Mundie Moms

Monday, September 2, 2013

The Dark Between by Sonia Gensler, Blog Tour & Guest Post: The Society of Psychical Research


Welcome to today's tour stop for Sonia Gensler's The Dark Between! Today I'm excited to have author Sonia on the blog to talk about her research for the book. First, here's a little bit about her newest release:


At the turn of the twentieth century, Spiritualism and séances are all the rage—even in the scholarly town of Cambridge, England. While mediums dupe the grief-stricken, a group of local fringe scientists seeks to bridge the gap to the spirit world by investigating the dark corners of the human mind.


Each running from a shadowed past, Kate, Asher, and Elsie take refuge within the walls of Summerfield College. But their peace is soon shattered by the discovery of a dead body nearby. Is this the work of a flesh-and-blood villain, or is something otherworldly at play? This unlikely trio must illuminate what the scientists have not, and open a window to secrets taken to the grave—or risk joining the spirit world themselves.

The Dark Between, a supernatural romance about the powers that lie in the shadows of the mind, is perfect for fans of Sarah Rees Brennan, Alyxandra Harvey, and Libba Bray.


The idea for The Dark Between
The idea for The Dark Between first came to me while I was researching my debut novel, The Revenant. I’d been doing a lot of reading about 19th century paranormal investigations, and by far the most fascinating book was Deborah Blum’s Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death.

This book introduced me to the founders of the Society for Psychical Research, which, according to the society’s website, was founded in 1882 to investigate “that large body of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical and spiritualistic... in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems”. Blum’s book brought these men and women to life for me, and I was captivated by their passion to investigate paranormal occurrences that the scientific community refused to take seriously.

The founders were so passionate about their cause that, inevitably, they found themselves in the midst of scrapes and scandals. Their lives were full of real drama, and many times I found myself wishing some cable channel would create a mini-series about them. My husband told me I should write the screenplay . . . and that’s when it hit me. I didn’t want to write about the founders—I wanted to write about their children. What would their lives be like? And what might happen if one of them was hiding an ability that the founders were desperately trying to document as real? That’s how The Dark Between was born. 


A medium demonstrates telekinesis to members of the SPR (photo from www.spr.ac.uk)

Today's Code Word: PSYCHIC

The Giveaway:
Each stop on the blog tour is also revealing a code word that can be used to enter a contest on Sonia's website for a DARK BETWEEN prize pack, including a finished copy of the book. To enter the contest please go HERE.


1 comment:

Labels