4.25 ⭐️
Spitting Gold was a great historical gothic mystery with a little sapphic romance. I was hooked right away. I loved the 1800s setting and storyline of sisters Charlotte and Sylvie performing seances as spiritualists. It was eerie and a little creepy, with a lot of intrigue. Part 2 of the book switched perspectives and slowed down a little for me. It felt a little repetitive learning the same stories from part one but from the other sister's perspective. I still loved the vibes, but that did bring it down a little for me. The ending was surprising (and a little darker than I expected, but that fits the gothic mystery vibes, right?). Anyway, this was a great debut novel. I look forward to seeing more from Carmella Lowkis.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for the eARc.

When Slyvie’s sister shows up at her door after years of not seeing her asking for her help, she decides to do it. Charlotte and Slyvie are spiritualist, or at least that’s what they call themselves. Using tricks they learned from their parents both girls are masters at pretend. Sylvia and Charlotte are asked to help to get of the spirit of a murdered family member and hopefully help the family find lost riches. What unfolds is a great story about the power of sisterhood, revenge, and getting justice.

This book has been compared to the writing of The Lost Apothecary and I definitely see that comparison. Very easy read that was very enjoyable. Had a bit of mystery to it which I really enjoyed.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Simon and Schuster for allowing me to read this advanced copy.

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me a free advance reader copy of this book. These opinions are my own.

Synopsis
Sylvie Mothe go herself out of the spiritualism game when she married a baron. But her impoverished, estranged sister shows up on her doorstep one day begging for Sylvie's help on one last job so she can pay for their father's medical bills. Sylvie accepts Charlotte's plans, but soon their seances have Sylvie wondering if spirits exist after all.

My thoughts
I really enjoyed this story of sisterly support and betrayal. The reader gets Sylvie's narration first, and then rewinds to Charlotte's perspective of the same events. It makes for an interesting, layered mystery and the reader isn't quite sure which is the "good sister" after all.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, sister stories, or stories about con artists.

This is being publicized as a sapphic romance, but there's no spice. if that's what you were hoping for. Half a chili pepper for kissing only.

Sensitive readers, please check TWs.

This review will be shared to Goodreads on April 26, 2024 and Instagram on April 29, 2024.

I'm extremely conflicted about this story. On the one hand, it is fantastic. A ghost story, a love affair, and a side of historical fiction. I really loved the Mothe sisters and the jump in the POV in the middle of the book and at the end. The dual point of view showed how much the sisters cared for and resented the other one. Ultimately though, they just wanted a relationship with the other.

I felt for Florence, a victim of a lot of things, including the era she was born in. Her relationship with Charlotte just added to that. I appreciated the post-revolution Paris setting. That is not one I read a lot of.

However, on the other hand, it was such a melancholy read. Just when you'd have hope for one of the characters something absolutely dreadful happened. I don't believe that it was said outright but Florence's family is cursed for sure. The ending was a little too abruptly happy for what everyone went through. It was almost a last-ditch effort to have a fairytale ending. However, make no mistake this is not a fairy tale.

Fans of Simone St. James, K. T. Blakemore, and Katherine Arden will rejoice in this novel.

A stunning debut filled with mystery and suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat right up until the end.

4 stars
——————

Two sisters meet once again to pull off one final seance in this clever debut by Carmella Lowkis.

I really enjoyed this book. While I’ve read several historical books with seances recently, I particularly enjoyed this one. Lowkis took this idea of a con seance by two sisters and somehow managed to spin it on its head. The plot of the book was engaging and I found myself hooked. It was a bit slow to begin but once it picked up, I couldn’t stop reading it. The twist is portrayed rather early in the book, but I found the explanation that followed to be satisfying in the end. The ending was kind of anti-climatic, I feel like it could have been better. But overall, a solid plot and execution.

The contrast between the sisters is really well highlighted. Spitting Gold is multiple POV in a super unique way. The first half of the book is the events from Sylvie’s POV, while the second half focuses on Charlotte’s versions of those same events. The style made things a little repetitive in Charlotte’s half, but I still enjoyed seeing the story from both sides. It works well for this particular book and this plot because of how the plot plays out. The sapphic romance was cute, but slightly unconvincing overall.

If you’re a fan of historical fiction, especially seance fiction, this one is for you!

The title Spitting Gold references a fairy tale (The Fairies) with a good sister, a bad sister, and the consequences each faces. The book is split equally between the points of view of Sylvie, the older sister, and Charlotte, the younger, and shows how neither is either the good or bad sister, but a bit of both.

