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A Spirit Seeks Asylum by Lena Gregory Series: A Bay Island Psychic Mystery #6
Published by Beyond the Page on July 13, 2021
Genres: Cozy Mystery, Paranormal
Pages: 190
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Also by this author:Cass Donovan is confronted by ghoulish crimes both old and new when a defunct asylum is the site of a fresh murder and a long-hidden injustice . . .
The old abandoned buildings of the Twin Forks Lunatic Asylum have always fascinated and frightened clairvoyant Cass Donovan, but she never dreamed her psychic abilities would be put to the test there. Then the new owner of the site tells her he plans to renovate it and turn it into a boarding school, and he’ll pay Cass handsomely to determine whether the place is haunted! Cass accepts his offer, but her search for hints of old ghosts soon has her looking for clues among the living when the man who hired her turns up dead.
Returning to the shuttered asylum looking for evidence of who may have wanted her client out of the way, Cass stumbles upon signs of yet another murder, even as she’s besieged by an onslaught of haunting voices from the past. When it comes to light that rival real estate developers have been hatching plans of their own for the property, Cass sees no shortage of motives for the murders, but she’ll have to find a way to quiet the disturbing voices from long ago and focus on the here and now, because whoever’s behind the killings has targeted Cass as their next victim . . .
A Reading With Cass Donovan
I’m Cass Donovan, owner of Mystical Musings, a small psychic shop on Bay Island. Thank you for dropping by today. You’re just in time, too. I’m about to start a group reading at Mystical Musings, and I figured it would be fun to give you a peek at a group reading from my point of view. So, come on in, have a seat at one of the many tables scattered throughout the shop, and we’ll get started.
Usually, Stephanie, one of my best friends, introduces me. She’ll talk a little about what’s about to happen. She’ll tell my clients I will walk through the room and seek out those whose dearly departed loved ones are trying to contact them.
I only have a vague idea of what she says, because we worked it out ahead of time. While she’s speaking, I study my guests. Everyone has small tells that alert you to their thoughts and feelings. If you are good at reading those tells, which I am, thanks to years of psychiatric training and great gut instincts, you can infer a lot about a person.
But I don’t do readings to con people, I do it to help them. Unfortunately, I had to leave my psychiatric practice, and I will never go back to New York City. I enjoy the peace of living on Bay Island too much to ever go back to the hustle and bustle of city life, or the bad memories that plague me there. So I use my training to help people in another way.
To start, I can assume most of the people attending a reading expect me to contact the dead. Of course, there are skeptics, but that’s to be expected, and they’re easy enough to pick out that I can avoid them with no problem.
Right now, I am looking at a woman I can tell needs my help. She is twisting her wedding ring around and around her finger, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Just a nervous habit, or something more? I’ll have to figure it out. She has a sad look about her. Not the raw pain of fresh grief, but the kind of sadness that comes with having lost someone who was important to her and whose loss still affects her, just not recently.
The woman sitting next to her, much younger, her daughter, maybe, pats her hands.
I approach slowly, giving her time to notice I’ve focused on her. If she seems unwilling to participate, I’ll back off right away. She seems okay, though. She sits up straighter, so I figure she’s ready to chat.
The man sitting at the next table is a regular, and he knows my routine, so he stands and offers me his chair.
I accept, thank him, and pull it closer to the woman, creating a more intimate setting for our talk. I start off kind of general, since I’m not sure yet what’s wrong. “You seem worried about something.”
She nods and a tear tips over her lashes. “I am.” A strong sense of loss surrounds her.
“You’ve lost something important.”
Her eyes widen, and she nods again. “Yes, I have.”
That one wasn’t so hard to figure out, but now I have to figure out what she lost and where she lost it. “When was the last time you saw it?”
She frowns and shakes her head. “I can’t remember. My husband left it in his drawer. It was so important to him.”
“Well, why don’t we see if he can help us guide you to it?”
She pulls herself together. “Oh, that would be great.”
Now I have a lot more information than I did at the start. I know her husband is the one who’s gone, which I suspected from the way she was twisting her ring. I know she lost something, which is usually an easy problem to solve. Most people, given the right prodding, can remember where they last saw something and be led back to it. This is actually a common request.
Now I will focus on finding what she lost, but I won’t go into how just yet. After all, I don’t want to divulge all my secrets, but be sure to pick up one of the Bay Island Psychic Mysteries if you want an even more detailed glimpse into what I do.
About Lena Gregory
Lena Gregory is the author of the Bay Island Psychic Mysteries, which take place on a small island between the north and south forks of Long Island, New York, the All-Day Breakfast Café Mysteries, which are set on the outskirts of Florida’s Ocala National Forest, and the Puzzle Solvers Mysteries, which take place in a small town on eastern Long Island.
Lena grew up in a small town on the south shore of eastern Long Island, where she still lives with her husband, three kids, son-in-law, and five dogs. Her hobbies include spending time with family, reading, jigsaw puzzles, and walking. Her love for writing developed when her youngest son was born and didn’t sleep through the night. She works full time as a writer and a freelance editor and is a member of Sisters in Crime.
To learn more about Lena and her latest writing endeavors, visit her website at http://www.lenagregory.com/ and be sure to sign up for her newsletter http://lenagregory.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9765d0711ed4fab4fa31b16ac&id=49d42335d1.
Sounds like a great book. I like the cover.
Thank you, Rita!
Sounds like a great read. Looking forward to reading the book.
Thank you, Dianne!
Thank you for being part of the book tour for “A Spirit Seeks Asylum” by Lena Gregory.
Enjoyed reading the guest post with Cass Donovan which just makes me want to read this book all the more.
Fabulous author whose books are always on my TBR list. Can’t wait for the opportunity to read this one.
Thank you so much, Kay! It’s great to see you again. I hope you enjoy the story.
Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for sharing the release of A Spirit Seeks Asylum!
What fun it would be to attend a group reading. I would be so nervous that my secrets would be revealed.