I went on a bit of a Gothic binge in 2025, and a Simone St. James binge in particular. “An Inquiry into Love and Death” was the first St. James book I read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it: it felt like a Nancy Drew story as Mary Stewart might have written, with spooky settings, frightful ghosts, and a plucky young heroine who refuses to be scared off from her quest for justice.
Set shortly after the end of the First World War, college student Jillian Leigh is called to a seaside village to claim the body and collect the belongings of her eccentric Uncle Toby because the rest of the family is abroad. Toby turns out to have been a professional ghost hunter, and his death occurred under mysterious circumstances: he fell from a cliff while investigating the legendary haunting of Walking John, the ghost of a long-dead smuggler. Jillian soon discovers that Toby had deeper connections to the village and its people than she had suspected, and that there are villains of a decidedly non-supernatural variety who want to prevent Jillian from learning the truth behind her uncle’s death.
This book is long on atmosphere — stormy nights, mysterious apparitions, a spooky old house on the cliffs — and isn’t afraid to lean into the delicious shivers you’d expect from a classic ghost story. It’s a perfect late night read, provided you’re tucked safely into bed and safe from the wind howling outside your door …
