The Tale of Halcyon Crane (2010)

I happily stumbled upon this atmospheric novel and immediately couldn't put it down. We meet Hallie, a woman who receives a very mysterious and unbelievable letter from a woman who claims to be her long-lost mother. When Hallie confronts her beloved father, days before he dies, she learns the letter is no lie. What she grew up believing is, and she travels to the island in the middle of the Great Lakes where her mother lived and very recently died. Left with no one but an unsettling housekeeper to tell Hallie her family's story, Hallie fights to find out what happened decades earlier that caused her loving father to escape with her and fake their deaths. This was a great mystery, with many secrets to unravel, a bit of romance and many supernatural elements throughout. I'm looking forward to reading more by this author!

Sarah M. / Marathon County Public Library
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When I am in the mood for a bit of escapism reading – like I was this past week – I sometimes gravitate towards mysteries with a touch of romance and saturated in gothic atmosphere. Having previously enjoyed The Fate of Mercy Alban, I decided to give this one, Webb’s debut novel, a read. While I found Hallie’s character to be a bit on the wide-eyed, naïve side, the gothic atmosphere is captured perfectly with a rambling house filled to the rafters with family secrets, unusual happenings, things that go “bump in the night” and a housekeeper that fits the “creepy” bill to a T. I really enjoyed the family history stories the housekeeper tells Hallie over a series of days, unveiling the secrets, one relative at a time. I also really like the whole Great Manitou Island setting – a fictitious island vacation spot where the locals all get around by horse and buggy (no cars allowed on the island). This, and the November time period, gives the setting a quaint effect, enhancing the feeling of isolation. The mystery – an unsolved murder case – was pretty easy to solve, IMO but as I was reading the book more for the gothic atmosphere, that didn’t bother me too much.

A enjoyable bit of escapism reading, especially if read during a stormy fall day. ( )

A nice escape book. ( )

A genuinely creepy, unsettling novel filled with witches, ghosts, cemeteries, and every other gothic trope you can think of, Halcyon Crane is a delightful ghost story. Hallie James receives a strange letter from a woman claiming to be her mother - except her father told Hallie her mother died years ago in a fire. Spurred by curiosity, Hallie James goes to her childhood home and finds secrets in her family history.

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Haille James discovers a letter in her mailbox that turns everything she has know to be true in her life upside-down. Her mother, thought dead for thirty years has, in fact, only just recently died. Haille travels to the somewhat remote island her mother called home, only to discover a large inheritance that comes with a few ghosts attached.

Overall, this was not a bad ghost story, filled with all the things one expects: victorian mansion, graveyards, unfriendly townsfolk, the omnipresent elderly maid and the dashing romantic interest. This book had been described as “giving Bram Stoker and Stephen King a run for their travel budget” (whatever that means?). I enjoyed the book and, it is definitely a good first effort by a debut novelist but I would in no way compare it to Stoker and King (who probably shouldn’t even be compared to each other).
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