A Peril in Ectoplasm: Just Once More by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene #bookreview #novella #paranormal #thriller #TuesdayBookBlog

On By Teri PolenIn Book Reviews

In 1920s Florida, Spiritualism enjoys renewed interest. Daphne Moultrie, the most powerful medium of her time, receives a warning from the other side, “Find her, and keep her with you. Or you will die.” All Daphne knows about this girl is what her crystal ball showed her — a four-leaf clover, and each leaf had a human eye.
.
Meanwhile, Daphne’s fiancé has designs of his own. He pressures her to continue séances for a strange and very demanding woman. With each of those séances, Daphne becomes weaker and closer to death.
.
This novella captures the Roaring Twenties, as only acclaimed author, Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene can. Settings, descriptions, and language all come to vibrant life. The ensemble cast has a number of characters, including one you will love to hate. It’s a genre mash-up, part mystery, part suspense, with a dash of light horror.

As a fan of this author’s paranormal series, Atonement, Tennessee, I was excited to see her venture into that genre again.

I love the Roaring Twenties Florida setting for this story. For some reason, that time period has always appealed to me. Daphne Moultrie is a powerful medium, but the séances take their toll on her and she’s becoming weaker – they’re potentially life-threatening. Despite this danger, her supposedly loving fiancé, Crespo, insists she conduct séances for a demanding and horrible woman so she can speak to her deceased son. I didn’t care for Crespo at all. He’s a fortune hunter who puts money above the welfare of Daphne, but I admit he did show up for her near the end. Still, she should send him packing in my opinion.

My favorite characters are Clover, who has a sweet love story with her deceased fiancé and finds a real home with Daphne, and Maisy, a housekeeper who’s cared for Daphne for years. Both are very protective of Daphne and also don’t care for Crespo. Clearly they’re good judges of character.

The vivid writing allowed me to easily picture the beautiful, swaying Florida palm trees and gorgeous sunrises, as well as the thrilling and eerie séance segments. The buildup to the spine-tingling end scene is well worth the wait. This is a quick read I highly recommend to paranormal/supernatural fans.

65 thoughts on “A Peril in Ectoplasm: Just Once More by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene #bookreview #novella #paranormal #thriller #TuesdayBookBlog”

  9. Teri, you jewel! After about 3 weeks without, I finally have Internet again. Better still, I just a minute ago figured out what’s been wrong with Crystal (barely eating or drinking and acting really weird when she tried) for a couple of days. And now your wonderful review. The sun is now shining in every way. Thank you so much for taking time to read and post a review. It truly means a lot to me.
    I had such fun making Crespo hate-able! LOL. I’m happy you enjoyed that, and thanks for your feedback about the finale. Of course, I’m sharing this everywhere. Huge hugs.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. She was having pain eating and drinking, so not doing enough of either. I couldn’t see any problem inside her mouth. Then yesterday I finally found a swollen spot on her lip. I’ve been treating it, and she also learned to drink from a syringe. She ate better this morning, so seems to be responding. Of course I’ve been in a panic the whole time. (Eye roll)

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

        1. I totally get it. So glad she’s doing better. Bond is on prescription food and with this last bag they’d changed the formula. He knew right away and didn’t eat much at all for a few days. He’s finally back to his normal piggish eating habits.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

          1. I’m starting to think it might be a spider bite (even though I haven’t seen one inside for a long time). It doesn’t look as “bad” as feline acne. At any rate, the swelling is a lot less. And she didn’t loose any more weight during the past 24 yours. Although now that she learned to drink water from a dosing syringe, she doesn’t want to drink for herself. Spoiled little blighter. LOL. I have a pet fountain on the way. Hopefully she’ll take to that as a higher level of spoiledness!

            Like

            Reply

  15. Pingback: #ThursdayDoors to #IndieBooks — What’s Behind the Door? – Teagan's Books

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.