Stevie‘s review of Waters of the Deep (Unquiet Spirits, Book 2) by Alex Beecroft
Gay Historical Fantasy Romance published by Amazon Digital Services 13 Jul 17
I read an early version of Alex Beecroft’s first Unquiet Spirits story a good while ago in an anthology called The Mysterious. It wasn’t my favourite of her stories, but intrigued me enough to give the sequel a fair go at impressing me. This time around, the heroes are working together to solve a supernatural mystery some distance from their home, and also dealing with disruptions in their personal lives caused by jealousy, insecurity, and infidelity.
Having vanquished his family’s ghosts, Charles is now living with his lover, Jasper, who helped him in that task; however, Charles is unhappy at how publically they are condemned by Society and at the number of unfortunates Jasper has opened his home to, albeit in the guise of providing said unfortunates with paid employment. Now, Charles is being blackmailed by a former lover, with whom he also strayed more recently. On arriving home, he is spared more than one day’s worth of Jasper’s ire only by the arrival of a new client for their supernatural investigations business.
A wealthy Derbyshire mill-owner has been murdered, and the man’s friend suspects the killer was something other than human, especially given the other odd goings-on in the ‘model’ village built close the new mill’s location. Reluctantly, given their personal differences, Charles and Jasper agree to travel to Derbyshire together and discover what has been going on.
Once there, they meet a wide range of suspicious characters, many of whom are keen to throw blame for the goings-on onto one of their equally shifty neighbours. The odd events are compounded by the villagers’ own suspicions regarding incomers: not just Charles and Jasper, but also those people brought in by the murdered man to help in the running of his business and household. The solution, when it came, was most elegant – and a warning to those who interfere in matters they don’t understand through thinking they know better than multiple generations of locals.
I liked this book a lot. The legends and supernatural beings were well thought out and revealed to our heroes only gradually, while the heroes’ own issues were dealt with over a believable timeframe, Charles, especially, drove me up the wall sometimes, but he was very much a product of his class and era, so that was understandable, if not excusable on a personal level. All that makes for interesting, not always likable, characters, of course.
An excellent book, and I hope we get more in the series very soon.
Grade: A
Summary:
Charles and Jasper are brought in to investigate a fatal stabbing in (the cotton-mill town of) Paradise. But this time the only troublesome ghost in the case is their own adopted child Lily. So what’s leaving the glistening trail in the woods? Why did the vicar’s daughter suddenly kill herself? And where are the missing cows?
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