An Inquiry Into Love and Death by Simone St. James
I enjoy a good Gothic novel, and I was intrigued by An Inquiry Into Love and Death as soon as I first heard about it. After reading it, I can report that it is indeed a good Gothic novel, and fans of the genre should definitely check it out.
Jillian Leigh’s life as an Oxford student is interrupted when her uncle Toby dies in a fall from a cliff in the remote village of Rothewell. With Jillian’s parents out of the country, settling Toby’s affairs falls to Jillian.
Toby was a ghost hunter and had traveled to Rothewell to investigate the ghost of a smuggler, Walking John, who is reputed to haunt the village. His death is a mystery. Did he fall by accident? Did he commit suicide? Or was he murdered? Jillian’s inquiries in Rothewell uncover mysteries both mundane and supernatural in this spooky, twisty novel.
Jillian is a quirky, endearing charac... Read More
More speculative fiction by Simone St. James
The Haunting of Maddy Clare — (2012) Publisher: Sarah Piper’s lonely, threadbare existence changes when her temporary agency sends her to assist a ghost hunter. Alistair Gellis-rich, handsome, scarred by World War I, and obsessed with ghosts — has been summoned to investigate the spirit of nineteen-year-old maid Maddy Clare, who is haunting the barn where she committed suicide. Since Maddy hated men in life, it is Sarah’s task to confront her in death. Soon Sarah is caught up in a desperate struggle. For Maddy’s ghost is real, she’s angry, and she has powers that defy all reason. Can Sarah and Alistair’s assistant, the rough, unsettling Matthew Ryder, discover who Maddy was, where she came from, and what is driving her desire for vengeance — before she destroys them all?
Silence for the Dead — (2014) Publisher: “Portis House emerged from the fog as we approached, showing itself slowly as a long, low shadow….” In 1919, Kitty Weekes, pretty, resourceful, and on the run, falsifies her background to obtain a nursing position at Portis House, a remote hospital for soldiers left shell-shocked by the horrors of the Great War. Hiding the shame of their mental instability in what was once a magnificent private estate, the patients suffer from nervous attacks and tormenting dreams. But something more is going on at Portis House—its plaster is crumbling, its plumbing makes eerie noises, and strange breaths of cold waft through the empty rooms. It’s known that the former occupants left abruptly, but where did they go? And why do the patients all seem to share the same nightmare, one so horrific that they dare not speak of it? Kitty finds a dangerous ally in Jack Yates, an inmate who may be a war hero, a madman… or maybe both. But even as Kitty and Jack create a secret, intimate alliance to uncover the truth, disturbing revelations suggest the presence of powerful spectral forces. And when a medical catastrophe leaves them even more isolated, they must battle the menace on their own, caught in the heart of a mystery that could destroy them both.
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Simone St. James wrote her first ghost story, about a haunted library, when she was in high school. Unaware that real people actually became writers, she pursued a career behind the scenes in the television business. She lives just outside Toronto, Canada, where she writes in her spare time and lives with her husband and three spoiled cats. 
