Hazardous Spirits

October is a great time for spooky and Gothic books, and I was excited for Hazardous Spirits by Anbara Salam. Set during the 1920s spiritualist movement in Scotland, it has the right atmosphere… but does it live up to its potential? Eh, somewhat.

Special thanks to Tin House and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Summary

Evelyn Hazard has a decent life as a housewife until her husband, Robert, suddenly announces that he can talk to the dead. At first Evie doesn’t believe him, but as she gets pulled into the local spiritualist movement in Edinburgh, she starts to rethink her views. Could it be true? As she makes connections with the upper echelons of society, Evie also holds some secrets close about her late sister, Dolly. Her judgmental family and the ongoing case of a missing child only add to the murkiness and uncertainty.

Review

The synopsis for Hazardous Spirits instantly captured my interest: ghostly spirits, mediums communicating with them, a Gothic vibe all around, set against 1920s Scotland? It sounded spooky and fascinating. And at first, this book delivered. The first half has all the vibes and strange plot that I’d anticipated, along with a dry humor and an unexpected unfolding of events. But at a certain point, the glamour wore off.

Evelyn is a frustrating main character. She’s always a bit too anxious and overly concerned with everyone’s opinions of her and her husband, Robert. His apparent ability to communicate with the dead and, moreover, his involvement with other spiritualists doesn’t sit well with Evie or her family. They’re all quite judgmental, and although Evie’s feelings on the matter fluctuate, she starts to feel tedious and like she’s not progressing.

My biggest issue with Hazardous Spirits is all the questions it builds up without offering enough answers. Evie seems to have major secrets around the death of her elder sister, Dolly, a few years prior, and she’s adamant about not communicating with her spirit. What is Evie hiding? What might Dolly’s spirit reveal? Then there’s the matter of Robert’s medium abilities: Is it true, a lie, or a symptom of madness? Even details about Evie’s past—another man, a pregnancy, details of Dolly’s life—are oddly vague. It’s like looking at a scene through a fogged up, dirty window. We get a sense for things, but nothing ever comes fully into focus.

The book’s ending leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t want to spoil anything… and with that ending I’m not sure that I could anyway. That last sentence?! Come on!

Don’t get me wrong: I actually enjoyed most of my time reading this. It has great atmosphere, and I liked getting to know about the spiritualist movement of 1920s Edinburgh. But the last third of the book lost the plot, and by the final pages, I knew there wasn’t enough time to wrap everything up. So it was thrilling setup for a rather dissatisfying end.

Final Thoughts

Hazardous Spirits is great for its vibes and subject matter, but it feels unfinished. (Or rather, its lack of a solid ending only reinforces the indecisiveness of Evie’s character.) While there is a lot I enjoyed about it, it’s ultimately a bit disappointing due to its lack of answers.

Get the Book

You can buy Hazardous Spirits here – it’s available as a paperback and ebook.

Hazardous Spirits by Anbara Salam
Audience	Adult
Genre	Historical Fiction; Gothic
Setting	Scotland
Number of Pages	368
Format I Read	Ebook (NetGalley ARC)
Original Publication Date	October 17, 2023

Official Summary

“Equal parts lush Gothic mystery and delicately wrought 1920s domestic drama. . . . a riveting exploration of the unknowable—whether it’s ghosts, spirits, or the people we love most.”—Tara Isabella Burton, author of The World Cannot Give

In 1920s Edinburgh, Scotland, Evelyn Hazard is a young, middle-class housewife living the life she’s always expected—until her husband, Robert, upends everything with a startling announcement: he can communicate with the dead.

The couple is pulled into the spiritualist movement—a religious society of mediums and psychics that emerged following the mass deaths of the Spanish flu and First World War—and Evelyn’s carefully composed world begins to unravel. And when long-held secrets from her past threaten to come to the surface, presenting her with the prospect of losing all she holds dear, Evelyn finds herself unable to avoid the question: is the man she loves a fraud, a madman, or—most frighteningly—is he telling the truth?

Cloaked in the moody, beguiling backdrop of twentieth-century Scotland, Anbara Salam’s Hazardous Spirits brings a sparkling sense of period detail and dry humor to the life of a young woman whose world is unsettled by mediums and spirits, revealing the devastating secrets that ghosts from the past can tell when given the voice to do so.