Specters in the Glass House

In 1921, Marian Arnold reluctantly returns to Mullerian Manor, her family’s summer estate in the countryside near Milwaukee, Wisc. Since her parents’ deaths and the collapse of her father’s brewing empire due to Prohibition, Marian has no choice but to live in the one place she inherited. Yet it is a residence she fears, since it is “a place of confusion.” After all, her mother spent years there, aloof from Marian and lost in her own world, finding solace in the glass butterfly house where she is now buried.

As Marian tries to find her way in her new reality, she is plagued by voices and specters that haunt her. Her only sense of stability is found in her childhood friend Felix, a WWI veteran whose leg was amputated during the war and who returned home with struggles of his own.

When a person is found dead in the glass butterfly house with broken butterfly wings nearby, the police are called and an investigation is launched. Fear intensifies Marian’s mental trauma as she tries to make sense of the death. Was it a murder? Were they all in danger of being killed? And how had her eccentric mother actually died? Soon after, when a guest at Mullerian Manor is discovered deceased with butterfly wings left on her corpse, Marian wonders if she will be the next victim of the Butterfly Butcher.

In the present day, Remy Shaw finds employment as a research assistant for Elton Floyd, a famous biographer and the new owner of Mullerian Manor. Elton and Remy work together to unravel the history of Marian Arnold and the murders attributed to the Butterfly Butcher.

Even as Elton and Remy discover more and more about Marian’s traumatic life, Remy is dealing with her own terrifying childhood recollections. One memory in particular shifts in and out of Remy’s dreams and consciousness. When she was 4 years old, she escaped a fire in her family’s apartment in which her mother and her boyfriend died. But no matter how hard Remy tries, she can’t figure out the identity of the malevolent person in her nightmare.

Remy’s research work and emotions are thrown into a tailspin when Tate Arnold, one of Marian’s distant relatives, shows up at the estate and moves in. Tate makes it clear that he doesn’t want Elton and Remy to continue with their research. As Remy learns Tate’s history and she shares her childhood trauma with him, they begin to trust each other.

When Remy barely escapes a catastrophic event, a compassionate police officer helps her to finally uncover the mysterious links connecting Marian’s and her lives.

Masterfully plotted and satisfyingly fast-paced, Specters in the Glass House explores the fragile nature of families, no matter the historical period in which they exist. Through her struggling characters, Wright exhibits a deep sensitivity to people marginalized by society’s expectations and prejudices and paints a portrait of a loving God who remains when all else fails or falls apart. (Bethany House Publishers)