Vaulted Night - A Novella of the Uncanny is the latest book from multiple award-winning author Leona Francombe, who has become one of my favorite writers over the past several years. This is the third book of hers that I’ve reviewed, and I’d be very hard-pressed to name a favorite. Vaulted Night is an intriguing mystery through and through, and even with two very enjoyable readings, I’m still not quite sure what happened at the end. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so - I keep reflecting on it and have come up with a few different interpretations that might convince me to read it a third time!

Leona’s writing is colorful and artistic - classical might be an even better term. One of the things I love most is that she is also a composer and pianist with quite a library of recordings to her credit, and music is a very strong influence in her stories as well as in her life. Her characters are often musicians, and Leona knows first-hand how many of them feel, think and react, making them even more interesting and true-to-life. (Very involved with music, myself, I really think Leona’s musical experiences go a long way to making her characters more vivid with distinct artistic personalities and unique ways of looking at the world - and life itself.)

The characters in Vaulted Night span three generations from the present to one of the main characters’ grandmother and a mysterious soldier during World War II. The main characters are Alice Gray and Isabella St-Clair, and Yann St-Clair and Andreas Engle. The rugged setting for much of the novel is in Brittany, which is also becomes a vibrant, yet haunting character. The mystery is very much about how the four people’s lives are entwined in so many strange yet intriguing ways. The book’s title comes from a line in a poem by Charles Baudelaire, whose book of poetry also plays a big part in the story as do ghosts, rock formations, an antique piano with a long history, some old letters tucked into some sheet music, and music itself.

Haunting, fascinating, spooky and artistic, I highly recommend Vaulted Night - A Novella of the Uncanny! It is available as a paperback book and as a download from a variety of booksellers including Amazon.