Blog Tour: Sonia Gensler Guest Post

I'm excited to host a stop on The Dark Between blog tour.  Here I have author Sonia Gensler with a guest post.

Big thanks to Sara at Novel Novice for putting this tour together!

I couldn’t have written The Dark Between if I hadn’t first fallen in love with Cambridge, England. In my previous post I explained how the idea for the novel came to me after reading Deborah Blum’s Ghost Hunters, a book about the founders of the Society for Psychical Research. Truly, however, it was the Cambridge connection that sealed the deal. You see, before there ever was a Society for Psychical Research, there was a Ghost Club made up by Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge. Something about this intrigued me—perhaps it was the idea of scholars meeting privately within their historic, prestigious college to discuss the reality of hauntings and paranormal phenomena. I was smitten. Through Blum’s book, I learned more about the men who went on to form the Society. One of them, moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick, even founded a women’s college in Cambridge (which I’ll discuss in another post). I’d already spent a few summers in Oxford—my husband directs a study abroad program there—and I was intrigued to learn more about its academic rival. Of course, I’d developed a crush on Cambridge just through reading about it, but once I finally did visit in 2009, I fell completely in love. Oxford is a bustling city, but Cambridge—as busy as it is—somehow feels more pastoral with its meadows and gardens and leisurely flowing river. It has its dark side, too, however. In the 19th century, the Castle End area was a place of brothels, crime, and public drunkenness, and to this day there is a palpable tension between “town” (the working class locals) and “gown” (the highly educated students and faculty). With its beauty and history and darkness, Cambridge was the first clear character in my novel. The more time I spent there (I’ve visited four times now), the more I understood my human characters. See more of Cambridge in my Dark Between Flickr photoset.


Wow!  I checked out the photos she has and they are amazing!  I'm dying to visit now (well, I was before, but even more so now!).  It just looks gorgeous.  And all this stuff is SO interesting to me!  I cannot wait to read this book!

About the Book:

At the turn of the twentieth century, Spiritualism and séances are all the rage—even in the scholarly town of Cambridge, England. While mediums dupe the grief-stricken, a group of local fringe scientists seeks to bridge the gap to the spirit world by investigating the dark corners of the human mind.

Each running from a shadowed past, Kate, Asher, and Elsie take refuge within the walls of Summerfield College. But their peace is soon shattered by the discovery of a dead body nearby. Is this the work of a flesh-and-blood villain, or is something otherworldly at play? This unlikely trio must illuminate what the scientists have not, and open a window to secrets taken to the grave—or risk joining the spirit world themselves.

The Dark Between, a supernatural romance about the powers that lie in the shadows of the mind, is perfect for fans of Sarah Rees Brennan, Alyxandra Harvey, and Libba Bray.

Each stop on the blog tour is also revealing a code word that can be used to enter a contest on Sonia's website for a DARK BETWEEN prize pack, including a finished copy of the book.  Go to Sonia Gensler's Blog to enter the contest.
The code word for this blog is: TRINITY

Check out the other stops on the tour:

Sept. 2 - Mundie Moms
Sept. 3 - Candace's Book Blog
Sept. 4 - Once Upon a Twilight
Sept. 5 - Small Review
Sept. 6 - Reading Teen

Sept. 9 - Book Chic Club
Sept. 10 - The Story Siren
Sept. 11 - Ruby's Reads
Sept. 12 - Page Turners Blog
Sept. 13 - Icey Books