“The Other Side of Mrs. Wood” by Lucy Barker is a captivating historical fiction novel that delves into the intriguing world of Victorian spiritualism and mediumship. Set in 1873 London, the story revolves around Mrs. Violet Wood, a renowned medium who has carved a niche for herself in high society. However, as the novel unfolds, we witness her struggle to maintain her status amidst the rise of younger, more sensational mediums.

The plot thickens when Mrs. Wood takes under her wing a young and seemingly naive protégé, Emmeline Finch. As Emmeline, or Emmie, begins to exert her influence over the séances, a subtle battle of wits ensues between the mentor and the apprentice. The dynamics between the two women are at the heart of the story, with each séance becoming a stage for their crafty confrontations.

The novel is rich with details of the era, from the opulent drawing rooms crammed with taxidermied animals to the lavish costumes and the societal obsession with the paranormal. The author’s writing style is both humorous and empathetic, allowing readers to see beyond Mrs. Wood’s façade and understand her vulnerabilities.

The novel’s pacing is leisurely, which suits the setting and the story’s development. The author has created a sumptuous world that is sometimes ridiculous but always fascinating. The characters are well-drawn, and their colorful personalities add depth to the narrative.

The Great Mrs Wood is known and loved as the best Medium in London during the 1800's and, with the help of her long time friend Miss Newman, they wow their audiences with their spiritual circles and monthly Grand Seances.
Things start to change when Mrs Wood unusually agrees to take on a student, Miss Finch. How far will Mrs Wood go to return her life to the way it was before?

A good read on how quickly life can change

The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker isn’t spooky or creepy, but it is fascinating and clever. It took me a while to read this, and I admit to putting it down on a couple of occasions for a few days as I found it a little slow in places. However, I am so pleased I persevered as I became absorbed in the Victorian era and the trickery involved in mediumship. There are layers both to the plot and the characters. The story is a battle between two mediums, each wanting what the other has, Mrs Wood requiring something new and fresh to keep the attendance of her patrons and Miss Finch wanting a reputation as great as Mrs Woods own. All in all this story is about women trying to survive in an era where they had very little at their disposal.

Well this was a pleasant surprise! Set in London in 1873, Mrs Wood is one of England’s most celebrated mediums, and I really liked learning about her world. I love a debut too! The writing was immersive and I liked the strong women in the book. Very engaging!

It took me a while to get into this book. The characters were generally a good mix and the knowledge and research is clear the author did their homework.
Plenty of twists to keep the reader going.
But wanted more to the seance scenes in the book.

"The Other Side of Mrs. Wood" offers an enjoyable blend of historical fiction and paranormal elements, albeit with a slow pace and slight verbosity. Despite this, the meticulously crafted setting and characters, coupled with a slow-burn plot, create an intriguing atmosphere surrounding Emmie and her motivations. The exploration of 19th-century spiritualism adds depth, revealing the techniques of mediums and their audiences' fascination. While not a comedy as described, the novel is still a worthwhile read.

Loved this book. It had so many twists and turns that you weren't expecting.
I was also ridiculously excited by the play on words in the title.

I was fortunate to receive an ARC from NetGalley and Pigeonhole.

This was an intriguing lead and I learnt some tips of how those in the industry work!

Celebrated Society Medium, Mrs Woods, has spent her life ‘reading’ the minutiae of people’s lives and characters. It’s made her what she is today.
But in her desperation to stay at the top of her game in the Victorian Seance scene, has greed, ambition and reputation dulled her intuition?

When a strange young girl approaches Mrs Woods, begging to be taken into training as a Medium. Mrs Woods sees Emmeline Finch as an asset rather than an altruistic project.
Far too many of her contemporaries are being ousted as frauds. And there there’s the wave of American Mediums who are raising the stakes of parlour tricks, with talk of full-body manifestations being performed.
Mrs Woods livelihood depends on her reputation as ‘the best’ and she’ll do anything to keep it.

What follows is the ‘Battle of the Mediums’ (but with the decorum suited to the parlours of Society London, of course).
The main running theme of the book is ‘illusion is everything’. Which was as apt for the Spiritualism craze of the Victorian era as it is in todays modern social media world of smoke and mirrors.
An enjoyable book with a satisfying come-uppance!

This book is something of a Victorian era period drama, with lots of gossip and social climbing via the unusual route of spiritualist one-upmanship rather than the marriage market!

I did find it a little bit slow going at times and the main character – the titular Mrs Wood – is a difficult protagonist to like at first, so puffed up with her own opinions, status and concerns and oblivious to the feelings, wants or needs of anyone around her. Gradually, however, Mrs Wood grew on me and I was slowly drawn into her struggle for reputation and relevance against the handicaps of being older and a woman.

I think I had expected the story to be a kind of female version of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell in the competition between young and old over their influence in supernatural spheres, but it is actually more of a journey of redemption and personal development novel. Mrs Wood has to lose everything she values in order to realise what is truly important in life and change her ways.

