Blackwell, Juliet
9780593638262, 0593638263
Trade Paperback
 
After an amateur ghost tour in one of California’s oldest towns stumbles upon an actual haunting, a skeptical historian of the occult becomes entangled in a murder case on the grounds.

When Professor Harper Grae loses a bet with a friend, she finds herself on a nighttime tour of “haunted” locations in Monterey, California. Harper’s a lifelong nonbeliever of the occult, though her academic career is devoted to the historical and societal significance of witchcraft, ghosts, and poisons of all sorts. But her skepticism is immediately tested when the tour stumbles upon the body of renowned artist Delilah Mason—who’s found murdered on the grounds of a two-hundred-year-old mansion.

On the night Mason is discovered, Harper catches sight of something in the house that she can’t shake, something that’s impossible to explain, at least not rationally. Soon the investigation reveals that this is the second time a woman has been found murdered beneath the sprawling cypress tree in the garden of the Perles Mansion, which once belonged to an infamous local family. And when Harper’s closest friend is questioned by the police, she fears the authorities will fail to uncover the real killer.

As Harper digs deeper into the supernatural speculation and rumors surrounding the deaths, she sees evidence she can’t ignore that the notorious mansion is truly haunted. Can Harper admit she’s been experiencing a paranormal phenomenon, even if it goes against everything she believes about crossing the veil between the living and the dead? And can she figure out what the ghost needs her to know about the two women killed under similar circumstances nearly two centuries apart?