It's giving Sarah Waters. ( )

This did feel like The London Séance Society with a little Sarah Waters mixed in, so that description is apt. This is told in two parts, the same events from two sister's sides, and then the denouement. I didn't love any of the characters, so I wasn't really swayed by one side or the other, though the homophobia of the one sister puts a pretty big mark against her. ( )

Spitting Gold is a wonderful gothic tale featuring a pair of estranged sisters who had once worked together as "spiritualists." They knew lots of trick, but their mother insisted that what they did was "real" in its value to others. Both of them dreamed of escaping the poverty they'd been raised in. Sylvie, the older of the sisters, remade herself and married into the upper class, determined to break all connections with her family. Charlotte, the younger sister, has been stuck at home trying to care for their violent and volatile hard-drinking father.

The novel is set in 19th Century Paris, with the violence of the French Revolution a constant presence underlying all else. As the book opens, Charlotte has tracked down Sylvie to help her with one last spiritualist con. Charlotte promises that Sylvie will never hear from her again after the con is over—and in a moment of weakness Sylvie agrees to help.

From this point on, Spitting Gold offers one twist after another. Spitting Gold is one of those novels that leaves readers imagining multiple possibilities every to there's a turning point in the plot. And it's not just the plot that surprises. As the novel progresses, the reader's understanding of who Sylvie and Charlotte are changes, a bit like looking through a kaleidoscope—one knows what one's seeing, but it never looks the same from one moment to the next.

Spitting Gold is a perfect read for those times when you want to escape to a world between two covers, leaving the "real" world behind for the kind of world—in deed and feeling—that well-written fiction can offer.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own. ( )