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But when the book concerned manages to include Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Titanic, the Great War, an emerging Irish nation, two real life protagonists and is set in Edwardian Belfast, it became a somewhat irresistible invitation. Not surprisingly, in a book which delves into the afterlife, the epilogue is titled 'the Beginning'.
process: we retain the original infrastructure and reuse materials when possible, focus on waste reduction, and seek energy-efficient options. We are committed to keeping up to date with the latest It tells the story of Professor Crawford, who is not a particularly likeable man (& forgive me for saying this, but I’m not in that camp that says you can’t enjoy a book with an unlikeable character - you most certainly can!). A man of engineering and science, he is sceptical about the world of spirits and seeks to prove its nonsense. The Spirit Engineer by AJ West is, as they say, something quite different. West is a former awarding-winning BBC journalist who has worked extensively in Northern Ireland.West has mixed fact with fiction and shrouded it all in a gothic veil of mystery. There are some disturbing subjects and ideas to come from this book. Of course, seances and dabbling in ‘ the other side’ are not going to be easy experiences. I just loved the way you are invited to belief or not, but to experience the world of those trying to understand it all. The Spirit Engineer was a surprise for me in so many ways. It is a debut novel written with such confidence, and the level of research (and resulting historical accuracy) into the world of spiritualism in the early 1900’s, creates an unsettling atmosphere, which perfectly represents the struggle between the desperate need to believe in the paranormal phenomenon and the scientific and logical arguments which counteracted it. As we follow his tale, many will say that William is unlikeable, although I would argue he is simply misunderstood. He is clearly a man struggling with his own sense of self. He knows he is an intellect, but what of a man, of a husband, and of a father? In these things, to me, he feels lost. As he struggles to find answers to his own grief, and as his obsession grows, perhaps his science can no longer hold all the answers he needs. The Spirit Engineer's fantastic concept is wasted in a book that manages to drag interminably for the first half and then fast forward too aggressively in the second half. It skips over almost all of the events that would have really fleshed out this story. Instead, it skitters along in what is an incredibly surface level telling of an incredibly interesting dynamic. Even the big reveal at the end of the novel, which truly could have been such a thing of beauty, falls flat because the book is so uneven up until that point. engineers is licensed in the State of California (PE), as well as Accredited Professionals from the U.S. Green Building Counsel (USGBC). We also have extensive experience in both DSA and OSHPD review
Dark, powerful and twisting – The Spirit Engineer will leave you wondering what is real and what is illusion' W. C. Ryan, author of A House of Ghosts Some of the characters are a little too predictable but there is nothing predictable about the end. I am nervous about but fascinated by how people used to believe in spiritualism and seances in years gone by. The other thing I love to read about is actual historical figures who believed, dabbled in or forwarded the cause. Conan Doyle for example believed that the Cottingley Fairies were real. Ten gazillion sparkling stars for the creepiest, most galvanizing and mind-blowing story I have ever read! This is a story of loss and grief, of war and science and séance; the ghosts of the dead and the ghosts of the living. This is a truly haunting and impressive debut.What a phenomenal novel. Immediately upon starting this, I was enveloped in the eery atmosphere of the house. With an almost tangible foreboding, we begin to meet the characters and learn that things are maybe not quite as they seem in this happy family dynamic. What surprised me was the humour. I didn’t expect William to be so witty, but within the first couple of chapters, I had laughed out loud at some of the one-liners. Part 1 sets up the spooky atmosphere perfectly, and there are multiple clues and mysteries unfolding from the very beginning. Belfast, 1914. Two years after the sinking of the Titanic, high society has become obsessed with spiritualism, attending seances in the hope they might reach their departed loved ones. Um, spoiler warning for a historical events that have happened and are recorded as having happened and exist in the public domain (e.g. on Wikipedia)
The book is about psychic phenomena, mediums, religion. It is about faith, and beliefs. It is also about grief, obsession and exploitation, and about ambition, lies and deception. The plot is fast and evenly-paced. Part of the reason that I couldn’t stop reading this book is because there is always something chilling, or hectic, or haunting happening. There are several twists near the end that just left me gasping (one of which I saw coming a mile away but one that completely blind-sided me!) It had me thinking about the story long after I had finished reading it. Brilliant, haunting characters
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The Goligher family ‘line’ on Kathleen’s pre-eminence was, from what I gather in William’s accounts, that her powers simply had the advantage over other members of the circle, channelling spirits with the most persuasive phenomena. Spiritual mediumship was a largely female pursuit at the time. Boys and men might, after all, find their prospects diminished by a troubling and eccentric association with the occult, not to mention the reputational implications of reporting disembodied voices or ghostly secretions popping out of their various orifices. underprivileged girls, however, already held the very least agency in British Edwardian society and their supposedly base nature and primary role as mothers would have rendered paranormal phenomena such as plasmic rods strangely acceptable to the sensibilities of ‘superior’ men and women of the day. Meanwhile, Spiritualism offered working-class women a chance for relevance, agency, influence, social power and, yes, money. It is easy to imagine why an intelligent, creative young woman might swap endless hours chopping linen into identical shapes for a chance to hold court with her enraptured adult superiors.
When Kathleen was born, it seems likely her family were already practicisng Spiritualists, though she grew to become the primary medium of the so-called Goligher Circle. KATHLEEN GOLIGHER – SPIRITUALIST PHENOMENONAsking West what inspired him to write this book, he says, “I found this story, and I had never heard about it and no one in Belfast that I knew had ever heard about it… I just thought what an extraordinarily sad story it was, and I couldn’t understand why it hadn’t been told before”. I really enjoyed the overall premise and storyline of this book and felt that A.J. West brought to life in believable ways the seance/spiritual scene of the 1900s in Northern Ireland. His dive into the class structure of the time was intriguing and his overarching aim to depict the lengths one will go to find answers and soothe the pain of loss was a tense and heartbreaking journey to go on.
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