Spiritualism in New York

Awakening Lily Dale #1 by Wendy Corsi Staub was out of my usual cozy mystery range, but it is an interesting story with the promise of more mystery. After her mother's accidental death Calla Delaney leaves Florida and goes to stay with eccentric grandmother Odelia in a western New York town. Lily Dale is known for being the world's largest center for the religion of spiritualism and Odelia is a medium. She sees people at her home on a regular basis, trying to help them with their problems.


Although Calla is only planning to stay with her grandmother for the summer until her father finds a new place for them to live in California, she soon finds herself seeing and feeling things she is unsure of. When more strange things begin to happen to Calla, she wonders if she has inherited some of the spiritual qualities. She begins to understand why her mother never talked about her life in Lily Dale and why she knows so little about her grandmother and her powers. 


Calla also begins to feel as if her mother's death might not have been an accident and she strives to figure out what could possibly have happened. A recurring nightmare wakes her every night at 3:17 am and she is baffled by this event. In her head she hears "The only way to we'll learn the true is to dredge the lake..." What does that mean? When she asks Odelia evades the question, but tells her not to go into the lake for any reason.

Did Calla's mother die accidentally or was she murdered? Is Calla psychic and who is the girl she keeps seeing in the yard?
 
I enjoyed this book and look forward to the finding the answers to some of the questions next in the series.