The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James - ★★

[John]

I have read and enjoyed several of Simone St. James's novels including The Haunting of Maddy Clare, Silence for the Dead, The Broken Girls, and The Broken Girls. All have given either three- or four-star ratings. This one, however, was the worst of the lot with two-stars only. I was tempted several times to lay this one down but kept plodding through with plodding being an apt description.

What attracts me to St. James's books is that she combines a couple of genres including historical fiction and mystery and throws in paranormal activities to boot. Although this current read includes all of these, the paranormal aspects played a backstage to the other genres.

The novel's protagonist, Ellie Winter, has assumed her mother's business as a psychic in post-WW1 London. Her particular psychic ability is psychometry, which is an extrasensory perception stimulated by the touch of physical objects. People pay her to find lost objects. When a medium, Gloria Sutter, is murdered, her brother honors a written message she left behind to have Ellie find her. I had high hopes like her other books that I have read, but, in this case, it was only okay.