Hazardous Spirits

A gothic literary mystery set in 1920s Edinburgh, Hazardous Spirits whisks the reader away to a world of seances and spiritualism.

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Shortlisted for Fiction Book of the Year at Scotland's National Book Awards 2024

'An exquisitely written work of Caledonian gothic' Francine Toon, author of Pine

'A darkly sparkling jewel of a book' Kirsty Logan, author of Now She is Witch

Edinburgh, 1923.

Evelyn Hazard is a young woman living a comfortable and unremarkable middle-class life. One day, her quiet existence is shattered when her steady, reliable husband Robert makes a startling announcement: he can communicate with the dead.

As the couple are pulled into the spiritualist movement that emerged following the mass deaths caused by the First World War and the Spanish Flu, Evelyn's life becomes increasingly unsettled as dark secrets from her past threaten to surface.

Faced with the prospect of losing all that is dear to her, Evelyn finds herself asking: is the man she loves a fraud, a madman or - most frighteningly - is he telling the truth?

A gothic literary mystery, written in sparkling prose, Hazardous Spirits evokes the spirit of 1920s Edinburgh, in all its bohemian vibrancy.

'With the literary lyricism and precise historical detail of a Sarah Waters novel . . . Salam injects a wry humour into this tale of secrets, lies, and the power of the ghosts of our pasts' Entertainment Weekly

'Full of heart and strangeness' Nell Stevens, author of Briefly, A Delicious Life

'A riveting exploration of the unknowable' Tara Isabella Burton, author of Social Creature