The first half of the book is told from Sylvie's perspective, and I did enjoy this half more. She is unwillingly pulled back into her past when her sister shows up at her door wanting to put on one last spiritual con.

The second half is from Charlotte's perspective, after a significant twist ends Sylvie's point of view. Due to the nature of the twist, I found most of this section lacked tension, and I wasn't as invested in the plot until the final chapter. However, that final chapter did end up delivering on the build up!

The sisters are complicated characters; neither is necessarily likable, but both felt very human - Sylvie, who abandoned her sister while convincing herself it was for her own his; and Charlotte, who guilts her sister into risking her marriage in order to help her with the con.

I think the biggest issue was the jarring perspective shift in the middle - it made it harder to empathize for Charlotte and her anger at her sister after spending half the book with Sylvie, and then it made it hard to understand Sylvie's final decision without seeing first hand any of the character development that led to it.

Overall, this was a fun, well written read that I enjoyed, and I loved the way the author wove in references to the titular fairy tale throughout!

Rating: 2.5

I liked the story, but the writing style wasn't for me. It made the story seem long and boring and I kept zoning out.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this through physical ARC and eARC!

Wow! This goes onto my list of top books I've read this year. I was so excited when Atria Books reached out to me to receive a physical copy (my first!). The blurb compared the book to Sarah Penner's The London Séance Society, which was a book that I loved last year. Spitting Gold did not disappoint. It definitely had the same creepy Gothic atmosphere of "Seance Society", but was very much it's own book. I loved that we got the story from two points of view. The pace steadily kept increasing and I raced through it to find out who and/or what the spirit could actually be. A mystery with a ting of horror, mixed with a touch of romance and a reflection on sibling relationships, "Spitting Gold" was 10/10 for me. Carmella Lowkis is an author to watch and I will most certainly read her next novel! Pick up for a fast-paced Gothic treat, starting May 14,2024!

Thank you, publisher and NetGalley for the early copy.

This book had a huge potential and such a strong start. Con artists/historical fiction in France, gothic mansion, and family secrets, what's not to love? Part 1 was great, but part 2 is where my interest was lost.
I think my biggest issue was the fact that this book doesn't provide a strong sense of place or time, but I craved that given the settings. I wish it had more flourishing descriptions and even more pages where we could have learned and understood the characters.
In the end half of the side characters were introduced for no reason and they did not have any major role to play, and the main characters were one-dimensional and said the same things over and over again. This could have been so much more and unfortunately did not deliver for me.

I thought this was a great story and loved the way the author utilized multiple POV’s to play out the plot. I haven’t read a lot of mystery novels lately but this book proved I need to get back into reading that genre as it always keeps me on my toes. Although I found the ending predictable, I was still enthralled in finding out how it would play out. I thought the sisters characters were well thought out but I think Florence is my favorite. She is still a bit of a mystery to me after reading this book but I loved the revelations of her character throughout the story. 3.5/5⭐️

In 1866 Paris, sisters and con artists Sylvie and Charlotte Mothe are reunited two years after Sylvie had “retired” to marry Baron Devereaux. Charlotte reappears to inform Sylvie that their father is ill and she cannot support him alone. She begs her estranged sibling for assistance to act again as a “celebrated spiritist duo” to defraud a fading aristocratic family out of their gold — a family mostly convinced that a relative slaughtered during the Revolution is haunting them (and looking for hidden jewels). The sisters use tried-and-true techniques to further terrify their marks; but — uh, oh — things that they have not fabricated are happening, too. Is there a real ghostly presence?

Told in two parts, we get to know Sylvie first — who seems to be really trying to leave the trickster life behind, but still is willing to help her sister out. She’s haunted by the memory of a fairy tale — a good sister will be able to spit out gold; a bad sister will have a mouthful of toads. Which one is she? In the second half, we meet the “true” Charlotte and the revelation of a love story that twists the mystery around. The story is fascinating and atmospheric and unlike any story you’ve heard before. It’s a creative and fascinating exercise in historical fiction. 4 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO Pale, dark and glittering, but no eye colors are mentioned.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO The fragrance of orange blossoms is part of the plot.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for a free advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

This book was engaging from the get-go! I loved the sister element and the surprise twist in the middle! If you are looking for an atmospheric and dramatic read, this is for you! Thank you Net Galley for my ARC.

Such an amazing read.

Absolutely loved the world building and the characters.

