creepy supernatural threat, and a charming romantic gay couple that encounters these problems.

In the 1930’s, Dashiel Quicke was once a noted Spiritualist that many would pay top dollar to get his psychic impressions or communicate with deceased loved ones. He now spends his time exposing the hucksters and grifters of the Spiritualist Movement, revealing how they actually accomplished their tricks. During one of his lectures, he captures the interest of Professor Herman Goschalk, an Egyptologist and museum curator. Herman tells Dashiel that his museum is the center of some strange activity: footsteps, whispers, missing items, stuff being thrown around, bleeding walls, the usual. At first the situation seems easily explained by science or an overactive imagination but as Dashiel gets to know Herman and experiences more of these strange events, it becomes clear that they are being haunted by a real ghostly apparition, a ghost from Ancient Egypt who inflicts great pain, curses, and suffering against all it comes near. All of the flimflam tricks aren't going to save them when they are faced with the real thing.

From beginning to end, this is a book brilliantly charged with a sense of Historical Horror. Instead of going for big shocks and scares, The Shabti leisurely builds its pace by taking a straight line from events that are odd but could be explained to the cosmic horror in which the barriers between time and space and life and death must fade before that horror can be encountered and possibly defeated.

One of the ways that it accomplishes this fear is by giving us a protagonist who has seen the supernatural world from the inside and knows how people bend and use it to their advantage.

The most interesting moments early on in the book occur when Dashiel tells how Spiritualists operate. He describes how they hire spies in the queue to gather information then sneak into the mark’s house to take a valuable object to look like the “spirits” used “relocation” to appear in the medium’s hands. Information gathered by the spies, cold readings, and early special effects added to the performance to sway the audience. It's a pretty clever grift and a sweet scam that is easy to see why many are fooled, especially those who have lost loved ones or want proof of life after death.

 That life also comes to weigh in on Dashiel as he admits to Herman that many former clients, particularly a sickly elderly woman, came to bad ends because of their trust in Dashiel and his former colleagues. His past also figuratively comes back to haunt him when a former partner and lover wants to reignite their relationship both on and off stage. It doesn't take much for the former Spiritualist to see the guilt and danger that a life of deceiving others would bring, and it is understandable why he would expose it. However, his skeptical nature and career of exposing the Spiritualist Movement is just as much a vulnerability as when he was an active participant in scamming others, when he faces real ghosts. He has to use the same procedures seriously to save Herman and himself that he once used deceptively to gain money.

The fraudulent style of Spiritualism puts Dashiel in a false sense of confidence when he is faced with the Egyptian Ghost. He could assume that bleeding walls are rust, creaking walls are a house settling, footsteps and whispers are signs of an overactive imagination. But after a while, those scientific rationales and previous charlatan history becomes moot when those small signs become large unrecognizable monsters and the whispers become shouts of the undead.

It's enough to make one doubt their beliefs and particularly their minds. There are many chapters where the supernatural encounters cause tremendous physical and psychological pain to Dashiel and Herman. They are shaken, disturbed, and quite often bedridden after facing the remnants of the Egyptian Ghost’s curse. It is a terrifying experience because of how it affects their bodies and minds and the only healing balm they have is each other.

Speaking of Dashiel and Herman, their relationship is a bright spot in this Horror Show of Ancient Terror. It is one of those relationships that begin organically with the two beginning to understand and relate to one another. Herman is confused and fascinated by Dashiel’s career as a Spiritualist and is on the fence between skepticism and belief. Dashiel gets arcane knowledge from Herman’s studies and while he explains Spiritualism and gives possibilities to Herman's encounters, he never ridicules him and likes talking with him.

 A friendship grows between the two protagonists that in other works could have remained platonic but fortunately for them, it does not. Their romance begins  unexpectedly just as  the Reader might think, “Hmm, they would make a nice couple” a few pages before they actually kiss. Their love strengthens each other as Herman’s knowledge of Egyptology and Dashiel’s Spiritualism experience counter the Ghost's wrath.

This book is set in the 1930’s and it doesn't go into the legal and prejudicial ramifications and potential hardship that could occur if a romance between two men is made public. On the one hand, it does a mighty historical disservice in showing how courageous the two characters are just by being together. But on the other hand, it also proves to be a source of light and brightness in this dark disturbing supernatural world. 

When the two men work together to fight the Egyptian Ghost alongside friends and Dashiel’s former colleagues, their love is the truest and most honest thing that counters the terror of the otherworldly darkness but also the deception and mind games that Dashiel was once proud to be a part of.