The most riveting aspect of the story for me though was the glimpses into all of the tricks and illusions of the mediums’ trade. I’ve always retained a reluctant scepticism of anything paranormal, tempered by my complete inability to explain how any fakery could be achieved, so it was a source of great fascination for me to get a behind-the-scenes peek into the world of distraction, knocking threads and false bottoms! And I know I would have been full of awe and wonder at the tree trick, had I been there!

The main heart of the book, underneath the spiritualist veil, is the relationships – both healthy and unhealthy – between women. We see how many of the ‘friends’ portrayed are quick to laugh at another’s misfortune and take advantage of any weaknesses, but equally how true friends can rally round in support and comfort when needed and uplift each other in a world that considers them powerless and tries to keep them that way.

If you are looking for a woman-centred historical fiction with lots of social trials and tribulations and a good sense of humour about it all, then this will be right up your street… or so my spirit guide tells me! 😉

Seances, never realised they were so popular..
The scene for this novel is the 1860's. Mrs Wood is a popular and well known medium in London, her seances are well attended and she is well respected. A girl appears outside her house and her repeated appearances bother Mrs. Wood. Eventually she encounters the girl and takes pity on her, the girl is Emmeline Finch, together they take part in seances, Mrs Wood tutoring Emmeline until Emmeline starts to overstep the mark and gains clients of her own.
Mr. Lister is an old friend to Mrs. Wood and has p[proposed to her previously, he is also her accountant and advises her in financial matters, unfortunately one oh her investments fails and she has to rethink her expenditure. As Emmeline takes more of her clients away Mrs Wood turns to drink and turns against her old friends, losing her helper and long standing friend. Mrs. Woods descends into despair and turns To Miss Newman her former companion, together they form a plan to discredit Emmeline.
Book is full of humour, tricks and secrets. An enjoyable and informative read.
Thank you Lucy and NetGalley.

Generally well written, but I always feel that story lines including seances should feel a little eerie - even if we're aware of the reality behind it.

Interesting character relationships that I wish could have been deepened a little more.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting subject a Medium in Victorian London, a good read albeit slow in places. Four stars.

I loved the premise of this - but I really struggled with it when I was reading it. It takes a long time to get going and get to the key bits of the plot, and then there is quite a lot crammed into the last third to a quarter. I also didn't feel like I really understood Mrs Wood. I didn't really like any of the characters - except maybe her poor assistant - but you don't need to like characters to understand them and to want to see what happened to them. And I just didn't really care enough. Never mind.

I like all sorts of periods of history and this one delves into the Victorians and all their fascination with spiritualism and the so called other world. Mrs Wood is one such person who capitalises on such things.

Mrs Wood is the go to person in London, for contacting the other side. She has not slipped and revealed herself to be anything but genuine like others have. However it seems a new wave is coming through, people who can produce materialisations of the spirits. If Mrs Wood is going to maintain her stand in society, she is going to have to up her game.

Mrs Wood needs to stay relevant and introduces her followers to Miss Emmie Finch, her new protégé. Is Emmie all she seems though? Has Mrs Wood perhaps created an uncontrollable apparition that she cannot control and who ultimately is going to be Mrs Wood’s undoing?

Is it all a game or is it really happening. This is what I thoroughly enjoyed about the book, it made me doubt what I was reading, what the characters were really seeing. Because surely it was all ‘smoke and mirrors’? There cannot possibly be any truth in it all? Could there?

This debut novel, romps along quite nicely and explores the enthrallment of contacting lost loved ones which was clearly a large part of Victorian society. What you believe is entirely individual but for me Mrs Wood sees herself as providing a service of comfort to these people, but a sceptic might think it is all trickery. I suppose the only way to find out is to read the book for yourself.

A lovely delve into Victorian society and I look forward to seeing what else might come from the pen of this author.

A surprising novel: ‘The Other Side of Mrs Wood’, by Lucy Barker.

It’s blurbed as the story of a feud between two celebrated Victorian mediums, and I lazily expected something dark, gothic and chilling. What I got was something cosy and thought provoking.

Plotwise, we follow Mrs Wood, a self-made woman who has escaped her drink-sodden mother and Dickensian poverty in Hull, to climb her way to the respectable pinnacle of London’s spiritualism circuit. But she’s haunted by two spectres: the fear of going out of fashion, and the fear of exposure and being branded a fraud. Her plan to keep the first at bay goes horribly wrong, and threatens to bring about the second. Can Mrs Wood find a way to cling on to the life she has made for herself?

As the plot ambles along, we attend various séances, from grand and to small private sessions. Far from being eerie, these feel a bit like book club meetings, where spirits’ tricks involve depositing pineapples in people’s laps and showering them with feathers.

