This book wasn't what I was expecting, but not in a bad way. To begin with, the titular character is not truly a mesmerist, unless you count her ability to hypnotize herself. Nairna and her father begin the book as two-bit con artists, faking seances and reading the fortunes of those foolish enough to entrust them with their coin. Little does her scheming father know, but she is actually gifted with foresight. When this talent is discovered, Nairna becomes the darling of Edinburgh as she shows off her psychic skills to eager onlookers. Everything is going well for her until her powers summon her ancestress Lottie Liath, embarrassing visiting American spiritualist fraud, Dorothy Kellings and earning her a reputation as a witch. Fearing for her life, Nairna moves to the United States, changing her name to Nora Grey and hiding on a remote island.
Woven in between the chapters of Nairna/Nora's life is the story of Lottie Liath, the grandmother she never knew. When Lottie's husband dies in a mining accident and the mining company refuses to recompense her as promised, she flies into a fit of rage, and as a result becomes the newest inmate of Argoll Asylum. While there she is subjected to inhuman experiments that send her mind and spirit forward in time into the life of her granddaughter, culminating in a dramatic event that will change both women’s lives forever.
I enjoyed this book for the most part. The author clearly did her research on mesmerism, spiritualism, and psychiatric care in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. The two female characters are well written and believable, and the descriptions of the seances take the reader right into the middle of the action. Nevertheless, the narrative suffered during a few of the time jumps. Sometimes, the scene that Nora was experiencing had already happened to Lottie in a previous chapter and vice versa. I was barely able to keep the timeline straight, and I typically enjoy time travel plots in books and movies. In addition, the author was a bit heavy-handed with her girl power message at times, particularly with Nora. I don’t need the characters to tell me the themes of the book, I can draw those conclusions myself.
Overall, this was a gripping story that I would recommend to anyone interested in historical fiction, gothic literature, or time travel stories. I rate this book 4.5 stars out of 5.