Bram Stoker's sister and Sherlock Holmes's niece investigate a mysterious medium, vampires, and murder in this steampunk fantasy adventure.
Evaline Stoker and Mina Holmes never meant to get into the family business. But when you're the sister of Bram and the niece of Sherlock, vampire hunting and mystery solving are in your blood, so to speak.
After the Affair of the Clockwork Scarab, Evaline Stoker and Mina Holmes are eager to help Princess Alix with a new case. Seventeen-year-old Willa Aston is obsessed with spiritual mediums, convinced she is speaking with her mother from beyond the grave. What seems like a case of spiritualist fraud quickly devolves into something far more menacing: someone is trying to make Willa appear lunatic using an innocent-looking spiritglass to control her. The list of clues piles up: an unexpected murder, a gang of pickpockets, and the return of vampires to London. But are these events connected?
As Uncle Sherlock would say, there are no coincidences. It will take all of Mina's wit and Evaline's muscle to keep London's sinister underground at bay.
Includes a bonus sneak peek chapter from the next book in the Stoker and Holmes series, The Chess Queen Enigma by Colleen Gleason
Praise for The Spiritglass Charade
"Gleason's novel is a well-oiled machine . . . the authentic historical framework, the adeptly integrated steampunk devices, the compelling personalities and backgrounds of the outwardly tough but inwardly vulnerable heroines." —School Library Journal
"There's lots of fun to be had from this odd-couple investigative team's snarky banter, the well-imagined setting's steampunk details, and Gleason's flashes of satiric humor." —The Horn Book Magazine