Seance on a Summer’s Night

Seance on a Summer’s Night (2018) Josh Lanyon

Artemus Bancroft has returned to Green Lanterns, the home where his aunt raised him after his parents died, but he’s not quite sure why he’s there, aside from a cryptic request.

Come as soon as you can, Artie, Aunt Halcyone had written. The situation has spiraled out of control. I need your cool head and strong shoulders.

It turns out that everyone believes Green Lanterns is haunted, probably by the ghost of his aunt’s second husband, and it’s driving away all the help and stressing out Aunt H.

I couldn’t quite understand the words. It took me a second or two to identify them as non-English.

Oh, right. Because Roma’s spirit guide was a disgraced ancient Egyptian vizier named Rekhmire. Although, if that was 18th Dynasty Egyptian, I was Mortimer Brewster.

This was an odd story, in that I had a very hard time figuring out when it was supposed to be set. His aunt has live-in servants, but Artie has a smartphone that he pretty much only uses the flashlight app on.

I mean, the only cars mentioned are these:

There were four cars parked on the floor of the garage: a 1927 Silver Ghost Rolls Royce, Aunt H.’ s 1957 baby-blue Chevrolet Bel Air, which she’d been driving as long as I could remember, the green station wagon provided for Tarrant and Ulyanna’s use, and a white MG.

It’s just extremely odd to me that someone his age would not be constantly checking their phone. I get he is on vacation, but it was still strange.

Not that I wanted him to be on his phone, it’s just that they’re such a ubiquitous part of life now, I expect them to be mentioned more frequently. Doesn’t he have friends in NY that he is emailing and texting?

On the plus side, Artie does love his aunt, and refuses to leave her alone, even when he thinks she’s perhaps going a little crazy.

He made your life hell when he was alive, and I can’t stand the fact that you’re giving him permission to continue on in the afterlife.”

This is a M/M romance, and does have ghosts in it, but the romance is secondary, and the ghosts don’t feel like quite enough to push it into fantasy (although the lack of cell phone use does make it feel a bit unnatural.)

It’s a cute story, but not one of my favorites.

Publisher: JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.
Rating: 7/10

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