The Clairvoyants: A Wonderfully Unsettling Semi-Ghost Story

The Clairvoyants by Karen Brown is billed as a gothic ghost story set in modern times. The main character sees ghosts (!!), and ultimately finds herself down the path of trying to determine the mystery of a murdered girl, running into some murky waters along the way. The story ultimately ended up reading like a lowkey thriller combined with a ghost story, and it was a ton of fun to read.

Karen Brown’s most hypnotic novel to date--gothic-inflected psychological suspense that unmasks the secret desires of a young woman with a mystical gift
On the family homestead by the sea where she grew up, Martha Mary saw ghosts. As a young woman, she hopes to distance herself from those spirits by escaping to an inland college town. There, she is absorbed by a budding romance, relieved by separation from an unstable sister, and disinterested in the flyers seeking information about a young woman who’s disappeared—until one Indian summer afternoon when the missing woman appears beneath Martha’s apartment window, wearing a down coat, her hair coated with ice.

I received this book for free from Henry Holt and Co. in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

What I liked:

1. Karen Brown’s writing! She did such a fantastic job. It perfectly set the mood and always adequately crafted the scene. The entire time I read the book I felt slightly unsettled, although nothing explicitly unsettling was happening, and I know that this was a result of her effective writing.

2. The lowkey thriller aspect of this story. If you injected this book with tons of action and threw in some weapons, you’d create the perfect thriller. I’m not a fan of thrillers, because I find them boring (obviously this is not true for every thriller, but I tend to avoid the genre for this reason). This book, however, had just enough mystery/thriller to it to keep you turning the pages, but not enough to become a predictable thriller novel.

3. The SUSPENSE! OMG I live for suspense in novels, and this is a novel of suspense. Sort of like the first point, it just results in a really creepy feeling while reading the novel, even though nothing creepy is actually happening. And then when you finally get to the twists and plot reveals your face suddenly is stuck resembling a gaping fish.

4. The ghosts!!!!! GAH!! I loved that our main character could see ghosts. I loved it even more that this wasn’t the main focus of the story. It was a peripheral point – important to the story, but everything didn’t hang on this. It was so well done.

Would definitely recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys thrillers, ghost stories, or likes the idea of a modern gothic novel!

I haven’t read a lot of gothic novels, but every one I read I really enjoy. Do you have some good recommendations?

A.S. Thornton

A.S. Thornton has evolved from book blogger to author with a particular fondness for writing forbidden love in ancient deserts. When not writing, she’s caring for dogs and cats as a veterinarian. You’ll never find animals at the center of her writing, though, because those fictional worlds don’t have veterinarians and her literal brain can’t accept that the poor critters would be without parasite prevention. Thornton’s debut, DAUGHTER OF THE SALT KING is available wherever books are sold.