Halloween may be over, but that just means it’s time for my other favorite thing about fall: a spooky new release from Leanna Renee Hieber! In A Sanctuary of Spirits, the second installment in Leanna’s new Spectral City series, the girl-gang of the NYPD Ghost Precinct return to investigate a horde of restless children’s spirits. The book comes out tomorrow, November 12. And if you’re in the New York City area, you should join me tomorrow for the launch party at WORD bookstore in Brooklyn!
At the end of The Spectral City, Eve Whitby and the handsome Detective Horowitz were just about to kiss when they were rather rudely interrupted by a ghost. A Sanctuary of Spirits picks right up from that moment with the ghostly Maggie leading the two lovebirds on a quest to the physical entrance of Sanctuary, a special place carved out of the spirit world for ghosts seeking safety and rest. But not all spirits are so lucky. Eve and her colleagues find their headquarters increasingly haunted by the distressed spirits of children begging the mediums, “Put our pieces together” so that they can finally find peace. Eve and company soon discover a series of threads that weave together into a complicated web endangering not just individual spirits, but the entire spirit world and those who communicate with it. A dead man seems to still be exerting control over one of New York City’s most powerful families. A fanatic undertaker has been stealing body parts from unknowing clients. A creepy magician has created an unsettling performance that blends macabre imagery of heaven and hell with frightening demonstrations of mesmerism. And all seem to be connected through a secret organization that lives by the motto Arte Uber Alles—art above everything.
One of my favorite aspects of this book is the way that Leanna takes care to explore the differences in the ways her heroes and villains treat the dead. It might be fair to say that both Eve and the unscrupulous undertaker Dupont are rather preoccupied with the dead in ways that others might find morbid. They both root their identity in the professional work they do with the deceased and find in it a higher calling. But their motivations for and methods of working with the dead differ in significant ways. Dupont views dead bodies as objects, while completely ignoring their personhood and subjectivity. Dupont believes himself to be honoring the dead by incorporating body parts into works of art, while refusing to acknowledge the fact that neither the dead themselves nor their living loved ones feel the same. In contrast, Eve’s work with spirits focuses on giving them greater agency and making sure their wishes are respected. Though the book never uses this term, the conflict hinges on the idea of the Good Death, a phrase I’ve learned from Caitlin Doughty and the Order of the Good Death, which relates to both the manner in which someone dies and the way their body is treated after death. Exactly what constitutes a Good Death varies by culture and by individual, and Leanna makes a point to clarify that it isn’t necessarily the fact of severing body parts and making them into art that makes Dupont in the wrong. Rather, it’s that Dupont does these things without the knowledge or permission of the deceased or their kin and that this treatment of the bodies is counter to what the victims consider to be a Good Death. When interacting with the dead, as with the living, not only do your intentions matter but so, too, does your impact. And as always, consent is paramount.
On a lighter note, A Sanctuary of Spirits also paints a loving portrait of how families full of opposites can still live in harmony. The first example is Eve’s immediate family. Fort Denbury, the two-family townhouse where they live, is exactly how I imagine a house would look if I lived side-by-side with my sister. Eve’s side is dark to match her all-black wardrobe, with the lights usually dimmed for better spirit work. The side her parents live on is brightly lit and filled with pastel decor. These contrasting aesthetics reflect their different interests: Eve spends her life immersed in the supernatural, while her mother Natalie does all she can to distance herself from ghosts and her past trauma. Though these differences occasionally cause conflict, Eve and her mother love each other deeply, even when they don’t entirely understand the other’s point of view. My favorite side characters, the Veil family, are in somewhat of an opposite situation. Actor Nathaniel Veil and his wife Lavinia are the gothest of the goths, melodramatic and reveling in ostentatious clothing and jewelry in blacks and reds. Their more sedate and introverted son, Daniel, is pretty embarrassed to be out with them in public. But like the Whitbys, the Veils are a happy, loving family. So whether you’re the black sheep goth of the family, or the normal kid being raised by goth parents, aesthetic differences are no obstacle to love!
If you want to read A Sanctuary of Spirits for yourself, you can find it on shelves at your local retailer starting tomorrow, or order it online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. If you preorder the book from WORD bookstore before tomorrow, you can get a signed paperback and a special art print by Kelley Hensing. And again, don’t forget to come out to the launch party at WORD if you can!