A smart, pulpy, and unexpectedly humane supernatural procedural that thrills as much as it uplifts.
Meredith’s episodic novel of paranormal investigations follows Princeton-trained magician and engineering-anomalies expert Guenevere Grace Michaels through five escalating “case files,” each heightening the moral and supernatural stakes of her work. Beginning with a Halloween party in an abandoned asylum and ending in a cavern beneath a former Underground Railroad house, the book tracks how a young investigator’s precision tools—EMF meters, thermal cameras, lock-picks—meet the unpredictable violence of spirits, demons, and human evil.
Guen is a striking creation: a Scream-Queen turned serious investigator, a Catholic who prays the St. Michael prayer while testing electromagnetic fields, an escape artist whose most daring feats involve resisting temptation and negotiating with the dead. Janet Yamashita, skeptical and quick with a sidearm, provides a witty counterpoint. Early investigations follow a disciplined pattern of testing and prayer; later ones erupt into folk-horror seductions, a steamboat sorceress’s love-hex, and a final confrontation with a West African spider demon. Clear, tactile prose grounds the escalating mythology, and the book’s moral clarity—mercy over spectacle—makes this engrossing supernatural procedural unexpectedly humane.
Fans of eerie ghost tales and high-octane supernatural adventures will be gratified.
Pub date October 30, 2024
ISBN 978-1777921859
Age range 14+
Price $9.99 (USD) Paperback, $2.99 Kindle edition