The Spirit Circle by Tara Calaby
Title: The Spirit Circle
Author: Tara Calaby
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Text Publishing
Published: 7th January 2025
Format: Paperback
Pages: 384
Price: $34.99
Synopsis: For Ellen Whitfield, the betrothal of her dear friend Harriet to Ellen’s brother has brought both loss and solace. But when Harriet suddenly breaks off the engagement, ostensibly at the insistence of her deceased mother, Ellen is bewildered. And when she learns that Harriet is involved with a spiritualist group led by the charismatic Caroline McLeod, she fears losing her friend altogether.
So it is that practical, sceptical Ellen moves into the gloomy East Melbourne mansion where Caroline, along with her enigmatic daughter Grace, has assembled a motley court of the bereaved. Ellen’s intention is to expose the simple trickery—the hidden cabinets and rigged seances, the levers and wires—that must surely lie behind these visits from the departed.
What she discovers is altogether more complicated.
Tara Calaby weaves a compelling and richly detailed narrative around the romance of old Melbourne in this intriguing, possibly supernatural, historical mystery.
~*~
Ellen’s best friend, Harriet, is all set to marry Ellen’s brother William. That is, until Harriet is left bereft by the death of her entire family at sea, and once Harriet is drawn into the world of seances and a church that claims to be in contact with the death, things start to go wrong. Especially when Harriet claims her deceased mother has visited her and demanded that she call off the wedding. This kicks off the novel, and leads Ellen and William to discover that Harriet has joined a new church called the Church of the Spirit, run by the enigmatic medium, Caroline McLeod and her daughter Grace. When she arrives to convince Harriet to come home, Ellen is drawn into the motley crew of women who steadfastly believe Caroline.
And yet, scepticism trickles through Ellen and a few of the others. Ellen is determined to reveal the trickery and lies she is sure that Caroline and Grace employ, get Harriet home and restore order to her family.
As Ellen is drawn further into the church, with claims that Caroline needs her and experiences that dredge up a tragedy from the past, things start to get more complicated, with a sense that anyone wanting to leave the church will be an outcast amidst the women. Things start off innocently enough, until Grace starts to give Ellen several cryptic warnings throughout the novel as things bubble along eerily. Ellen finds herself questioning herself and her beliefs when the memories she fears are dredged up and she’s forced to face them and the reality of what happened, or what she thought had happened so many years ago. Not only this, Ellen, who has always been sure she will never marry and have children, despite her mother’s attempts, starts to feel something new, or at least an acknowledgement of what she has always suspected about herself. The language used around this suited the times and Ellen’s character as well, allowing the reality of these feelings to be seen, whilst also showing that there is a power in being able to be who you are with the people who care about you and can see it in you.
This is what I liked about Grace, William and Harriet. William and Harriet accepted Ellen for who she was, and knew, perhaps even before she knew herself. Or was able to properly identify it for herself. And Grace, for her honesty and ability to make Ellen see the truth about herself. Whilst the story was about spirits and belief in an afterlife, there was also a mystery within the story about how Caroline was creating the messages her devout followers believed, and the slow disintegration of the church and beliefs. Soon, things start to fracture, and I got the sense that there was more going on than met the eye. It was a mystery in some parts, where the characters, in particular Ellen, are trying to uncover the truth about what is really going on. Because this is a novel where secrets abound and where things happen that can’t be explained. Where some people used trickery to get what they wanted, lest they be revealed as frauds. Everything in this novel hints at something bigger, something that will bring about change for everyone in the Plumstead house.
Tara Calaby’s new novel captures the strange hold that spiritualism combined with religion had on people during the 19th century, as well as grapples with identity, class, and family. It allows these issues to be explored in a way that shows what is known or assumed about this time wasn’t the same for everyone, and the people who were open-minded – in the context of the times at least – are the ones characters like Ellen and Grace could rely on. This is a wonderful book about acceptance, finding yourself, family and forgiveness that is as powerful as Tara’s last novel, and a poignant examination of the lives of women and what society expects from them.