The House of Velvet and Glass

March 26, 2012
The sinking of the Titanic ripples through the lives of a socially prominent Boston family in an impressive historical tale from Howe (The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane). Three years after the disaster claimed her mother and sister, Sibyl Allston finds solace in the séances of the medium Mrs. Dee while her brother, Harley, is expelled from Harvard and returns home in the company of the less-than-respectable Dovie Whistler, an actress. Re-entering the family’s life is Benton Derby, a young Harvard professor whose aborted courtship of Sibyl years before has left her doomed to the life of a spinster and family caretaker. Moving through time from 1915 back to Sibyl’s father’s past as a young sailor in Shanghai half a century before and to the last hours of the Titanic itself, Howe’s story of the growing attraction between Sibyl and Benton in the shadow of grief and loss merges gracefully into a compelling exploration of spiritualism and free will. An engaging story of love, destiny, and sacrifice in the growing shadow of WWI, with the unexpected touch of fantasy. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME Entertainment.

April 1, 2012
Howe (The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, 2009) sets her second novel among early-20th-century Bostonians fascinated by the power of both spiritualism and the new science of psychology. Twenty-seven-year-old spinster Sibyl Allston lives a quiet life with her father Lan, a successful businessman who talks little about his youth as a sailor in the Far East. In 1915 both are still mourning the deaths of Sibyl's mother Helen and younger sister Eulah, who drowned on the Titanic three years before. Except for her regular visits to the medium, Mrs. Dee, in hopes of making contact with her mother and sister, Sibyl is a retiring, conventional young woman. Then her younger brother Harlan is thrown out of Harvard, ends up in the hospital after a fight he will not discuss and moves back into the family home along with a young woman named Dovie, whose background remains as murky as her relationship to Harlan. Dovie introduces Sibyl to a potentially dangerous habit in Boston's Chinatown, but at the same time Sibyl's former beau re-enters her life. Benton is now a psychology professor at Harvard who tries to help Sibyl by exposing Mrs. Dee as a fraud. But as the country drifts toward World War I, Sibyl begins to realize she may possess an unexpected gift as a seer, one that she unknowingly inherited from her father along with a taste for opium. Is knowing the future a gift or a curse, or does it depend on the angle through which it is viewed? Ultimately Sibyl learns that even within a world ruled by fate, choices can be made. The slightly sordid melodrama and para-psychological philosophizing lean uncomfortably against a sappy romance.

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March 15, 2012

Following her wildly successful best-selling debut (The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane), Howe takes a new direction with her sophomore effort. In 1915 Boston, Sybil Allston still struggles to cope with the loss of her mother and sister on the Titanic three years earlier and reaches out to a spiritualist in hopes of reconnecting with her deceased relatives. When an acquaintance from her past appears, Sybil is driven to embark on a mysterious journey to investigate the depths of her family's secrets. Romance, elements of the supernatural, and an intricate family drama contribute to this atmospheric character-driven story set against a richly detailed turn-of-the-century backdrop. VERDICT Where Howe successfully mingled the occult world of Salem's past with the present day in Deliverance Dane, the new novel may disappoint readers who found the first book spellbinding. Reading more as historical fiction with bits of mysticism thrown in, this release should satisfy undiscriminating historical fiction readers, specifically those interested in the early 20th century. Recommended for fans of Tracy Chevalier and Diana Gabaldon.--Carolann Curry, Mercer Medical Lib., Macon, GA

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2012
The author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (2009) offers a poignant look at spiritualism during the Great War and the comfort it brought to people who had lost loved ones. Two members of the Allston family of Boston died on the Titanic in 1912. Three years later the family is chronically depressed: Sibyl still attends seances in an attempt to contact her mother and sister from their watery grave; her brother is dissolute and dangerously in debt; and her morose father models the stoic. When the medium, Mrs. Dee, gives Sibyl a scrying glass in which she sees shockingly detailed visions of a foundering cruise ship, we learn that Sibyl's newfound seer's gift may be heriditary and doesn't come without a price. A page-turner that vividly evokes Great War militaristic fervor and obsession with psychic phenomena, Howe's novel is at once a cultural commentary and an outstanding historical gothic, as compelling and creepy as John Harwood's The Seance (2009) and Paul Elwork's The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead (2011). HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The runaway popularity of Deliverance Dane in 2009 was something of a surprise, fueled by hand-selling at every level, but Howe's follow-up will come with a built-in audience and abundant promotional support.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)