Beyond Black

Alison Hart earns her living as a medium, but the gift that brings in her clients is more of a burden to her. To the people who book her, she appears round, cheerful and unremarkable. Privately, she is a woman under constant strain. Her waking and sleeping hours are crowded with the spirits of men from her childhood, petty crooks and bullies who once took advantage of her mother, Emmie, a vulnerable and confused woman. Every effort Alison makes to banish them seems only to make them more vicious.

Hilary Mantel is best known for her historical novels about Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Beyond Black is a contemporary novel that combines the supernatural with a darkly comic edge.