Description

Marianne Foyster Harry Price and the most haunted house in England the perfect read for Halloween

In 1928 Eric and Mabel Smith took over a lonely parish on the northern border of Essex When they moved into Borley Rectory Mrs Smith made a gruesome discovery in a cupboard a human skullSoon the house was electric with ghosts Within the year the Smiths had abandoned it and the Rectory became notorious as the most haunted house in England

When Reverend Lionel Foyster moved in he experienced a further explosion of poltergeist activity with an increasing violence directed at his attractive young wife Marianne was a passionate and sensuous woman isolated in a village haunted by ancient superstition and deeprooted prejudice She would be accused not only of faking the ghosts but of adultery bigamy and even murder

The haunting sensationally reported in the tabloid press gripped the nation It was investigated by Harry Price a selfmade psychic detective This was the case that would make Prices name as the most celebrated ghosthunter of the age He recorded the evidence of 200 witnesses to over 2000 supernatural incidents This surely confirmed that not only did ghosts exist but finally here was proof of life after death

With the tension of a thriller and the uncanny chills of a classic English ghost story Sean OConnor brings the story of Borley Rectory to vivid life as an allegory for an age fraught with anxiety haunted by the shadow of the Great War and terrified of the apocalypse to come

Borley Rectory is perhaps the definition of an old haunt still exerting an extraordinary grip on the popular imagination Balanced surprising and strangely moving Mark Gatiss