What emerges is how the attendees rely on the sessions for comfort, companionship and the opportunity to talk about those they have lost. The idea that a medium would see herself as a sort of counsellor was new to me and is an intriguing slant on the spiritualism craze in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that I hadn’t considered before.

There are some lovely historical details, often on the sidelines, including the suffragette movement, and lots of London street-name-dropping (if you know Bayswater, Notting Hill etc, you can play ‘I’ve been there!’ - if not, don’t worry).

Overall, this was an odd one for me but a good one - I read it over a few months, and was never exactly gripped, but kept coming back to it ahead of other things, which says a lot (possibly about the other things, but is also a big compliment to Mrs Wood).

Recommend as a cosy read for autumn evenings. Don’t recommend if you like your séances scary.

Thanks to @netgalley for the eARC and sorry the review took so long!

This had a brilliant feeling of pulsing animosity beneath the surface from start to finish. It captured the shenanigans behind Victorian Mediums in a way where no one was blameless. Both main protagonists were anti -heroines .

It was atmospheric and portrayed the precarious nature of fame and it’s detriment on fortune when it is on the wane.. and self respect built on artifice is fleeting, where your worth is measured by perception and not by character.

A slow burn but multi layered.

Mrs Wood has been London’s top medium for a long time – too long, perhaps, for a world that craves novelty more than anything else. Rumours are coming from across the Atlantic that American mediums are on the point of producing the first fully materialised spirit and London is wondering why they should have all the fun. Mrs Wood feels she must spice up her performances, and just at this moment Miss Finch arrives – a young girl who is desperate to become a medium and who seems to hero worship Mrs Wood. So Mrs Wood takes her on as a trainee, and Miss Finch quickly shows huge talent. But Mrs Wood soon realises that Miss Finch’s ambition is huge too – how long will she be willing to stand in Mrs Wood’s shadow?

I can’t quite put my finger on what it is about this one that made it such a dull read. The idea of competing mediums sounds like fun, the writing is fine and Mrs Wood is an appealing character. And yet somehow the book seems to just trundle along, never really getting out of second gear. I think there’s just not enough story in the story, if you take my meaning. At first the details about a medium’s life at that time are quite interesting, but every séance is the same – same tricks, same atmosphere, usually the same people. Mrs Wood’s musings about Miss Finch are repeated again and again too – it’s quite hard to believe that a woman as successful at fraud as Mrs Wood could also be quite so naive and trusting of someone she knows nothing about.

By the 40% mark I was pretty much done. I felt it was obvious where the story was going and the journey had lost all interest. I flicked forward and read the last 10% to see if I had misjudged it, and there would be something unexpected that would make it worthwhile, but I’m afraid the story played out exactly as I had anticipated almost from the beginning.

Perhaps it just needed a stronger editor to insist that it should have been a much shorter book. Or perhaps an injection of humour or tragedy would have livened the tone. Or perhaps it’s simply a mismatch between book and reader – I don’t know, but whatever the problem is, sadly it didn’t work for me.

My thanks to NetGalley and Fourth Estate for a copy of “ The Other Side Of Mrs Wood” for an honest review.

I was intrigued by the premise for this book , and perhaps I expected too much from it .For me this was an average read and I didn’t really engage with the characters .
I’ve reflected this with an average rating

I’ve read a couple of books recently with mediums front and centre, and I really enjoyed The Other Side of Mrs Wood.

Mrs Violet Wood is one of the best known mediums in London, if not the whole country. People come to her for solace and pure entertainment, and the local Mediums meet up regularly to practice their skills on one another. Feeling her age (bearing in mind she’s not 40 yet - and this really got my goat, if I’m completely honest!), Mrs Wood agrees to take on an apprentice who has been standing outside her seances, hoping to be noticed. Emmie Finch is a very keen pupil. Or is she?

We all know that seances are pure showmanship, and highly unlikely to actually make contact with the dead, but these women really believe what they’re doing - even as they set up the room to cheat those who were paying for their services. The seances where the mediums are there on their own would make anyone think that they believed 100% in what they were doing. Clearly they had their own moral codes, and no one appeared to be cheated out of money (but if you have someone paying you regularly for work that isn’t genuine, are you cheating them?!).

I did feel for Mrs Wood as she was pushed out of her position by the upstart Emmie, and could understand how she worried about losing her livelihood and her house. Mrs Wood descends into a bad place and pushes all of her friends away for a time. This seems out of character, but she’s being pushed to her limit. She doesn’t have the backstop of a husband to save her if everything goes wrong. Self-sufficient women of means were probably few and far between at this time, and if you lost everything it was a long fall.

I read this with The Pigeonhole, who again helped me with my NetGalley reads (I do like reading along with everyone else on there, it really adds a different perspective to the books I read). Many thanks to the author, Lucy Barker, Fourth Estate and to The Pigeonhole for serialising this fascinating book.