New Book Alert: Emma's Tapestry by Isobel Blackthorn; Suspense and Mystery Writer Shows Gifts in Writing Historical Fiction Based On Her Own Family

 

New Book Alert: Emma's Tapestry by Isobel Blackthorn; Suspense and Mystery Writer Shows Gifts in Writing Historical Fiction Based On Her Own Family

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: We have seen Isobel Blackthorn write excellent mystery and suspense novels. With A Prison in the Sun and The Ghost of Villa Winter, she was able to capture unsolved murders and hate crimes in the beautiful vacation setting of the Canary Islands.

With The Cabin Sessions, Blackthorn captured the dark secrets and inner turmoil of a small group of people huddled inside a dismal bar/nightclub on Christmas Eve.

So how well does this Mistress of Dark Fiction write a book that is not dark or mysterious? How does she write something like, say, Historical Fiction? Well judging by her book, Emma's Tapestry, pretty well actually.

The book is about Emma Harms, who in the late 19-teens leaves her Mennonite German-American family behind to marry Ernest Taylor, a social climbing Englishman. The two move to Singapore and then Japan so Ernest can ascend in the Export business. Emma meanwhile tries to maintain a career as a nurse, give birth and raise two daughters, and try to salvage her faltering marriage.

This story of Emma's troubled marriage is also combined with her subsequent life as a single mother to her now adult daughters in 1940. She also works as a nurse for seniors, like Adela Schuster who when she was younger ran in literary circles and befriended Oscar Wilde during his arrest and disgrace for homosexuality.

Blackthorn writes a strong sense of character in this book. There is a darn good reason for that besides that she is an incredibly gifted author. Emma's Tapestry is based on a true story. It covers Blackthorn's own family history.

According to her Epilogue, Emma and Ernest were based on her great-grandparents. They had a very fractured marriage that ended with Ernest abandoning his family and the severe repercussions were felt by Blackthorn's grandmother even years later. This book is Blackthorn's way of coming to terms with her family's loss and how the end of Emma and Ernest's marriage affected them and their children.

Even though, it's a nonfiction family history, Blackthorn writes Emma's Tapestry like a novel. This approach is similar to how Alex Haley wrote Roots or John Berendt wrote Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. She uses narrative techniques like interior thoughts, point of view, and dialogue to fill in the blanks of a painful family history with her imagination and speculation over what may have happened.

Blackthorn's narrative approach makes Emma memorable as a fully formed character as well as a real person. The Reader feels sympathy when she feels out of place in Japan and Ernest is more interested in climbing the corporate ladder than he is in helping his wife through her loneliness. Things become incredibly tense when war and revolution puts Emma's family in danger. She has to deal with giving birth and raising her young girls and surviving a stressful time with an increasingly insensitive and philandering husband.

Things get worse when Emma and her daughters emigrate to the United States. Despite being American, Emma is vilified because of her German heritage. In her new home town of Brush, Colorado, she receives suspicious looks and barely hidden remarks about her family and accusations of being an enemy spy. A woman who befriends her just as quickly throws her under the bus when the KKK stop by.

This section shows how during war time, propaganda and fear of an enemy can turn people against each other. They instantly hate someone because of their appearance or their last name.

This painful reality has echoed even modern times when 9/11 caused Islamophobia. Many Americans have attacked Latin Americans during days of increased immigration at the Southern borders.

The after effects of Covid saw an increase in hate crimes towards Chinese people. Most recently Russians have been held under suspicion and attacked because of the cruelty of their Premiere Vladimir Putin.

Emma's Tapestry reveals an early example of hate crimes that develop when people are taught to hate and fear an enemy and by extension see anyone from that space as a potential enemy simply because they are from somewhere else.

In contrast to Emma's painful past, her time in 1940 is a much lighter time. While there is some suspense because of living in Britain during the Blitz, Emma seems to be in a much better position. She is still overcoming her abandonment from Ernest but is still trying to form a family with her girls. She is closer to her daughters and is looking forward to becoming a grandmother.

She also continues to pursue her faith. In the past, she had been a member of Mennonite and Lutheran churches. Later she discovers a new interest in Spiritualism. This belief allows her to communicate with the dead and gives her hope that there is an afterlife after losing members of her immediate family, while also making her more active and involved in the present material world.

