A brilliant young woman who sees the dead is caught up in a dangerous mystery surrounding a foreboding estate and the merciless man obsessed with it in the gorgeously atmospheric and adventurous gothic fantasy Weavingshaw by Heba Al-Wasity, the author's first novel and the beginning of a trilogy.
Leena Al-Sayer must make a terrible bargain to save the life of her deathly ill brother. She has no money to buy the medicine he needs, so she approaches the ruthless man known as the Saint of Silence, a play on his real name, St. Silas. The Saint pays for confessions, and Leena knows anyone who does business with him "came back changed, as if despair and terror had carved a home between their eyes." Rumor says that liars come home mutilated.
Leena expects to meet "a monster in an impeccable suit" and is surprised to find the Saint is young and handsome though still embodying "intimidation at a single glance." She offers to sell him her innermost secret, that she has the ability to see and sometimes communicate with ghosts. Instead of merely paying her, St. Silas maneuvers Leena into a deeper bargain: he will save her brother, but in return, she will work for him until she finds the ghost of Percival Avon, the former master of an estate known as Weavingshaw.
Bound to the cruel, infuriating Saint, Leena is slowly drawn into a vast paranormal conspiracy where nothing is as it seems. Along the way, she searches for clues that could lead her to her missing father, who was imprisoned for agitating for workers' rights. Every mystery she encounters draws her further into the ominous shadow of Weavingshaw and a more intimate understanding of the enigmatic Saint and the forces that ensnare him.
Al-Wasity builds a vibrant fantasy world infused with international conflict in which the political interacts with the paranormal. Leena and her family are refugees from a war-torn country trying to build a new life in a setting that resembles Britain during the Industrial Revolution. The deep-seated yearning that slowly develops between Leena and St. Silas has its roots not only in their potent chemistry but also in their mutual abuse at the hands of the systems in power. Packed to the brim with mystery, pathos, and that which goes bump in the night, Weavingshaw is a gothic fantasy lover's dreamland. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads
Shelf Talker: A young woman who sees ghosts becomes entangled with a compelling, dangerous man and a mysterious estate in this gorgeous, seductive gothic fantasy.