Interview with Sarah Penner

The Gloss Book Club: What can you tell our members about your novel The London Séance Society?

Sarah Penner: The London Séance Seance Society takes place in high Victorian London, when séances and ghosts were all the rage. My story is about a woman named Vaudeline D’Allaire, an internationally-esteemed spiritualist who conjures the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identity of the people who killed them. She is sought out by a young woman named Lenna Wickes, whose sister recently died under suspicious circumstances. Together with an exclusive mens’ society in London called the Séance Society, the two women try to hunt down the truth. But soon, they begin to suspect they’re not only out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves…

TGBC: Where did the inspiration for London Séance Society come from?

SP: I’ve always wanted to write a ghost story, but haunted houses are so common in fiction, and I could never settle on a fresh take to the trope. Then, one day while chatting with my mom, she said to me, “we should go to a séance. Areal séance, not a fake one.” At that very moment, a lightbulb went off: I love the word “séance,” as it feels sultry and mysterious, and I decided my book would, somehow, incorporate a woman who was known worldwide for her skill in conjuring spirits during séance.

TGBC: What kind of research did you do for this novel and how long do you spend researching before beginning to write?

SP: Oh, the research was such a blast! All things ghosts, London, the Victorian Era. Perhaps my favorite research book was Chris Woodyard’s The Victorian Book of the Dead. It discusses the many traditions and superstitions that the Victorians held around death and funerals.

Strangely, little information exists on actually performing a séance, which left me with plenty of room to make up my own rules! The seven stages to conducting a séance, which you’ll find at the start of the book, were my own invention.

TGBC:What did you edit out of this book?

SP: Well, let me put it this way. The book opens with two murders needing to be solved, and the cast of characters is small: less than a half-dozen main characters. So, I needed to hide my villain in plain sight, and my editors did a fabulous job telling me where I was giving too much away, or where I needed to add red herrings to throw off the reader.

TGBC: In a previous interview together (how lucky we get to do this again! ️) you said, “From premise to final edits, every story’s process is different.” With that in mind, how did your writing process differ when writing London Séance Society compared to your debut, The Lost Apothecary? 

SP: I wrote The Lost Apothecary while working full-time in finance, so I spent nearly 18 months writing and revising it on my own. But with The London Séance Society, I had already quit my job and was writing full-time. After running the story outline by my editor, I drafted the book in eleven weeks (!!) The narrative came to me almost fully-formed, and I couldn’t get the scenes down quick enough. Of course, revisions took me months. Start to finish was about ten months, I believe. Still, much quicker than my debut!

TGBC: What was the most challenging element during your writing process of your sophmore novel and how did you overcome it?

SP: The success of The Lost Apothecary meant the bar was (is!) high for The London Séance Society. Readers have expectations. They want the same thing, but different. And my fanbase is large for an author who has only put out one book. That means there are lots of people waiting to see if I can pull it off again. The sophomore slump is real, and I suffer from imposter syndrome, so I was very worried about being a one-hit wonder. But, early readers love the new book! In fact, I got my first-ever starred review, from Booklist, on The London Séance Society. 

TGBC: What appeals to you about writing historical fiction – and specifically infusing it with mystical elements?

SP: One word: atmosphere. We can’t access the past except by photographs, diary entries, and passed-down stories, so writers are tasked with setting this scene for readers. Especially sensory detail: the sound of a match striking on flint, the odor of sulfur a moment later. The atmosphere in The London Séance Society is so rich and haunting. Think black lace, candles, mirrors, smoke. And with the freedom to incorporate mystical or speculative elements? It elevates an already compelling environment. In one pivotal scene of the book, Lenna looks down at the table in front of her to see handprints disappearing before her eyes. These are ghosts, of course, and this is an example of a scene in which I was able to describe the setting while also weaving in the speculative.

TGBC: If you were forced to live the rest of your life as one of your characters, who would it be and why?

SP: Definitely Lenna Wickes, the main character in my story. Lenna is in her twenties, yet only now is she discovering what she’s capable of, who she desires, and what she wants out of life. There’s nothing but opportunity ahead of her.

TGBC: What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

SP: My late father was a defense attorney and litigator, and I watched him many times in the courtroom. He would keep juries spellbound through a case as he delivered his arguments, and he taught me that effective communication is less about what you’re saying, and more about how you’re saying it. Word choice, inflection, tone, variety: these are important qualities not only when speaking, but when writing, too.

TGBC: What is the last book you read that you loved?

SP: I’ll give you two. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters is everything I’ve ever wanted in a sapphic, Victorian-London tale. And also, The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman, forthcoming June 6. It’s a witty middle-aged crisis story full of laugh-out-loud humor and poignant self-discoveries.