LoveReading Says
Set in three time scales this is truly terrific stuff, a lovely, chilling, Gothic tale. In 1635 the “Silent Companions” are purchased. In 1865 they, and a journal, are discovered in a locked room. Some years later a damaged mute woman is encouraged by her doctor while she resides in a lunatic asylum branded a murderer, to write her story. We get all of this in short, punchy chapters which build tension, a spooky atmosphere and fear. The lady of the manor in 1865 is a young, pregnant widow, Elsie, whose husband owned the house. He was preparing it for his new child to arrive when he mysteriously dies. It is her companion, her husband’s cousin Sarah, who finds the “Silent Companions”, strange wooden cut-out figures of a girl, a gypsy boy and an old woman. She is reading the journal of Anne from 1635 whose mute daughter, Hetta, resembles one of the wooden figures. Sarah believes Hetta’s spirit is within the strange piece of art just looking for someone to love her. Elsie believes otherwise. Another “Silent Companion” appears and “someone” stops Sarah reading the second volume of Anne’s journal. Why …. No more spoilers, just read this haunting, compulsive and genuinely spine chilling novel, full of the unexpected. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
Sarah Broadhurst
Find This Book In
The Silent Companions Synopsis
Newly married, newly widowed Elsie is sent to see out her pregnancy at her late husband's crumbling country estate, The Bridge. With her new servants resentful and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie only has her husband's awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks. But inside her new home lies a locked room, and beyond that door lies a two-hundred-year-old diary and a deeply unsettling painted wooden figure - a Silent Companion - that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself...
About This Edition
ISBN: |
9781408888032 |
Publication date: |
5th April 2018 |
Author: |
Laura Purcell |
Publisher: |
Raven Books an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
Format: |
Paperback |
Pagination: |
364 pages |
Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
|
Other Genres: |
|
Recommendations: |
|
Laura Purcell Press Reviews
Writing in the tradition of country house ghost stories, Laura Purcell has created a book that is unnerving and compelling in equal measure. The Silent Companions is an atmospheric gothic tale which chills the blood Sophia Tobin, author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Silversmith's Wife and The Widow's Confession
Not since The Little Stranger has a book so entranced and haunted me. Compelling, bewitching and beautifully written. Read it if you dare Anna Mazzola, author of The Unseeing
If The Silent Companions lands on your night table, don't plan on leaving your bed anytime soon. Immersive, meticulous, and reminiscent of the masters of gothic fiction - not only a compulsively readable ghost story, but a skillful, loving ode to the entire genre Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of Gotham
Frighteningly atmospheric, genuinely haunting and psychologically astute, the horror of The Silent Companions lingers like truth in the darkest corners of the human mind Helen Sedgwick, author of The Comet Seekers
Compelling and claustrophobic. The pages all but turn by themselves Essie Fox, author of The Last Days of Leda Grey
Magnificently creepy ... I really wished it were longer Natasha Pulley, author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
About Laura Purcell
Laura Purcell is a former bookseller, she lives in Colchester with her husband and pet guinea pigs. Her second novel for Bloomsbury, gothic chiller The Corset, will be published in 2018. laurapurcell.com @spookypurcell
More About Laura Purcell