Emma has a good career as a nurse and through that is able to become close to Adela. While Adela at first seems to be a bit of a daffy name dropper, she shows a lot of wisdom in her stories of the past leading Emma by example. Also Adela's loyalty to the derided and disgraced Oscar Wilde is touching especially when he is alone in Paris with few friends, family, and lovers by his side. With this loyalty and wisdom, Emma takes stock in her own life and reevaluates some of her choices.

Blackthorn's family clearly had a painful past but she was able to capture it with detail, understanding, empathy and above all love.

Weekly Reader: Maids of Misfortune A Victorian San Francisco Mystery by M. Louisa Locke; Ho Hum Mystery and Dull Protagonist Do Not Meld In Average Historical Mystery

 

Weekly Reader: Maids of Misfortune A Victorian San Francisco Mystery by M. Louisa Locke; Ho Hum Mystery and Dull Protagonist Do Not Meld In Average Historical Mystery 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Maybe I'm just grouchy recovering from Covid but it's not a good sign when of the first five books reviewed this year, I would only label one as outstanding. Two had some good points about them, like setting and world building, but suffered from average or confusing plots. One starts strong then peters out. One would normally be something I would love, but somehow never rises above average or mediocre. The good thing is some of the books that I am currently reading show promise so my mood might be uplifted soon, I hope.

It's unfortunate because I want to like Maids of Misfortune, the first book in M. Louise Locke's Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series. I keep telling myself that I should like it. It's Historical Fiction, one of my all-time favorite genres. It's a Historical Mystery with a female detective so that should make it better. But the book doesn't interest me like other recent books that I have read in the genre.  I hope this isn't an ongoing trend and that I am not getting bored with the genre. That this is just a one time thing.

But Maids of Misfortune doesn't help, because it never gets beyond mildly interesting. The protagonist is introduced pretty well but lags once the investigation starts. The mystery is dull. This book is just average and I apologize for saying this (after all maybe it is just me), but in a genre filled with great reads, that somehow makes my ambivalent feelings towards it worse.

Annie Fuller learned that her late husband has left her in debt and she will be forced to give up her boarding house to pay it off. However, she moonlights as a fraudulent clairvoyant under the name of Madam Sybil. Unfortunately, one of her closest friends and clients, Mr. Matthew Voss has died. Disagreeing with the official verdict of suicide, Annie believes that he was murdered and sets off to investigate on her own with attorney, Nate Dawson conducting his own investigation and falling in love with her.

One of the more fascinating aspects to Annie's character is her time as a fradulent clairvoyant. I actually found that to be a more intriguing plot than the actual investigation. Since it's set in the late 19th century when Spiritualism is on the rise, it would be quite a twist to see the exact procedures that Annie does to fool her gullible public, how she stays ahead of the authorities, or perhaps what happens if she gets a brush with the supernatural or cons who are better at the game than she is.

 After having experienced the normal and paranormal horrors experienced by Letitia Hawkins in Behind The Veil by E.J. Dawson, Annie's experience could be a more seriocomic look at the phenomena, perhaps bordering on Dark Humor. But her career as a medium only ends up being the message to the mystery.

The title comes from the fact that for a time, Annie poses as a maid to ascertain information in the Voss case, which brings another missed opportunity. Why isn't Annie a maid herself? Or the lead investigator a maid or in service? It would be a far more interesting back story than the one we have already been given, and would brilliantly counter the mostly middle to upper class women who fill the majority of the female historical detective roster. 

After all, house servants are used to being ignored and overlooked by their employers, giving them the ability to gather information and intelligence from just paying attention to what employers and guests are saying and doing. They are often susceptible to gossip both in the servants and upper class quarters and because they have to be very detailed, they can pay attention to things that others miss. It would also be a great twist if the servant was smarter than her employer, sort of a female Jeeves. We saw what a brilliant woman posing as a house slave could do in Kit Sergeant's Underground, even help bring down the Confederacy. What else could one do as the star of her own Cozy Mystery Historical Fiction series?

It doesn't help that once the investigation begins that Annie becomes rather boring. She lacks the sparkle and wit of Ginger Gold, the toughness and experience of Fiona Figg, the resourcefulness and independence of Mona Moon, or the spunk and bravado of Molly Murphy. Instead, Annie pales in comparison to her fellow detectives. She just fades into the background for the mystery and such a lackluster mystery at that.

The mystery has the suspense of a cat chasing after the red dot. There is a lot of meandering and talking and not a lot of detecting.

