Review: The Second Death of Edie and Violet Bond

 

This book is so good. It has the perfect vibes for the spooky season and comes out on October 4th. It is a young adult novel about twin sisters who can interact with the spirit world. These sisters work for a traveling mediums show where they pretend to use skills as mediums without using their existing skills. The story follows Edie who can enter the spirit world. Her sister, Violet, can channel spirits into herself. While Violet is channeling a spirit for one of her clients, something unexpected happens and Edie is forced to enter the spirit world to help. What she finds brings her back to her mother's demise and she makes a choice not to share it with her sister. She has to embark on a journey to solve this problem on her own. Only a pesky journalist named Laws keeps inserting himself into her work. 

The atmosphere of this book was perfect for the story. The 1880s Sacramento, California, home to many different mediums with the rise of women being thrown into asylums for mediomania (I'm definitely not spelling that right). The sisterly love, the relationships between women, and the showing of the hustle of women is just so interesting. I absolutely loved this book. I love mediums, seances, and anything to do with the spirit world (although you will not see me actually doing any of these things, I have zero desire to be haunted). I love books where the relationships between women are vital to the story. 

If you're looking for a good read for the Halloween season if you like spooky stories and seeing the friendships between women. If you like a love story that doesn't overpower the central message and the character's goals, I highly recommend reading this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and honestly, it was a pretty quick read. It does come out on the 4th of October which is this Tuesday, so be sure to check it out. 

This book does have some minor content warnings. There is discussion of asylums, although I would say in a more tasteful way. There is discussion of death, murder, blood, gore, etc. As always I recommend StoryGraph for a full list of possible content warnings as noted by the reader. 

Happy reading and see you soon!