GHOSTLIGHT

Contemporary occult fantasy from the author of Lady of the Trillium (p. 33), etc. Here, introverted psychic researcher Truth Jourdemayne seethes with hatred for her father, the occultist Thorne Blackburn, whom she blames for the death of her mother during a ""magick"" ritual back in 1969, following which Thorne vanished. Infant Truth was raised by Aunt Caroline, her mother's identical twin. Now, Truth arranges to visit the dying Caroline in her upstate New York home. Caroline gives Truth her father's jewels and a book, and clearly has other important things to impart; but Truth never goes back, and Caroline expires. Drawn to Thorne's old house, Truth finds occultist Julian Pilgrim and followers in residence, one of whom proves to be Truth's sister, Light. Julian sets Truth's hormones a-tingling--and so, on the pretext of writing Thorne's biography, she moves in. Thorne, it seems, also had a son; merely an odd coincidence, thinks Truth, that his name was Pilgrim. She sees and converses with Thorne's ghost. Another of Julian's followers, the egregiously named Michael Archangel, knows something but won't reveal what. Finally, as Julian prepares a culminating ritual of dire though unspecified consequences, Truth regains the psychic powers that have been blocked since infancy, and she joins Throne--he's been skulking about the house since 1969!--to help stop Julian. Some creepy moments, but absurdly contrived and not even half thought out.