The Vanishing

November 25, 2013
Webb (The Fate of Mercy Alban) once again mines the secrets of an old mansion for an effective contemporary supernatural thriller. Three months after the suicide of Julia Bishop’s husband, who turns out to be “the Midwestern Bernie Madoff,” Adrian Sinclair, a complete stranger, shows up at the Chicago novelist’s door with a proposal to give her a new life as a companion to his aged mother at their northern Minnesota estate, Havenwood. Julia, who faces lawsuits and possible jail time, quickly accepts, though she’s amazed to learn that Adrian’s mother is famed horror writer Amaris Sinclair (aka “the female Edgar Allan Poe”), who supposedly died 10 years earlier. Havenwood proves to have a storied past that includes a macabre incident involving a famous 19th-century spiritualist, Seraphina, a murder, and spirits lingering from that long ago time. Julia’s tortuous, haunting journey of self-discovery will keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary.

June 30, 2014
Narrator Sands brings the right tone and pacing to Webb’s supernatural thriller set in an old mansion on Lake Superior. Julia Bishop is looking to escape her past. Her husband, the equivalent of the “Midwestern Bernie Madoff,” robbed investors of their life savings and committed suicide upon being exposed, leaving Julia to face the very public scorn and hate alone. So when a stranger offers her the chance to take a job at an isolated country estate as the caretaker of his mother, horror writer Amaris Sinclair (aka the “female Edgar Allan Poe”)—who happens to be Julie’s favorite author— it seems too good to be true. However, from the day Julie arrives at the estate, she is faced with strange happenings and a feeling that there is something wrong about the house, something off, something evil. Sands’s performance fully embraces the rich gothic storytelling of Webb’s prose. She excels at projecting Bishop’s growing sense of unease and foreboding. The small cast of characters allows her to give each of them their own rich individuality. Most impressive is her take on elderly Amaris Sinclair. Sands gives her a sincere, caring voice, but with an underlying hint of sadness that fits well with the story. The result is not quite a horror story but just spooky enough that listeners may not want to listen with the lights off. A Hyperion paperback.