Hazardous Spirits
Shortlisted for Fiction Book of the Year at Scotland's National Book Awards 2024
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for Fiction Book of the Year at Scotland's National Book Awards 2024
'An exquisitely written work of Caledonian gothic' Francine Toon, author of Pine
'A darkly sparkling jewel of a book' Kirsty Logan, author of Now She is Witch
Edinburgh, 1923.
Evelyn Hazard is a young woman living a comfortable and unremarkable middle-class life. One day, her quiet existence is shattered when her steady, reliable husband Robert makes a startling announcement: he can communicate with the dead.
As the couple are pulled into the spiritualist movement that emerged following the mass deaths caused by the First World War and the Spanish Flu, Evelyn's life becomes increasingly unsettled as dark secrets from her past threaten to surface.
Faced with the prospect of losing all that is dear to her, Evelyn finds herself asking: is the man she loves a fraud, a madman or - most frighteningly - is he telling the truth?
A gothic literary mystery, written in sparkling prose, Hazardous Spirits evokes the spirit of 1920s Edinburgh, in all its bohemian vibrancy.
'With the literary lyricism and precise historical detail of a Sarah Waters novel . . . Salam injects a wry humour into this tale of secrets, lies, and the power of the ghosts of our pasts' Entertainment Weekly
'Full of heart and strangeness' Nell Stevens, author of Briefly, A Delicious Life
'A riveting exploration of the unknowable' Tara Isabella Burton, author of Social Creature
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Evelyn and Robert’s solid middle-class domesticity is shattered when Robert announces that he can commune with the dead. Afraid at first that he will make a laughing stock of their family, Evelyn finds herself seduced by the glamorous, transgressive world of spiritualism. Salam expertly evokes the fragile atmosphere of 1920s Edinburgh, recovering from the twin traumas of the war and the flu pandemic that followed—a city attempting to embrace a new age but tormented by the shadows of the past. A New Year’s Eve celebration is disrupted by a young man’s traumatised reaction to the fireworks; a missing child inspires gruesome theories; the dead linger everywhere, not a soul untouched by devastation. In this unsettled space, everyone is vulnerable, easy prey for frauds and grifters—or is there something real out there? The realities of grief—both personal and collective—give this ghostly tale an emotional weight.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Salam's densely atmospheric latest (after Belladonna), a woman in 1923 Edinburgh grapples with her husband's newfound obsession with the spirit realm. Evelyn Hazard quietly gave up her baby for adoption a decade earlier, a secret she shared only with her sister, Dolly, before Dolly died. Now, she worries her husband, Robert, will contact Dolly's spirit and learn the truth. Evelyn trails him to the Spiritualist Library, where she's mistaken for Dolly and eventually reveals herself to Robert. She then begins accompanying him to a spiritual hall, where she's dismayed to discover Robert's "spiritual tutor" is a child named Clarence who speaks with crowds about deceased relatives. Robert picks up the skill, too, forging a traveling I-see-dead-people act with Clarence, and Evelyn comes along for the tour. Due to their travels, Evelyn's social circle widens, though she continues to wrestle with her feelings about Robert's calling to clairvoyancy: "If Robert was right, then she had only ever known half the world." When a child goes missing, people clamor for Clarence and Robert's assistance, and Evelyn questions her husband's sincerity. Though the reader might grow tired of Evelyn's continuous dread over her secret being revealed, Salam crafts a believable portrait of the 1920s spiritualism scene. Historical fiction fans will savor this.
