Margery and Me

by Maryka Biaggio

In the 1920s, Margery Crandon captivated both Boston society and psychic researchers with her astonishing seances. At her gatherings, her deceased brother Walter regularly appeared, entertaining the circle with his witty and cheeky remarks. Margery's abilities earned her the admiration of luminaries, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Butler Yeats. But one man stood in Harry Houdini, the legendary magician, who was determined to expose her as a fraud.


Margery and Me tells the true story of the medium who mystified scientists, challenged skeptics, and sparked a sensation across America and Europe. As Houdini and Margery clashed in a battle of wits and wills, the question Could the master illusionist unmask her, or would her extraordinary powers be enough to convert even the most resolute of doubters?

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical

353 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication April 21, 2026

About the author

Maryka Biaggio, PhD, is a psychology professor turned novelist with a passion for history and the human spirit. After a successful academic career, she turned to writing historical fiction inspired by real people—figures whose lives illuminate the complexities of their time. Her debut novel, Parlor Games (Doubleday, 2013), was praised by New York Times bestselling author Daisy Goodwin as “a wildly entertaining and constantly surprising ride.” She has since published Eden Waits, The Point of Vanishing, The Model Spy, and Gun Girl and the Tall Guy. Her forthcoming novel, Margery and Me, will be published by Regal House in 2026 and has been hailed by distinguished author Valerie Martin as “a wry, lively, and wicked-good novel.”

She loves the challenge of starting with actual historical figures and dramatizing their lives—figuring out what motivated them to behave as they did, studying how cultural and historical context influenced them, and recreating their emotional world through dialogue and action. She prides herself on carefully researching the period, place, and people to provide readers with an immersive experience.

Her fiction has garnered numerous accolades, including the Willamette Writers Award, Oregon Writers Colony Award, Historical Novel Society Review Editors’ Choice, La Belle Lettre Award, a Michigan Upper Peninsula Notable Book Award, and a Regional Arts and Culture Council grant. She served on the Board of the Historical Novel Society North America Conference from 2015 to 2025 and has mentored writers in the Association of Writers and Writing Program’s Writer-to-Writer Mentorship program since 2020.

An avid opera fan, she also enjoys gardening, art films, and, of course, great fiction. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Learn more at my website.

Reviews

[Val~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I enjoyed the most about this historical fiction book was the narrator, who is the deceased brother of Mina and sees everything as a ghost and communicates with her. I also admire Mina's strength for the years this story takes place in. 

There are also famous figures who appear throughout the book, which is noteworthy.

Thanks to Regal House Publishing and NetGalley for this eARC of Margery and Met by Maryka Biaggio, to be published on April 21st, 2026.

[Ree · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the first 20% of the book when it focused on Mina's life up until her marriage to Dr. Crandon, but the séance portions eventually began to feel drawn out. I found myself more interested in Mina’s life outside of the séances than in the repeated focus on them. I think the story would have held my interest more if the séances had been spaced out and more organically woven into her daily life, instead of occurring one after another in a way that started to feel monotonous.

I sometimes found it difficult to tell who was speaking during conversations between Mina and Walter—especially when those exchanges were long and woven into scenes with other characters. This made it harder for me to believe she was actually communicating with him, and instead gave the impression that she might simply be engaging in an extended inner dialogue or imagining the conversations.

While I understand the narrative importance of having Walter as the narrator, I often forgot that he—not Mina—was narrating, which caused some confusion.

Overall, I found Mina’s life before the séances more compelling than the séances and tests themselves. Her character is assertive and shows a lot of strength, rarely allowing herself to be controlled by men for long.

If you like historical fiction, this can definitely be a hit or miss depending on personal preference, but worth giving a shot.

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, to have a visual representation of a deceased loved one. This drove the craze for spirit photography in the time period surrounding the Civil War. Technological advances, such as the telephone in the early 20th Century, created interest in communication with those lost in the Great War. Spiritualists conducting seances provided peace of mind to many seeking comfort. There were those like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who supported spiritualism while Harry Houdini, in opposition, deemed “spiritualism as a cloak to prey on the gullible” and was relentless in his quest to prove that mediums were charlatans.

Walter Stinson, 16 years old, had a talent for dowsing. Farmers for miles around, dug their wells based upon his expertise. He taught his sister Mina, 10 years his junior, to dowse. “Hold the stick…close your eyes. Do you feel the vibration? It’s wiggling…You got the talent, Mina!” When Walter left home, he found employment as a switchman in a trainyard. In March 1911, icy conditions led to a boxcar derailment and Walter’s demise. “And from that moment on I could see right into Mina’s world-exactly what she was thinking and seeing…It was like I became a part of her and she a part of me.” Walter, as narrator, tells the story of Mina “Margery” Crandon and her detractor, Harry Houdini.

The year was 1918. Surgeon Roy Crandon served in a medical unit in a New England Naval Hospital. Mina had volunteered as an ambulance driver transporting the injured to the hospital. They fell in love and married, moving to a four story brick house in the prestigious Boston neighborhood of Beacon Hill. With her life secure, she embraced the elegant lifestyle of a surgeon’s wife and enjoyed entertaining Roy’s friends and associates. She dabbled in spiritualism as a hobby.

“The wall between the physical and spirit world is not easy to crack…When (Mina) was sleeping, I finagled my way into her dreams…It simply didn’t occur to her that it really was me sending messages.” Roy’s friend Dr. Richardson mentioned that Boston was home to many talented mediums and asked Mina for her thoughts on spiritualism. The seeds were sown for Mina to embrace spiritualism with Walter as her spiritual guide. Mina conducted her first seance in May, 1923. A small gathering…a lantern with red panes…a Victrola playing a mysterious melody…participants settled around the spirit table and held hands. Roy’s acknowledgement of Mina’s powers “would turn into an albatross.”

The Setup
*Spirit messages would be sent to seance participants by Walter.
*Josephine Richardson volunteers to keep a written record of all seances.
*Roy, a control freak, determines that money and status might be in the offing.
* Mina hands control of her vocal chords over to Walter. We concentrated all our energy and worked as one. There must be no hint of trickery.

Roy, in his dogged determination to promote Mina’s mediumship and piggyback on her success, wrote to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle touting his wife’s “proclivities”. Scientific scrutiny would soon validate or disprove claims of “production of psychic phenomena.” At Roy’s insistence, Margery as Medium (Mina) entered the Scientific American contest of 1923. A prize of $2500 would be awarded “for demonstration of a bona fide psychic phenomenon” by passing rigorous tests during seances. The five judge panel included skeptic Harry Houdini. The possibility of Margery’s successful confirmation was thwarted by Harry Houdini’s plan “to guard both his reputation and that of Scientific American”. He designed a special “fraud-prevention cabinet”, a crate with openings for only the medium’s head and arms. Houdini’s all out confrontation with Margery caused her to try an unusual manifestation…a wax imprint of Walter’s thumb. Was it genuine? As for public sentiment, it might change on a dime!

A thoroughly researched, fascinating read.

Thank you Maryka Biaggio for the Print ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Maeghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to DNF this at 26% (a little after Part 2 started).

I'm not sure how I feel about this, it was tagged under True Crime so I was expecting it to be a tell-all of some coverup with seances. Colour me surprised when the book is actually historical fiction and told from the perspective of her dead brother. Once I got over that, I was starting to enjoy the story. I did a wiki rabbit hole to learn more about the actual characters since I didn't know the story beforehand but once the seances start I was getting bored. Sure, Mina and Walter's banter was fun, but other than that I didn't feel like there was actually a story going on.

I decided to DNF after reading a few other reviews who seemed to be in the same boat as me and said they finished the book but that the seances got tedious after Part 2.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book!

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started out so promising. The concept of a novel based on one of the early psychics Margery Crandon told by her dead brother Walter was certainly intriguing. The parts which were focused on her life that she shared with her husband Dr Crandon and the interactions with her friends in society were enjoyable but it became tedious with all the different scientists and sceptics being paroled in. Yes there were a lot of seances, but that was kind of what the book was about. Yet apart from the engagement with Walter there is no record of her actually channelling anyone else.
Walters' aim was to make his sister rich and famous which he succeeded in doing but sadly at what cost to her happiness.
Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy

[Grinning Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a lot to like about this book, including an engaging narrator, who was my favorite character in the story. There were also time-period details and visits by historical figures. But what I thought was most interesting was the debate about whether Mina/ Margery had a real psychic gift or was a fake. The answer is not clear-cut in this book, and I enjoyed the ambiguity..
I did find some of the seances a bit repetitive. There were notable ones, but sometimes there were too many and it got tedious. But overall, I found this book enjoyable and would recommend.