The Tale of Halcyon Crane

Wendy Webb's debut novel, The Tale of Halcyon Crane, was a fun gothic ghost story. It is written in a very similar style to The Vanishing, which I read first. I loved The Vanishing so much, I decided to check out the others works from Wendy Webb.

Hallie James gets a letter from a stranger named William Archer stating that the mother she thought was dead her whole life had actually been alive and just recently passed away, leaving her entire estate to her daughter. Naturally curious, Hallie travels to the remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes, which is home to her mother's beautiful Victorian house that is now hers. Upon Hallie's arrival on the island, the locals are not at all welcoming to her, giving her suspicious looks and whispering behind her back. Hallie soon learns that her family has some very dark secrets and everyone on the island believed her to be dead for the last thirty years. The more time Hallie spends on the island, the more she learns about her family, and the more she encounters ghosts from the past who show her all the family secrets.

I love the settings Webb creates in her stories. The town on the island is very old-fashioned. There are no cars and no cell service. The locals rely on horse drawn carriages to get around when they can't travel by foot. If you're a lover of history as well as a fun ghost story, Webb's novels are perfect for you! Stick around to read my upcoming review of Webb's second novel The Fate of Mercy Alban.