Séances are for Suckers

  

Séances are for Suckers (Eleanor Wilde Mystery #1)
By  Tamara Berry

ISBN: 9781496719621
304 Pages
Available in Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook, and on Kindle

Synopsis:

When something goes bump in the night . . . it’s most likely a plumbing problem. But fake medium Eleanor Wilde is happy to investigate and cleanse your home of spectral presences—for a fee. Hey, it’s a living . . .

Ellie has an ailing sister to care for and working as a ghost hunter who doesn’t believe in ghosts helps cover the bills. When she’s lucky, it also pays for the occasional tropical vacation. On her latest job, though, she may be in for some genuine scares.

The skeptical, reserved, and very rich Nicholas Hartford III has flown her all the way to his family’s ancestral estate in England—supposedly haunted by a phantom named Xavier. Nicholas thinks it’s all just as much a crock as Ellie’s business is, but his mother is sure that Xavier is real, and he’s willing to employ Ellie if she can put a stop to the nonsense. But when an actual dead body appears—and subsequently disappears—at Castle Hartford, she’ll have to apply her talent for trickery and psychological insight to solve a flesh-and-blood murder.

My Thoughts:

The premise behind Séances are for Suckers was really interesting to me. The main character Ellie is a "medium for hire", except she is not really a medium. In fact, she wholly disbelieves in all things supernatural. Instead she solves her clients' problems with logic and practicality, plus a lot of smoke and mirrors. This allows for some good bits of humor. And several jabs at spirit workers. Not in a super hurtful way as much as a sarcastic way, but they are there.

Ellie is very likable and you feel for her situation with her siblings. It's rather sad what she is going through with her sister, and the end - while expected - is heartbreaking. But in a way it's also uplifting. Nicholas is also fairly likeable, despite his dour attitude and his severity. The interactions between the two add a more profound degree of depth and personality to the characters. The relationship between Ellie and Nicholas starts of as one of mutual distrust, but as it develops, it turns into something thoroughly entertaining, and by the end they are quite a pair. I did find the slightly intimate exchanges odd at first, but mostly because it felt like at the beginning of the story they were setting Ellie up to be interested in Thomas.

It seemed to be that Séances are for Suckers started out kind of slow. There were a couple of laughable scenes at the beginning, but still I found it hard to get truly interested until about one third of the way into the book. But by the halfway point, the action had picked up and I was completely drawn in. The first half took me a week to read, where the second half took a few hours. I didn't want to put it down. Like, really - I was almost late for work because my alarm went off right as I was about to start Chapter 24 and chapter 23 ended very much as a cliffhanger so I did not want to stop reading.

I was extremely pleased to find that the story was not super predictable. Typically, I figure out the "solution" to the mystery pretty early on, but Séances are for Suckers had me guessing for quite a while. In the end I was half right about the culprit, but completely off about the motive. I appreciate any book that can stump or surprise me and this one definitely did. And honestly? I was relieved. I would have been really sad if it had turned out that the main villain was who I had initially suspected.

Overall, I quite enjoyed reading this book. Once you get past the lull at the beginning, it is an engaging read and it keeps you guessing up till the end. Once I clear a little more of my reading list, I absolutely plan to get the next book in this series so I can find what is in store for Ellie after everything that happened in Séances are for Suckers.

Parent's Guide:

Séances are for Suckers certainly has some dark parts. There is a LOT of death and macabre things in this book. Mystery and thriller loving older teens may enjoy it, but it is absolutely not for the weak of heart or stomach and has imagery that probably isn't the best for the younger crowd.