If you sold your soul to the devil, could you ever get it back?

The latest in a long line of psychically-gifted females, Ruby Davis can see through the veil that separates this world and the next, helping grounded souls to move towards the light – or ‘home’ as Ruby calls it. Not just a job for Ruby, it’s a crusade and one she wants to bring to the High Street. Psychic Surveys is born.

Based in Lewes, East Sussex, Ruby and her team of freelance psychics have been kept busy of late. Specialising in domestic cases, their solid reputation is spreading – it’s not just the dead that can rest in peace but the living too. All is threatened when Ruby receives a call from the irate new owner of Highdown Hall. Film star Cynthia Hart is still in residence, despite having died in 1958.

Winter deepens and so does the mystery surrounding Cynthia. She insists the devil is blocking her path to the light long after Psychic Surveys have ‘disproved’ it. Investigating her apparently unblemished background, Ruby is pulled further and further into Cynthia’s world and the darkness that now inhabits it.

For the first time in her career, Ruby’s deepest beliefs are challenged. Does evil truly exist? And if so, is it the most relentless force of all?

My Review

The Haunting Of Highdown Hall is set in a part of the country I know quite well and I love a book that describes places I am familiar with. Lewes not so much but Brighton and the surrounding area.

Ruby Davis is a psychic and her ambition in life is to bring her gift to people who believe they are being haunted – Ruby can tell straight away if they are faking it – and help the spirits to find their way to the light. And Ruby doesn’t believe that anyone is totally evil – she is certain that everyone can atone and find peace in what she refers to as their original ‘home’. But her beliefs will be severely challenged with one of her cases.

She has set up a business in Lewes called Psychic Surveys, along with fellow psychics Theo, Ness and the slightly less gifted Corinna. During an evening out she meets the handsome Cash and they become good friends. In fact he begins to accompany her on her visits. It’s at one of these that they are trying to send a spirit to the light along with dog Jed, but Jed inadvertently ‘befriends’ them and now pops up from time to time initially, and then seems to become a permanent fixture in their lives. Theo tells Ruby that Jed must go to the light, but he’s not having it. And while Cash, unlike Ruby, cannot see the dog, he can smell him.

But I digress. Ruby and co are summoned to rid Highdown Hall of its celebrity ghost, the film star Cynthia Hart. And it’s not going to be easy because Cynthia believes she sold her soul to the devil in exchange for fame and fortune. Cynthia died of a heart attack in 1958 on her 31st birthday and her spirit is still sticking around causing havoc to Mr Tierney, the new owner of the house and she isn’t going anywhere. It’s going to be Psychic Survey’s hardest job yet and what’s more, Mr Tierney, a journalist, threatens to discredit Ruby and co if they don’t get Cynthia out by Christmas Eve.

Very entertaining with lots of hauntings, poltergeists and other spirits and I do love Jed the ghost dog. I’ve only ever seen a couple of ghosts in my life – always animals, never humans – so I shall be following their antics in the future.

About the Author

Born and bred in Brighton, Shani Struthers is the author of twenty-four supernatural thrillers, some set in various locations in England, others in more far-flung destinations such as Venice and America. Having been brought up with an understanding of the Occult and alternative views on religion, she threads this knowledge throughout her books, often drawing on real-life experiences of her own, from people she has known and from well-known Occult figures.

Her Psychic Surveys series has proved very popular, becoming global Amazon genre bestsellers. There is also the This Haunted World series – standalone books set in and around the world’s most haunted places. They too have topped the Amazon genre charts, along with the more romantic Jessamine and Comraich, plus the Reach for the Dead series. Standalone psychological thriller, Summer of Grace, is also set in America, in the dark heart of Kansas! For Christmas Ghost Stories, check out Blakemort, Eve, Carfax House and The Damned Season.

To keep up to date with new releases, you can subscribe to her newsletter via her website: www.shanistruthers.com.

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