Whispers of Warning

August 1, 2017
Young spiritualist and suffragette Ruby Proulx (Whispers Beyond the Veil, 2016) investigates a second suspicious death at a resort hotel on the coast of Maine in 1898.The cause of women's suffrage and the Victorian fad for the occult join in the personage of Sophronia Foster Eldridge, who's found the ideal place to rally her cause in Old Orchard. In this charming Maine seaside town, Ruby's aunt Honoria Belden operates the Belden Hotel, where freethinkers gather to tend their sensitivities to everything from tarot cards to hay fever. Not all the citizens of Old Orchard are so enlightened, however: Sophronia's march threatens to upstage the opening of a new pleasure pier, incurring the wrath of the chief of police and Congressman Nelson Plaisted. Even more disquieting is the information Sophronia's spirit guides reveal about the corruption among men in power--corruption that can be dispelled only by full public knowledge and the voices of women in politics. Before Sophronia can publish her manuscript of supernaturally inspired muckraking, she's found drowned in a bathing pool with rocks in her pockets. The police chief is more than happy to close the case as a suicide, but Ruby knows that Sophronia was too committed to the cause to kill herself. She finds an ally in her best friend's brother, Officer Warren Yancey, who's determined to see justice done and who's more than a little smitten with Ruby. Together they uncover the killer and preserve the good name of the Belden Hotel for another season. Well-paced and appealingly quirky. The ideal entertainment for the reader's own restorative visit to the seaside.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 2, 2017
Set toward the end of the 19th century, Estevao’s engrossing sequel to 2016’s Whispers Beyond the Veil finds plucky, wryly observant Ruby Proulx, whose childhood was spent working in her father’s traveling medicine show, now living with her spiritualist aunt, Honoria Belden, in Old Orchard, Maine. Honoria owns a small hotel staffed by practitioners of the paranormal and caters to spiritually inclined guests. The arrival of famous suffragette Sophronia Foster Eldridge creates quite a stir, particularly after she announces that she has written a book revealing the corruption and crimes of leading local citizens. When Sophronia is found drowned, the Old Orchard police chief declares her death a suicide, but Ruby and police officer Warren Yancey believe she was murdered. The chapters narrated by Ruby are rich in details of life on the road with her father and reveal the restrictions placed on women in the period. Those told from the point of view of Warren offer a picture of Ruby that sometimes doesn’t quite jell with how she sees herself, as well as insights into police procedures of the day. Estevao has created a delightful and comforting world filled with a broad and entertaining cast. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency.