Paris, 1866, two sisters, mediums, work together to do one more job to raise enough money for their father's medical bills. Sylvie, meanwhile married to a baron, cannot ask her husband for financial aid, since he doesn't know about her family. Charlotte begrudges her sister getting out of the family business and out of the circumstances they lived in, and is happy to rope her sister into this new con.

This was a very long book. Not based on the page-count, but all of the events of the book are told first from Sylvie's POV and then again from Charlotte's. Especially Charlotte's POV could have been whittled down to fill the gaps and/or give the reader the backstage view on what happened. I was bored and quite frankly annoyed with Charlotte's destructive pettiness when the story finally picked up speed during the last fifth of the book.

Not only the pacing of the novel is off, the characterisation is off too. Charlotte is full of hatred for her sister's success in life, she gaslights her sister while 'on the job' and lets Sylvie take the fall for her own actions. Sylvie, who managed to get herself out of the life of con-artists and who I expected to have some backbone, is supposed to be this doormat who doesn't stand up for herself at all. This felt all very off. Not at all how I would envision sisters to behave - blood being thicker than water and all.

What a gloriously fantastic read - I just got lost in this. Two sisters, acting as clairvoyants to defraud their clients. Told from the sister's points of view was interesting, and although the versions were very similar, it was interesting to see how the same things are perceived by different people. A really creepy gothic read.

This is a complex and well written historic fantasy novel with spooky goings on and sisters with hidden motives. The era is clearly created and the characters are rounded and well developed. But somehow I didn’t love it. There are a few places where the plot slows.

I was drawn into the opening with the house and the back stairs and the motivation of the need for money but the pacing dropped a few times. The story is one I’d want to get lost in with the queer elements and the clairvoyancy. But it didn’t really happen for me.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley

This book was a gothic fantasy of my dreams! I love books that cater to a sisterhood and this had that plus all the spooky elements. Love it.

Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkiss


What a year it’s been for debuts!! This is another excellent read that I’d put on the back burner because I had over committed myself to blog tours. I’m so sorry I didn’t read it sooner because I absolutely LOVED it. This is my absolute favourite genre - gothic, historic fiction - but when added to the elements of spiritualism, transgressive females and dysfunctional families this would definitely come up on Goodreads as highly recommended. In Paris, 1866, a couple of sisters are living very separate lives; Sylvia who is now Baroness Devereaux and Charlotte Mothe, the sister she left behind with a drunken, violent father. When Charlotte pays a heavily disguised visit to Sylvie’s home she assumes their father is ill, but it’s a different aspect of her past she’s bringing to her sister’s door. Their mother had a business as a spirit medium, but Sylvie promised to put such shady dealings in the past when she married the Baron. Charlotte needs her sister for one last con, to pay her father’s medical bills. The aristocratic de Jacquinot family think they are being haunted by an aunt killed in the revolution. They will need to use all their tricks to frighten money out of this family, but they didn’t bank on being absolutely terrified too.

The Perrault fairy tale underpinning this story is ‘The Fairies’ but the sisters don’t necessarily agree on the interpretation. One sister is asked a favour by an old crone, a glass of water from the well, but she ignores her and is cursed to expel toads every time he opens his mouth. On the next day the other sister is commanded to provide a glass of water by a young beautiful woman and grants her the favour. The second sister opens her mouth and gold coins spill out. Perrault says one sister is good and one is bad and Sylvie accepts this, but Charlotte thinks changing her disguise was a mean trick.

“The test is rigged from the start - even before the fairy turned up, when Perrault labelled one sister good and one bad on the very first page, before either got a chance.”

However, by the end Sylvie has changed her perspective. She muses that if she had a daughter would she be toads or gold? She decides not to read her Perrault; ‘I think I will let her decide for herself how a girl should be.”

The de Jacquinot family are dysfunctional and have narrowed all their problems down to the daughter, Josephine. They are clearly struggling to stay afloat, with clear spaces on the wall where there used to be paintings. Yet none of them are working or making any money, still living like the aristocrats they once were. The grandfather seems grumpy but is convinced they have a visiting spectre - Aunt Sabine who died in the revolution when her throat was cut. Brother Maximilien is cynical, in his book there is no such thing as spirits and his sister is suffering from a prolonged bout of lunacy brought on by a dalliance with a once trusted friend of his. Josephine is absolutely convinced there’s a spirit. Charlotte and Sylvie started their routine and I’d not expected them to be charlatans! I loved the details of their routine - the snuffing out of candles, the ring of salt. I thought that the story of creating waxed spectral hands with their mother was a brilliantly quirky childhood memory! Charlotte adopts the patter again straight away, talking about “penumbras disturbances” and “liminal spaces”. Sylvie almost admires her sister as she weaves a tale around the de Jacquinot home and their errant daughter. However, everyone is shocked when Sabine appears to possess her niece. Josephine has become a different person babbling about something being taken from her and spitting with anger at her grandfather. Then she’s overcome with ectoplasm pouring from her mouth. This is something they’ve heard of but have never seen spontaneously like this. That night the library walls are trashed and the ancestral paintings are slashed to pieces, all expect Sabine’s. The family suspect a poltergeist but how could they have slept through such destruction? After this even Maximilien is on board, yet Sylvie suspects something is going on here that isn’t what it seems. Charlotte was vociferous in her defence of Josephine, almost as if she actually cares. Sylvie knows that her sister has become unnaturally attached to young women before. Before they can go any further Sylvie’s husband confronts her at home. He’s had her followed and suspects an affair with Maximilien de Jacquinot who is closer to Sylvie in age. Sylvie tries to protest her innocence, but it’s difficult when she has betrayed her husband in a different way. She can’t reason with him and does what he asks, she leaves. Now she is back in her miserable childhood home, listening to her father snoring as she lays awake and bereft.

Here the author pulls a brilliant ‘Fingersmith’ style twist, with a change of narrator and perspective of the same events. This narrative is what happens to the girl who spews toads and doesn’t conform. Charlotte is the daughter who stayed behind and nurses the father who she suspects of killing her mother. In Charlotte’s story, instead of the aristocracy we meet an interesting set of characters who live and love outside the norms of society. I loved meeting Mimi who could fill a book of his own! The atmosphere and settings in the book are brilliant and give a very varied look at the city of Paris, from the poverty Sylvie and Charlotte come from to the remaining aristocrats and their crumbling mansions. This is a society recovering from the shock of revolution and a shift in the existing hierarchy. The de Jacquinot family are like their mansion, falling apart. I loved the dual staircase too, with Josephine and Charlotte using the servant’s exit to when surely they should use the main stairs? There’s a further tantalising hint of other people who live outside the rules and quite lavishly if Mimi’s quarters are the example. I could see why Sylvie had opted to disappear into the money classes, because the difference between her rooms and the home she came from is stark. She also truly loves her husband and hasn’t married him for a comfortable life as her sister thinks. Charlotte does feel the dice was loaded when it came to their differing fortunes and I think she sees the Perrault fairy tale as an allegory for our sexuality. Sylvie is able to conform in this way and Charlotte can’t, she’s born the way she is into a world that doesn’t accept her. I was also sympathetic to her situation at home, trying to care for a man who is hard to love and has been violent towards them all. This was an amazing read, genuinely spooky but also a novel about families. Those who fit into their family and those who don’t. This is a fabulous ghost story with an unexpected twist and a wonderful glimpse of a society in flux.

Sisters Charlotte and Sylvie had been running a successful clairvoyant business for years, using various devices to con their customers into believing the validity of their skills. Over time however the sisters paths have separated and Sylvie is now.a Baroness having nothing to do with Charlotte who brought shame on the family with her relationship with a woman.

When the de Jacquinot family ask for their help the reunited sisters once again team up to defraud their client - but Charlotte is once again under the spell of her new acquaintance and this time it seems there really are dark spirits at play.

It is Paris in 1866, post-Revolution. Baroness Sylvie Devereux is enjoying a happy and respectable married life, which is threatened by a visit from her younger sister, Charlotte Mothe. The sister she left behind, along with her abusive father, and her not so respectable past as a spirit medium. Charlotte and Sylvie worked as spiritualists, conning grieving people out of money by conducting fake seances. Sylvie has promised her husband those days are over and that her sister is no longer part of her life.

However, Charlotte has come begging Sylvie to join her in one last job, because she needs money for their fathers' medical bills, and she needs to keep the roof over their heads. Unable to simply give Charlotte the money she needs Sylvie finds herself reluctantly agreeing to go along with the ruse, keeping it secret from her husband.

The target family is the wealthy de Jacquinot’s. Several members of the family believe they are being haunted by the spirit of a great-aunt who was murdered horribly during the French Revolution, and who left behind great treasures. The sisters agree to ‘remove the spirit of the ghost from the house’ and use all of their tricks to convince the family that they are talking to the spirit, and are working on its banishment. All is going to plan until Sylvie starts to think that the spirit may actually be real and be targeting the sisters, and feels that things are getting out of control. Meanwhile, Sylvie's husband suspects Sylvie of cheating, and her life quickly starts to fall apart. What really is happening in the de Jacquinot house?

I enjoyed the premise of this story, but in reality, found it a bit of a dragged-out read. The switch in narration in the book was good, giving alternative perspectives, but switching halfway threw it off a little. Intermixing per chapter may have made for a smoother transition. The good sister/bad sister theme running throughout was good, and how it was becoming less and less clear-cut that one sister was simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’. There were some good plot twists, if not a little predictable. The story was a little repetitive at times, and the pacing slow, if it had been a little trimmed down it would have held my focus a little more. Nonetheless, it was a good read, and set in an interesting time period.

*I received this book from NetGalley for review, but all opinions are my own.

Gosh this was hard to get through, very turgid and stodgy storytelling.
The synopsis and artwork gives the idea of a gothic, supernatural, historical narrative so was expecting a dark, twisted tale but it was just a rather dull exploration of two rowing sisters.
I kept reading waiting for story to grip me and pull me into it's flow but I ending up having to grit my teeth to plod through it.
The author, I think, wanted to create a Sarah Waters Fingersmith type shock mid way through by switching between the sister's narratives and how their realities were completely different but it was quite a mild reveal that didn't grip or surprise me.
Then there was quite a bad editing error I felt, meaning we had to reread exactly the same events of the first half of the book from the second sister's POV which was not different enough to not be dull. I skimmed most of it.
And the rather downbeat ending just kind of fizzled out.

The idea for the story was good and think if the focus had been on the lives of con-medium sisters and how they created sceance scenarios (which I did find interesting) and the effect that had on families, then it might have gone somewhere, but the two-sided format didn't work and the writing not light or pacy enough to keep it all going.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This novel had a lot of twists and turns, and I think fans of Sarah Waters would enjoy its gothic vibes and the sapphic elements that ramp up throughout. I was left a little cold by it, which might have been due to the sudden shift in perspective halfway through the narrative. This does give you a different perspective on the events, but I think I would have preferred to have both POVs running concurrently rather than one followed by the other. However, the plot is fairly gripping and you have a fair amount of fun deciding which supporting character is the worst.

In Charles Perrault’s fairy tale about two sisters, Diamonds and Toads, a fairy rewards the good sister with the ability to spit gold and punishes the bad sister with the curse of spitting toads. This is the premise at the heart of Carmella Lowkis’ new novel, Spitting Gold, a tale of two very different sisters living in 19th century Paris.

It’s 1866 and Baroness Sylvie Devereux has settled into a respectable married life, but a visit from her younger sister, Charlotte Mothe, threatens to ruin both her marriage and her reputation. For several years, Sylvie and Charlotte had worked together as spiritualists, conning grieving victims out of large sums of money, but Sylvie has promised her husband that those days are behind her and her sister is no longer part of her life. Now, though, Charlotte is begging Sylvie to join her for one last job and Sylvie finds it impossible to refuse, knowing that Charlotte needs the money to pay their father’s medical bills.

Several members of the wealthy de Jacquinot family believe they are being haunted by the spirit of a great-aunt, who was brutally murdered during the French Revolution, leaving behind a hidden treasure. The Mothe sisters agree to help lay the ghost to rest and begin to use every trick and deception at their disposal to convince the family that they are making contact with the spirit. Everything seems to be going well, until the ghost appears to start targeting the sisters themselves. Is the de Jacquinot house really haunted or is there another explanation for what is happening?

There seems to be a current trend for historical novels about mediums and séances; I can think of several I’ve read just in the last year or so. What makes this one different is the structure and the idea of using two sisters to give alternate views of the same story – the first half of the book is narrated by Sylvie and the second half by Charlotte. I’m not sure how well this worked for me; it was interesting to see things from two such different perspectives, but by the time Charlotte’s narrative began I had become so absorbed in Sylvie’s story I struggled to adjust to a change of narrator.

Apart from the references to the French Revolution, I felt that the book lacked the strong sense of time and place I prefer and at times I even forgot that I was reading a story set in 19th century Paris and not Victorian London. I did love the good sister/bad sister theme, though – while at first it seems obvious that Sylvie is the good one and Charlotte the bad, as the novel continues we learn that things are not that simple and that we shouldn’t rely on just one point of view to give us the full picture. As a debut novel it was quite entertaining, with some interesting twists; I’m not sure whether I’ll read more books by Carmella Lowkis, but I could be tempted!

This story of two sisters is told in two halves. First we follow Sylvie’s point of view as she reluctantly agrees to help her sister with one last spiritualist con, only to start to believe the hype as she finds herself unable to explain the dark forces menacing the de Jacquinot family. Then we see the same events from Charlotte’s perspective and find that the two sisters have very different goals in mind… goals that can only be reconciled at great cost to one of the parties involved. But who is willing to pay the price for crimes past and/or of passion?

There is a well-thought out mystery plot at work here and some lovely gothic paranormal vibes, but the true heart of the story is one of familial bonds, familial trauma and sapphic romance. I was definitely reminded of Sarah Waters (Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith). Both of the main characters, Sylvie and Charlotte, are quite prickly and defensive – with good reason – which made them a little harder to engage with. The reader had to be kept at arm’s length from the narrative in order to keep the illusion intact.

The actual underlying mystery is reasonably guessable and straightforward but it is cleverly obscured in veils of otherworldliness and buried under heavy claims of duty, loyalty and love, so there are plenty of twists and turns to keep the element of surprise throughout. In fact, the build-up is so detailed and twisty that the final climax felt a little anti-climactic in comparison. More foreshadowing might have made the big reveal more satisfying, but then, that might have given too much away – it’s a tricky balance!

Sisters, spiritualism and sapphic love… Sarah Waters fans are likely to enjoy this debut historical novel. And this is definitely an author to keep an eye on if you like a story with multiple twists and turns.

In this novel, we meet sisters Sylvie and Charlotte as they reunite after several years apart in Paris in the late 19th century. The Mothe sisters were known in society as spiritualists but, following events that could have led to a scandal, Sylvie leaves her sister and abusive father behind in order to marry the lovely Alexandre, who also happens to be a baron.

When Charlotte convinces Sylvie to join her for one last “con”, we follow the story of the suspected haunting of a down-on-their luck family. The first half of the story is from Sylvie’s perspective, with Charlotte’s POV forming the second half. I found Sylvie’s half more engaging, but struggled to like many of the characters. I enjoyed the setting of the story, and liked learning a bit more about spiritualism in the 19th century, but did guess all of the twists of the story and wasn’t entirely satisfied with the ending.

However, I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a creepy historical novel!

I didn’t think I would enjoy this book but was hooked from the very first page.
It is a story about sibling love and sibling rivalry
These sisters are fake spiritualist but events occur for one sister to have doubts if what they are seeing is in fact reality.
One story told by different sisters one who has no idea of what she is happening and one in the know and the consequences for both of them.
Absolutely brilliant just couldn’t put it down.