Looking forward to reading more from this author.

Baroness Sylvie Devereux would enjoy her life a lot more if she wasn’t haunted by the fear that her past might catch up to her. Before she married her baron, Sylvie and her sister Charlotte were the Mothe sisters. They conducted seances and banished ghosts for whoever could pay. Now that she’s a member of respectable society, Sylvie does her utmost to keep that past far away from her. Unfortunately for her, that past has just turned up across the street from her home in the opening pages of Carmella Lowkis’s intriguing novel, Spitting Gold.

When they were children, Sylvie and Charlotte’s mother read a story to the two sisters that stuck with them forever. One sister, the good one, fetched water for an old woman (fairy in disguise) and was rewarded with the ability to drop gold from her mouth. (I would be worried about chipped teeth, personally.) Her sister, the not-so-good one, waited at the well for the old woman, only to be fooled when the fairy took the shape of a wealthy woman. This sister’s punishment for telling the woman to get her own water was to start spitting out toads when she spoke. (Gross, but easier on the teeth, maybe?) Sylvia and Charlotte have always wondered which of them was the good sister and which the not-so-good.

Charlotte has arrived on Sylvie’s street with a proposition: one last gig in exchange for not ratting Sylvie out to her husband and promising to leave Sylvie alone forever. With deep reluctance and a lot of fear, Sylvie accepts. The job is to find out who is haunting the de Jacquinot family. The family was once very wealthy and is hanging on to their status by their collective fingernails. The youngest de Jacquinot, Florence, and her grandfather, Ardoir, say that they have seen the ghost of Sabine de Lisle. Florence is terrified but Ardoir believes that this ancestor (murdered during La Terreur) might point them to lost family treasure. If the Mothe sisters can figure out what the ghost wants, they will be handsomely rewarded.

The whole thing is a scam, of course. Sylvie knows that neither she nor her sister can actually talk to the dead and, besides, ghosts aren’t real. Except, strange things start to happen at the de Jacquinot house that Sylvie can’t explain. Charlotte swears up and down that she didn’t create fake ectoplasm for Florence to spit out of her mouth when Sabine appears to speak through the girl. No one takes responsibility for the damage done to the portraits and walls in the library.

There are plenty of twists in Spitting Gold‘s plot and almost as many macabre revelations as a sensational Victorian novel. I had a great time teasing out who was scamming who, discerning who was really telling the truth, and wondering what on earth was going to happen next. This was a very fun read. I encourage fans of historical mysteries to give it a try.

Well-written and intriguing with a plot of scam spiritualists. I can kind of understand the comparison to Sarah Waters, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

Spitting Gold is full of magical twists and surprises. A lifelong power struggle between two drastically different sisters.
Will an end to their years long estrangement truly bring them together? It is for the reader to decide.
A classic tale of good versus evil.

Sylvie and Charlotte, two 19th century Parisian spiritist mediums must join together to carry out single-handedly the largest job in their career. Will they risk it all for love or family?

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this book. Truly difficult to put down!

In 1886 Paris, Baroness Sylvie Devereux receives a visit and a request from her estranged sister. The only stipulation of her wedding to the Baron two years ago was that Sylvie cut ties with her family of con artists. Charlotte has come, because their father is ill and she cannot pay the bills. Sylvie is convinced to pull one last job.

The two will pretend to contact a great aunt of the de Jacquinots who was murdered during the French Revolution. Just a few visits and some of their old tricks should get them a purse full with no one the wiser. Except things happen that the sisters didn’t plan. Could this job be real? Is there actually a vengeful spirit this time?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love unreliable narrators and or situations, and with this one, for a while, we’re not really sure what’s going on, and the possibility of a real haunting is thrilling. I am a bit fascinated by the early spiritualists and the craze of contacting spirits and holding seances. \I loved the characters, the plot development, and the twists and turns. The evolution of the sisters’ relationship gives the story added depth and bonus for a bit of queer rep.

A fantastic debut. The story is dark and atmospheric and will transport the reader to 19th century Paris. It is a blend of secrets, spirts, and sibling rivalry.
Many thanks to Atria and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

The first half of the book, told from the elder sister’s perspective, was captivating and well written. The second half of the book, told from the younger sister’s perspective, was whiny and annoying. I thought gaining insight through the eyes of the younger sister would help to ease my dislike for her, but it further solidified my hatred. The over arching story however, was as unique as it was haunting, and allowed for a quick and enjoyable read.