According to her mother, Hecate Cavendish needs to settle down with a nice man. According to her father, Hecate is a gifted scholar who should be given the freedom to choose her future. Things in the Cavendish house are, understandably for the late 1800s, tense. As if this weren’t enough, Paula Brackston makes things even more complicated for her protagonist in The Haunting of Hecate Cavendish by, well, introducing some hauntings.
Hecate’s first day as assistant librarian at the Hereford Cathedral is a happy one. Only her mother’s disapproval mars the day, but Hecate is used to that. She wheels across town on her new bicycle, determined to make a good impression on the clerics at the cathedral. One might think that her gender and her name would put the men of the cathedral off but, with the exception of the cantankerous librarian, Hecate charms everyone she meets. Much to her surprise, she also charms the resident ghosts: a medieval monk, a Napoleonic veteran, a Georgian maid, and an aristocratic lady.
Things get stranger at the cathedral when an apparent desecration in the crypt and a shocking murder nearby lead Hecate and the ghosts to pursue supernatural leads. Hecate is the kind of protagonist to hare off on her own but, thankfully, she takes precautions to arm herself before tackling anything dangerous. It’s a relief to read a character who doesn’t charge in blindly. And, being a librarian myself, I appreciated that one of the things Hecate does to learn more about her adversary is to take a trip to the British Library and con her way into the archives.
Readers may want to wait for the next book in the series before picking up a copy of The Haunting of Hecate Cavendish. The conclusion to this book leaves a huge hanging thread that diminishes the effect of a pretty spectacular climax.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.