Spitting Gold
As seen:
By Carmella Lowkis
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1 review
‘Wonderfully vivid and compelling … A real page turner’ Elodie Harper, author of The Temple of Fortuna
‘An evocative gothic tale where nothing is quite what it seems’ Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora
‘A sparkling gothic debut … reminded me of Sarah Waters’ Anna Mazzola, author of The Clockwork Girl
- SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA DEBUT CROWN **
GOOD SISTER. BAD SISTER. ONE LAST CON.
Paris, 1866. When Baroness Sylvie Devereux receives a house-call from Charlotte Mothe, the sister she disowned, she fears her shady past as a spirit medium has caught up with her. But with their father ill and Charlotte unable to pay his bills, Sylvie is persuaded into one last con.
Their marks are the de Jacquinots: dysfunctional aristocrats who believe they are haunted by their great aunt, brutally murdered during the French Revolution.
Sylvie and Charlotte will need to deploy every trick to terrify the family out of their gold – until they experience inexplicable horrors themselves.
The sisters start to question if they really are at the mercy of a vengeful spirit. And what other deep, dark secrets threaten to come to light…?
Through twists and turns, Spitting Gold blends propulsive historical mystery with a captivating sapphic romance.
‘A tale of two sisters filled with spooky spirits, queer love, and high suspense’ Heat
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Set in darkly atmospheric Paris, Spitting Gold, is a story of spiritualist subterfuge involving the estranged Mothe sisters. Having escaped from the shady dealings of her past through an aristocratic marriage, Sylvie is now cloaked in apparent respectability, whilst the younger Charlotte lives in penury. Briefly reunited, the fake medium siblings seek to extort money from a wealthy, but dysfunctional family seemingly haunted by a murdered ancestor. They engage in a series of elaborately staged seances with hugely unexpected consequences. Is it all fabricated or is the summoned supernatural real?
As the narrative develops, Lowkis expands the themes of the novel to explore sibling rivalry, grief, the vulnerability of the human condition and sapphic romance. Juxtaposing the good and the bad as in a French inspired Perrault fairytale, there is an instantly recognisable moral message.
It has a pacy, enjoyable writing style with many twists and turns. The characters are realistic, likeable and memorable. Not my usual genre, I stumbled across this debut book entirely by chance. I thoroughly recommend it as a jolly good yarn. In a nutshell, entertaining and simply delightful. Her publishers are very lucky to have Carmella.
