Michael Schmicker

Italy 1899: Fiery-tempered, seductive medium Alessandra Poverelli levitates a table at a Spiritualist seance in Naples. A reporter photographs the miracle, and wealthy, skeptical, Jewish psychiatrist Camillo Lombardi arrives in Naples to investigate. When she materializes the ghost of his dead mother, he risks his reputation and fortune to finance a tour of the Continent, challenging the scientific and academic elite of Europe to test Alessandra's mysterious powers. She will help him rewrite Science. His fee will help her escape her sadistic husband Pigotti and start a new life in Rome. Newspapers across Europe trumpet her Cinderella story and baffling successes, and the public demands to know - does the "Queen of Spirits" really have supernatural powers? Nigel Huxley is convinced she's simply another vulgar, Italian trickster. The icy, aristocratic detective for England's Society for the Investigation of Mediums launches a plot to trap and expose her. Meanwhile, the Vatican is quietly digging up her childhood secrets, desperate to discredit her supernatural powers; her abusive husband Pigotti is coming to kill her; and the tarot cards predict catastrophe. Praised by Kirkus Reviews as an "enchanting and graceful narrative that absorbs readers from the first page," The Witch of Napoli masterfully resurrects the bitter, 19th century battle between Science and religion over the possibility of an afterlife. Michael Schmicker is an investigative journalist and co-author of The Gift: ESP: The Extraordinary Experiences of Ordinary People (St. Martin's Press). He lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.

A Novel

The Witch of Napoli

Witch of Napoli

Sally Rhine Feather

In THE GIFT, a foremost parapsychologist examines how clairvoyance, precognition and telepathy work. Dr Sally Rhine Feather is the daughter of the late, renowned ESP researchers Dr J B and Louisa Rhine, whose pioneering laboratory experiments at Duke University brought scientific credibility to paranormal research. Using stories taken from the Rhine Research Center's database of more than 14,000 case histories, Dr Feather surveys the compelling scientific evidence for the reality of ESP and updates readers on what parapsychologists have learned about precognition, clairvoyance and telepathy. Dr Sally Rhine Feather covers extraordinary paranormal experiences in mothers, children, couples, messages from the dead, premonitions of disasters and death, including several 9/11 cases, and in war. Finally, she helps readers make sense of their own psychic experiences and those of their loved ones.

Michael Schmicker

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