Narrated by Greg Tremblay
Restless Spirits is the first book in Jordan L. Hawk’s Spirits trilogy set in New York at the end of the nineteenth century. The novels chart the development of a romantic relationship between a most unlikely couple as they battle malevolent ghosts and evil spirits; and in this opening instalment scientist Henry Strauss and medium Vincent Night are pitted against each other in a contest of modern scientific ideas versus traditional myth and mediumship.
After his father’s death a decade earlier, Henry Strauss and his grieving mother were duped by a medium who promised them he could communicate with the late Mr. Strauss. Young, handsome and charming, Isaac Woodsend wormed his way into the household and stole everything he could lay his hands on – including Henry’s sixteen-year-old innocence and heart. His family ruined, his mother driven to an early grave, Henry vowed never to trust a medium again, and set his mind to devising a machine that would enable the dead to contact the living without the need for a human intermediary. As the novel opens, Henry has put the finishing touches to his Electro-Séance and has finally proven that it works; he is anxious to present his findings to the Psychical Society and hopes to finally achieve his long-held ambition of acceptance into their ranks and of getting the necessary funding to have his work mass produced.
Sadly however, the Society rejects him and his ideas – and not for the first time. Henry is at a low ebb when he receives a letter from wealthy industrialist Mr. Dominic Gladfield, owner of Reyhome Castle in upstate New York, which was the site of a series of grisly murders some decades earlier. Gladfield wants to rid the place of some troublesome ghosts before he turns it into a luxury hotel, and to that end proposes a contest between the old and the new, between traditional spiritualism and the scientific method, to see who can do the job first – offering a prize of $500 to the winner. Needless to say, that amount of money would solve Henry’s immediate money worries and enable him to put his Electro-Séance into production without the need for backing from the Psychical Society.
He notes the names of his opposition – Miss Elizabeth Devereaux and Mr. Vincent Night – which is a name as fake as the whole business of mediumship. Victory is in the bag.
Lizzie Devereaux and Vincent Night run a reasonably successful occult business in New York, but since the death of their mentor some months earlier, business has been dwindling. Awaking one morning to discover that, while possessed by a malevolent spirit, he had murdered the man who’d been like a father to them both, Vincent is still weighed down by guilt and the fear that he could be possessed again – and refuses to perform any séances. With their finances somewhat precariously balanced, Gladfield’s offer comes at an opportune time. Vincent is reluctant, but Lizzie insists on it – they need the money, and she’s quite prepared to alone if Vincent is going to be stubbornly stupid about it. But Vincent can’t let her go to face potentially dangerous spirits on her own and agrees to accompany her. Even though it’s a terrible idea.
An even more terrible idea, however, is the one that presents itself to Vincent when he first meets Henry Strauss. The man may be quite good-looking, but he’s arrogant and seemingly humourless, and needs to be taken down a peg or several – and Vincent knows just the way to do it. He can tell when a man is attracted to him and it’s clear that the buttoned-up Henry Strauss isn’t immune to Vincent’s good looks and charm, much as he (Henry) might wish otherwise. So Vincent decides to have a little fun and to unsettle Henry by indulging in a gentle flirtation – which will also provide a welcome distraction for Vincent from his unease about having agreed to come to Rayhome at all.
The enemies-to-lovers romance between Vincent and Henry is a delicious slow-burn, as Vincent sets out to charm Henry into bed, and Henry, whose experience with Woodsend has made him extremely wary of trusting anyone – let alone another medium – tries hard to resist him. Their professional rivalry sets up their relationship nicely, but as the story progresses, it becomes clear that both have something to offer when it comes to their aim to rid Reyhome of its ghostly inhabitants; Vincent’s natural talent is the perfect complement to Henry’s more logical, scientific mind, and they realise that they’ll have more chance of achieving their goal if they work together.
The author creates a suitably menacing atmosphere as the ghostly encounters between our heroes and the Castle’s various resident spirits become more and more threatening. Cold spots, strange noises and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night abound as the terrible events that have cursed Reyhome are revealed – as are a few secrets closer to home.
The central characters are all richly drawn, and the author very subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) shows the sort of casual – and deliberate – bigotry to which they are subjected and the compromises they have to make in order to just live their lives. Henry’s cousin and assistant Jo is of mixed race and Henry has been shunned by the rest of his family for acknowledging her and taking her in when she had nowhere else to go. Vincent is of Native American descent and knows that if he’s to be taken seriously, he must dress well and act the gentleman so as to detract from the colour of his skin; even Henry takes him for a servant when first they meet, which is doubly shocking because he really should know better but allows prejudice to blind him. In fact, Henry isn’t a particularly likeable character for the first part of the book; he’s overconfident, dismissive of Lizzie and Vincent, and comes across as a bit of a prick, but his affection for Jo always shines through and serves to remind us that he’s not the over-starched prig he seems to be until he starts to loosen up a bit.
Helping with that reminder is Greg Tremblay, whose character voice for Henry is so cute it’s hard to dislike him! I haven’t listened to one of his narrations for a while (shocking, I know!) and it’s always a pleasure to hear him again after a break, and to remind myself that, yes, he really IS that good! I honestly can’t think of a single thing I disliked about his performance or that doesn’t work, and as always, he hits all the right emotional and dramatic notes throughout. The cast of characters is fairly small – three women and four men once we get to Reyhome – and each one is excellently and appropriately rendered. Jo’s youthful enthusiasm and Lizzie’s poised practicality are conveyed perfectly, while Gladfield, who clearly believes himself superior to everyone around him, sounds self-satisfied and sardonically amused. The two principals are just as superbly portrayed; Henry is exactly the right mixture of cute, geeky and slightly fanatical, while Vincent’s dialogue is delivered in a slightly more deliberate fashion. The lower pitch and slight accent Mr. Tremblay adopts adroitly illustrate Henry’s description of Vincent’s voice as sounding like “honey drizzled over chocolate”.
Restless Spirits is a creepily atmospheric story combining an intriguing mystery and a sensual romance; add Greg Tremblay’s wonderfully nuanced and intelligent narration and you’re in for just over seven hours of compelling listening.
Caz
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