There are hints and clues to pick up on earlier on in the novel but I wanted a bit more to keep me going through the middle. Set against a backdrop of the Irish fight for Home Rule and the outbreak of the First World War, the novel also brings in other real-life figures with an interest in spiritualism, such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini. It was the perfect spooky read for October, but honestly, West may have triggered a hidden love of dark gothic stories in me. Our protagonist William Jackson Crawford is a down-to-earth academician and scientist, who is struggling to keep her family afloat. West’s writing is wonderfully descriptive, and the historical setting is perfect, every detail feels accurate and genuine.

I was very close to her as a child, visiting her house almost every day because it was near my school in Bangor. William Jackson Crawford is a man of science and a sceptic, but one night with everyone sitting around the circle, voices come to him - seemingly from beyond the veil - placing doubt in his heart and a seed of obsession in his mind. I am not a real fan of historical fiction, but I am a fan of ghosts and psychics and mediums, so I thought.

So, in 1921, a Spiritualist supporter and investigator named d’Albe was engaged by Crawford’s publishers to pick up where he left off, with the aim of proving that Kathleen’s powers were genuine.

I think that may be a little credulous, not giving due weight to her clear intelligence and skill, and we wouldn’t want to follow in William’s gullible footsteps, by thinking a young girl is incapable of treachery.If it were modern times, he would be the guy standing on his porch, shrieking at the neighbourhood children to “get off my lawn!