Strange and Ghostly: The Drowning House: A Novel and Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel

Strange and Ghostly...                                      

     The Drowning House: A Novel by Elizabeth Black.
                           Nan Talese, Doubleday, Random House, 2013. 

Elizabeth Black, a Houston resident, has penned her first novel, The Drowning House: A Novel. With her child dead and her marriage coming apart, photographer Clare Porterfield returns,after a ten year absence, to the home of her childhood in Galveston, Texas. Clare's family history is closely tied to that of the wealthy Carradys. Local legends say that Stella Carraday died in the 1900 flood by getting her hair caught up in the chandelier. (Hence the book's cover photo of a gray ceiling and an elaborate light fixture.) When Clare studies a local photo archive in preparation for a project, she learns more about Galveston, her family, and her neighbors. Black well evokes the weather and setting's lure of the past happenings affecting the future. Suspenseful and begging to be taken for a little reading in a beach house this summer, this one is a fast read. Follow the clues carefully and you may not be surprised what happens though.

 Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel by Audrey Niffenegger.
                         Scribner, 2009.

With her second novel, Audrey Niffenegger opens a Pandora's Box of mystery and ghosts. Twin sisters, Valentina and Julia, inherit a flat next to Highgate Cemetery in London. The terms of the inheritance from their aunt (and their mother's twin) require that they live there a year and that their parents do not enter the apartment. With their aunt's lover as a neighbor, and another neighbor suffering from OCD, the scene is ripe for strange doings. Add a ghostly spirit who may have ulterior motives, girls who are more than a little different to start with, and an old city to  explore, and readers may be a little spooked by the possibilities described!