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Aimee Juarez has always had a penchant for history, investigative research, mysticism, lore, spirituality, and the paranormal. Born and raised in sunny South Florida, Aimee grew up dreaming of faraway cities in times long past while harboring a curiosity for things that go bump in the night.
She began her writing career in 2001 as a stringer in Miami. In the years that followed, Aimee worked as a print journalist and freelance writer. In 2013, she turned to fiction and began writing her debut novel, The Sitting Room, the first book in her Society of Psychical Studies series. She published the novel three years later though Bayley Street Press.
Aimee earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism, with minors in British literature and psychology, and a master’s degree in business at two South Florida universities.
Reviewed by Marta Tandori for Readers' Favorite
Handsome Dr. David Gosfield has returned to London after a two-year tenure studying abroad in Boston. He’s set to teach psychology and psychiatry at Johns College, and has also been elected to head up the college’s new Society of Psychical Studies program. Despite his excitement at being back home and reunited with his sister, Emma, and her husband, David is plagued by head pain that attacks his left temple, vivid nightmares and inexplicable scratches on his body that are, at times, excruciatingly painful. Shortly after his arrival at Johns College, David is befriended by Teddy, another professor, which eventually leads him to a meeting later that evening at the theatre with Teddy’s fiancée and her sister, the beautiful Adele Ledford. David is immediately smitten by Adele and the feeling is mutual. However, unbeknownst to David, Adele possesses the gift of second sight and immediately senses a malevolent shadow over him. Using the willing Teddy as their go-between, David and Adele arrange clandestine meetings in the park and, as their relationship blossoms into love, Adele confides in David her psychic abilities and how those abilities drove away her former fiancé.
What makes The Sitting Room particularly appealing, in addition to it obviously being well-written, is the author’s choice of setting and subject matter which really give the story its ‘grit’, if you will. Set in Victorian England, the story perfectly captures the important social mores of the time when appearances were everything, yet ironically enough, David works in a field of medicine not typically discussed in ‘polite society’ while Adele, although gifted with second sight, is encouraged by her family to keep her shameful abilities a secret if she’s ever to land herself a good husband. What is also brilliantly captured by author Aimee Juarez is the fact that although the Victorian era was a period of deep religious revival, it was also a time of belief in supernatural forces, energies and spooky phenomena, to the point where holding seances for the rich became a cottage industry and where those who claimed psychical abilities straddled a fine line between lunacy and having an inexplicable gift.
The somewhat depressing subject matter is, however, nicely balanced by the tender love between the two main protagonists that gently flourishes, thanks to the resourcefulness of the young lovers and the willingness of the affable Teddy to act as their go-between. The character of Adele is especially appealing. At a time when a well-heeled young woman’s purpose in life was to make a good marriage, bear many children and do nothing more substantial than ensuring that her many children are taught proper moral values, Adele is different and it’s her very difference that gives her such appeal. She takes David’s illness head on and, as the story unfolds, we see her grow and become more assertive, rather than the passive young woman on the brink of becoming an old maid due to her so-called mental infirmity. If you love a good romance with substance that goes above and beyond your typical bodice-ripping romp, or enjoy stories about the paranormal, then The Sitting Room by Aimee Juarez is the perfect book for you!
