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Discussion Guide

The House on Vesper Sands

London, 1893: high up in a house on a dark, snowy night, a lone seamstress stands by a window. So begins the swirling, serpentine world of Paraic O’Donnell’s Victorian-inspired mystery, the story of a city cloaked in shadow, but burning with questions: why does the seamstress jump from the window? Why is a cryptic message stitched into her skin? And how is she connected to a rash of missing girls, all of whom seem to have disappeared under similar circumstances?

 

On the case is Inspector Cutter, a detective as sharp and committed to his work as he is wryly hilarious. Gideon Bliss, a Cambridge dropout in love with one of the missing girls, stumbles into a role as Cutter’s sidekick. And clever young journalist Octavia Hillingdon sees the case as a chance to tell a story that matters―despite her employer’s preference that she stick to a women’s society column. As Inspector Cutter peels back the mystery layer by layer, he leads them all, at last, to the secrets that lie hidden at the house on Vesper Sands.

 

By turns smart, surprising, and impossible to put down, The House on Vesper Sands offers a glimpse into the strange undertow of late nineteenth-century London and the secrets we all hold inside us.

 

Book club questions for The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

Why do you think the author chose to open with the scene of the seamstress leaping from the window?

What surprised you most in reading this book? Were there any plot twists you didn’t see coming?

In what ways does this book feel like a classic Victorian mystery novel, and in what ways does it subvert genre expectations?

How does the time period—1890s London—influence the events of the story? How might this story look different if it had taken place several decades later, or even today?

 

In what ways do the book’s settings—the church, the House on Vesper Sands itself, and more—help to develop the story? 

Helen Macdonald calls this book, “haunting and unsettling, smokily atmospheric.” How would you characterize the mood of the novel, and what tools did you notice the author using to achieve it?

Though they live in a society where men often hold more power, how do the women in this story demonstrate power and agency?

How would you describe the relationship between Inspector Cutter and Gideon Bliss? Are there any other famous duos that the pair reminds you of?

In this story, ghosts exist among the living characters. Why do you think the author made this choice?

 

How is the language used by the characters in this book different from the way those same characters might speak today? Are there particular words or phrases that struck you?

The House on Vesper Sands Book Club Questions PDF

Click here for a printable PDF of the The House on Vesper Sands discussion questions

Named an Indie Next Pick, Library Reads Pick, Apple Books' Best Book, Powell’s Pick, Amazon Fiction & Literature's “Best of the Month," and one of Oprah Daily's Best Historical Novels of 2021

"Ensconced in the rich, Gothic embellishments of Mr. O’Donnell’s prose . . . . The House on Vesper Sands performs a . . . kind of enchantment, transforming a chronicle of sordid crimes into an enjoyably eerie ghost story."
― The Wall Street Journal

"In this charming jape of a thriller, Inspector Henry Cutter is known around New Scotland Yard for having 'a weakness for certain exotic cases.' In the snowy winter of 1893, he’s drawn into a doozy when young employed women around London start to vanish, or―worse, in a way―have their souls stolen by ruthless spiritualists. Preposterous, you say? Not in the hands of O’Donnell, a kind of Oscar Wilde gone tipsy, who drops some Irish whimsy into the harsh reality of Victorian England."
― Richard Lipez, The Washington Post

"A thrilling gothic mystery."
― TIME

"Practically comes with the mood lighting one would hope for when reading a Victorian-era mystery. Expect pages infused with fog and the clicks of mysterious footsteps...written with modern wit and a Dickensian sense of detail."
― Oprah Daily

"That rare mystery that’s at once gripping, elegantly written and very funny."
― The Seattle Times

 

This discussion guide was shared and sponsored in partnership with Tin House.