The Siren And The Spectre is the second book in my 20 Books Of Summer Challenge.

Blurb:

When David Caine, a celebrated skeptic of the supernatural, is invited by an old friend to spend a month in the most haunted house in Virginia, he believes the case will be like any other. But the Alexander House is different.

Built by a 1700s land baron to contain the madness and depravity of his eldest son, the house is plagued by shadows of the past and the lingering taint of bloodshed. David is haunted, as well. For twenty-two years ago, he turned away the woman he loved, and she took her life in sorrow.

And David suspects she s followed him to the Alexander House.

Flame Tree Press is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launching in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

Review:

The first thing I noticed as I started to read The Siren And The Spectre was the really precise description. This made me feel as though I was walking through Alexander House with David and helped to build the atmosphere. The characters are also described in similar detail and this helped me to get to know them as the novel progressed.

I read The Siren And The Spectre as part of a bingo reading challenge for the “horror novel” square. Horror is not a genre to which I am usually drawn so I must thank fellow blogger Zoe for pointing me in the right direction. I loved the way Janz built up the history of Alexander House as this made it feel more creepy to me. The novel was really well plotted and the atmosphere was brilliant. I am glad I didn’t read the book too late at night!

For the first four sections of the novel, the tension builds quite slowly but the last section is something else. The tension suddenly increases massively and makes the ending of The Siren And The Spectre a very bloody, high stakes ending.

I think horror is a genre I will be returning to very soon!

The Siren And The Spectre is available from Amazon.