I did enjoy this book, but I found it tough going at times. Not the writing, which is lovely, but I seem to have come across a few novels with similar themes recently. This didn't grab me as much as I thought it would, but I may well return and try again once I've allowed this period of 'seance fiction' to pass!

This is a story of two sisters who claim to be mediums who can talk to the dead but they are frauds .Set in 19th century Paris ,very atmospheric and gothic .Th story is told in two parts from Sylvie's pov and then Charlottes .It is interesting to see how the accounts of the same story differ .Altogether a different but good read .Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC

I received an ARC of this book via netgalley and am grateful for the opportunity., Charlotte and Sylvie are Spiritists or maybe more commonly known as mediums today. However Sylvie has left the profession to marry into the minor nobility. Charlotte decides to draw her sister into one last tangle with the spirits in order to provide her Girlfriend with justice. All does not go as planned.

Told in the two voices of Sylvie and Charlotte ther is a lot of repetition in this tale. When Charlotte starts to give her version of events there is not enough new information to make the extra 200 pages worthwhile.

3 stars is a generous rating for this book which will not draw me into more by this author

Carmella Lowkis' "Spitting Gold" is a mesmerizing journey into the depths of sisterhood and female empowerment, set against the backdrop of a hauntingly atmospheric Paris in 1866. With echoes of Sarah Waters' evocative storytelling, Lowkis crafts a tale where every shadow holds secrets and nothing is as it appears. The narrative is spellbinding, blending gothic mystery with a captivating sapphic romance that adds depth and complexity to the story. The tension builds relentlessly, rich in detail and brimming with intrigue.

I enjoyed this book. It didn’t stand out for me in the way that some other books do, but it kept my attention and told a good story. While I’m not sure if I would read it again, I’m glad I had the opportunity to read it.

I liked a lot the fairy tale comparison. The idea that one sister had to be good and one had to be bad and the way the two sisters looked at one another to see which one was which. While I agree with Charlotte that real life doesn’t work like that and there’s good and bad parts of everybody, it was interesting to see the book and characters framed through this lense and the constant question of which would turn out to be which.

I liked that the tale was told first from one sister and then from the other, leaving space for different information and biases. It was really interesting to see the sisters view of each other and the actions that were misinterpreted or misconstrued.

It was definitely an enjoyable read, though I’m not sure it will leave a lasting impression on me.

Spitting Gold is set in 19th century Paris and is a blend of gothic mystery as two estranged sisters - who are also spirit mediums - come back together for one last con.

Working together as spiritists in Paris, the two sisters ‘help’ families who believe themselves to be haunted or have a possessed family member. The first part of the book is narrated by Sylvie the older sister. She had stopped this con work, however, her sister (Charlotte) pleads with her to work one more job. The second part sees Charlotte become the narrator and this was a somewhat interesting and dubious change in course. The book contains sapphic romance, high drama and loads of suspenseful twists and turns. Spitting Gold is a story for people who enjoy historical and gothic mysteries.

Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkis is an absorbing tale of love and treachery in the Gothic tradition set in Paris, 1866.
We meet Sylvie, now Baroness Devereux, as she gets a surprise visit from Charlotte Mothe, the sister she thought she had left behind following her advantageous marriage. Before marrying into respectability she worked as a spirit medium with her sister, the pair using every trick in the book to con their targets. This was a world that Sylvie thought she could safely forget but when her sister comes begging, citing the need to pay expensive medical bills for their father, she reluctantly agrees to at least meet the family who are looking to employ them to lay a ghost to rest and recover a lost treasure. The de Jacquinot family seem ripe for the plucking but soon Sylvie and Charlotte find themselves involved in some inexplicable and genuinely terrifying situations. Could the ghost be real after all?
At first this felt like a very standard but enjoyable work of historical fiction, but as soon as I came to the first shift in perspective I was absolutely hooked. The plot unfurls very cleverly, with an impressive degree of skill from a debut author. Speaking of skill, clearly the author has a wonderful way of painting a remarkably vivid picture with her words, bringing settings and seances to life in a way that made it almost feel like I was there.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.