It's the typical dead rich man's friends and family are suspects including opportunistic and snooty relatives, love interests and friends who specialize in gold digging and fortune hunting, and servants who know more than they let on. It's all generic and never gets beyond that. It's so generic that the killer is all too easy to guess and isn't worth the trouble of going back through the chapters to find out how the Reader is right and the detective solved it. 

There's more heat in the romance between Annie and Nate than there is in the mystery and even that is nothing to get excited about.

Maids of Misfortune could be another bright star in the lovely galaxy of the Female Detective Historical Mystery subgenre. However, instead it just dims.

New Book Alert: Behind The Veil by E.J. Dawson; Sinister and Spooky Supernatural Horror Straddles Between Madness and Sanity

 

New Book Alert: Behind The Veil by E.J. Dawson; Sinister and Spooky Supernatural Horror Straddles Between Madness and Sanity

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: E.J. Dawson's Behind The Veil is among the best Horror novels that I read this year. It is a genuinely terrifying account of both paranormal and real life fear with a protagonist who hovers between frightening visions and her own fears which could develop into paranoia and insanity

Letitia Hawking is a 1920's widow who emigrated from her native Britain to California. She is trying to bury the grief of losing her husband, a miscarriage, and a traumatic encounter with a Spiritualist that left her scarred and institutionalized. 

Since Letitia herself has ghostly visions and Spiritualism is on the rise, Letitia offers herself as a medium who is able to peer into the deceased's last days.

Her visions are both sad and eerie as she sees how a person died and their final thoughts. The book begins with her seeing a sickly man who is grateful to die so he can get away from his loveless marriage but worried about how his wife will treat their child and his mother now that he is gone.

 Letitia's visions are complex as she sees deep sadness, frustration, anger, fear, and sometimes relief to get away from the cruelty of the world around them. Many of her clients are grateful to hear the loving final thoughts of their friend or family member. Some are in denial that their behavior was a contributing factor to the deceased's decline and death, as a very stern father is when he sees the final memories of the troubled son whom he threw out.

However, because of the emotions connected with natural death alone and her own trauma, Letitia is reluctant to take on cases where someone was murdered. She fears that she may lose her own mind in the recall of a violent act or that experiencing the trauma second hand may end up killing her.

Besides her frightening second sight that stalks her, Letitia also has to contend with more human persistence. She is constantly followed by the very wealthy Alasdair Driscoll who uses threats and intimidation to take on a personal case for him. At first, Letitia refuses citing previous commitments and her own concerns about what he wants her to do. She also sees a dark presence surrounding him, one that forms a barrier trying to keep Letitia away.

But finally moved by the pleading of his sister, Mrs. Imogen Quinn, Letitia agrees to help him. She meets Quinn's daughter and Driscoll's niece, Finola and sees the real reason for their interest in her. Finola is alive but like Letitia she is gifted or rather cursed with second sight supernatural abilities. And as they did for Letitia when she was younger, Finola's visions are harrowing and threaten to eat away at her sanity.

Behind the Veil is scary for the supernatural and human haunting that surrounds the novel. The horrors that Letitia sees through Finola's eyes become more troubling for her. It's similar to someone becoming blinded by seeing something twice as bright or losing their hearing because a stereo system is cranked way too loud. Letitia and Finola's visions become worse because they are shared between them. When she goes inside Finola's head, Letitia sees spectral images of murder,violence, sexual assault, and pedophilia. She particularly sees a crime affecting several young girls that until now was left unsolved. Letitia continues to see the dark spectral presence becoming larger and more powerful. 

 Because of these dangerous thoughts, Finola is left alone in her room unable to socialize for fear that she may lash out violently. Driscoll and Quinn are so anxious about their young relative, that they are considering putting her away in an asylum.

The more Letitia probes into Finola's mind, the more that she sees echoes of her own past. She too was institutionalized by people who didn't understand her abilities. She even doubted them herself. The passages describing Letitia's time in the asylum are actually more horrifying than her supernatural premonitions. While in the asylum, Letitia was subjected to the ice cold bath treatment, early versions of shock therapy, neglect and abuse from employees, and isolation. What is more frightening is that her memories are not the results of some dark unexplained presence. They are the results of those who were all too human, a system that puts the mentally ill away to forget about them rather than helping them or discovering why their minds are the way they are. It's no wonder why Letitia becomes protective of Finola. She doesn't want her to suffer the same fate that she did.

Behind the Veil is a sinister novel that asks the question about which is scarier: the supernatural world that exists beyond human consciousness and is only experienced by the very few or the real world that surrounds and haunts us every day.