The Summoning

Do you believe in life after death? Kit Capriol might – but she hasn’t let her uncertainty interfere with her business as a medium. When she starts to believe that the dead have started to truly talk to her, though, she suddenly finds herself navigating more danger than she bargained for.

Kit Capriol is still standing after a series of knocks that have left her alone – her husband dead in the 9/11 terror attacks, her daughter in coma following a subway accident years later. As an out of work actor, she thought working as a medium to pay the bills couldn’t hurt anyone, but it’s quickly clear that things might be changing. Suddenly, she’s seeing and hearing things that couldn’t be possible; but once something is summoned it’s not as simple to make it go away again.

I really enjoyed The Summoning. I did have some issues adjusting to the almost fragmented style of the storyline, but once I had it glued me to the page. It feels like a quick read; but really I’d just stopped noticing the passage of time. There’s a level of ambiguity that’s carried through the whole book that really intrigued me; storyline, characters, even some of the events described are kept deliberately unclear. It invites the reader to be part of the story – you can’t make it through this book without interacting with it, something that I love to see done well.

For all the doubt that the author allows his readers to retain, though, there’s some definitely out-and-out tense and even terrifying moments. There’s a delicate balance between the supernatural and the more earthly thriller elements, and both are used to excellent effect to produce a storyline that positively pulls the reader through the pages.

The Summoning is a suspenseful and gripping novel, one readers can count on to keep them reading into the late hours.