The House of Secrets
Sarah
Bennett has two secrets: she sees ghosts, and she is in love with a
spy.
When
Sarah takes a job with occult expert Dr Matthew Geisler, he promises
to help her understand the sorrowful spirit that seems to have
attached itself to her.
As
Sarah struggles to cope with the ghostly presence, she runs into
Zeke, the man who left her six months earlier and is recovering from
injuries suffered in an alleged accident. But Zeke has secrets of his
own, and when an attempt is made on Geisler’s life, Sarah finds
herself caught in a struggle between the living and the dead.
Unsure
who she can trust, Sarah must solve the mystery of the soul
determined to haunt her, and save Dr Geisler and
herself from an unknown threat.
This
book was previously published as WEEPING IN THE WINGS
The House of
Secrets is 99p throughout June as part of the June Kindle Monthly
deal. The Spirit of Grace, book 1 in the series is also .99
throughout June.
I
wrote the Sarah Bennett Series with the intention of paying homage to
great Gothic writers of the mid-twentieth century, such as Mary
Stewart, Victoria Holt, and Dorothy Eden. Those books always
resonated with me and I found myself reaching for them over and over.
(I have a collection of well-worn paperbacks that I treasure.)
These
stories are often set in remote houses, far enough away from town/and
the flow of society, so the protagonist either has to work things out
on her own, or wait for her hero to come and save her.
The
Sarah Bennett series takes place in the San Francisco in the 1940s.
I’ve always had a passion for World War 2. My father fought in the
Pacific Theatre in the Navy and I grew up with stories of his time in
the war. The Second World War turned into a time of amazing economic
growth in the United States, especially so in California. 1.6 million
(Yep, that number is correct!) troops and workers alike flocked to
the California coastline to take advantage of the job boom resulting
from the war. This influx of people resulted in an extreme shortage
of housing (and pretty much everything else) and many of the troops
were forced to bed down in the lobbies of the great hotels in San
Francisco before they shipped out to the Pacific from the various
naval and air-force bases in the area. The headlines in the San
Francisco newspapers during this time warned of a severe lack of
food, the desperate need for ships and guns, and the continual battle
between labour unions and the owners of the factories that were
basically working around the clock to churn out the goods needed for
the wartime effort.
Despite
all the shortages, it’s hard to miss the underlying hum of
excitement as set out in the newspapers and magazines of the era.
Dance bands played at all the great ballrooms (Bimbos, The Jack Tar,
The Starlight Room, etc.), KYA radio hosted a victory show at noon
every day, with the idea of encouraging people to buy war bonds,
which took place in Union Square. It seemed that the war had united
the people of all walks of life – especially in California – in
an effort for victory against the axis powers.
I
thought this time of focus and industry would be a perfect backdrop
for Sarah Bennett, a medium, who has been seeing ghosts since
childhood. Sarah is the type of character who would fit perfectly in
a Victorian novel, when people were interested in spiritualism and
the occult, and stories of ghosts abound. Setting her in this time of
industry makes her even more out of place and augments the
difficulties she has with her psychic abilities.
The
House of Secrets takes place immediately after Sarah Bennett’s
father, Jack Bennett, a best-selling author, is tried for the murder
of Sarah’s mother. The trial was a tabloid sensation, and Sarah
found herself reviled as the star witness against San Francisco’s
favourite author. This scenario is made even worse because Sarah was
an outlier before the trial. At the beginning of this book, she is
very much alone. After Jack is acquitted, Sarah is without money or a
place to live. With a bit of luck, she is offered a job amanuensis to
a renowned psychiatrist, Dr Matthew Geisler, who also is interested
in the occult. He knows of Sarah’s paranormal abilities and is –
seemingly – interested in helping her learn to live with her
unusual abilities.
Sarah
moves into The Geisler Institute, the psychiatric hospital housed in
a mansion in Pacific Heights and quickly realises there is a ghost in
residence. Sarah’s ability to see spirits has caused her so much
grief, she is desperate to learn how to live with her psychic
abilities. She turns to Dr Geisler for help, only to discover not
only that Dr Geisler has secrets of his own, and that he needs Sarah
just as much as Sarah needs him.
I
hope your readers enjoy the book!
Terry
Lynn Thomas grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, which explains her
love of foggy beaches and Gothic mysteries. When her husband promised
to buy Terry a horse and the time to write if she moved to
Mississippi with him, she jumped at the chance. Although she had
written several novels and screenplays prior to 2006, after she
relocated to the South she set out to write in earnest and has never
looked back.
Terry Lynn writes
the Sarah Bennett Mysteries, set on the California coast during the
1940s, which feature a misunderstood medium in love with a spy. The
Drowned Woman is a recipient of the IndieBRAG Medallion. She also
writes the Cat Carlisle Mysteries, set in Britain during World War
II. The first book in this series, The Silent Woman, came out
in April 2018 and has since become a USA TODAY bestseller. When she’s
not writing, you can find Terry Lynn riding her horse, walking in the
woods with her dogs, or visiting old cemeteries in search of story
ideas.
