In this gothic ghost story, newly widowed Elsie goes to live in her late husband’s country estate with his cousin, Sarah. In their exploration of the house, Elsie and Sarah come across an incredibly lifelike, painted, wooden figure – a silent companion. Taken with the figure, the women move it into the main rooms of the house, but when it starts to move from room to room, seemingly by itself, and new figures start to appear they begin to question their safety and their sanity.

The Silent Companions is genuinely unsettling and very well written. As a full-length novel, the plot is well thought-out and fully developed. There are no unnecessary or over-the-top embellishments, while the ghostly occurrences are creepy to say the least.

Elsie’s story is very interesting: We find her committed to an asylum and accused of murder, and follow her story of what happened in the house as she recounts it to the doctor. She has a strong back-story with an abused childhood which makes the questioning of her sanity and strength throughout the story much more believable. I also enjoyed the loyalty and friendship between the women – lovely to see women in fiction backing each other up instead of tearing each other down!

This story contains all the elements of a classic gothic horror, and the slow build of tension is very effective. I did, at times, get a little confused about who I was reading about with the dual narrative, but besides that Laura Purcell has pulled off an almost-flawless piece of spooky-horror.

<i>'Perhaps that is why you do not like wood. Because it reminds you of the fire.'</i>

This is a deliciously Gothic story which weaves together those perennial tropes of a decayed old mansion, a pregnant woman, sinister children and the 'is she mad or is there something evil here' trope. It reminds me, in places, of James' [book:The Turn of the Screw|2437237] with touches also of Sarah Waters' [book:The Little Stranger|6550482]. And thinking of it in comparison with those books highlights why it was only a 3-star book for me, as much as I enjoyed reading it: Purcell goes that little bit too far in explaining things that are perhaps better left to the reader's imagination.

There's a clever weaving together of the imagery of wood and fire: <spoiler> the match factory, the blood on the sawdust after the factory accident, the witch burnt at the stake</spoiler> that serve as precedents to the crisis in the foreground , but I got bored during some of the C17th interludes and the well-worn cliché of the found diary.

All the same, an entertaining and creepy read: those 'companions', eh?!
3.5 stars.

I'm not normally a fan of ghost stories but this novel hooked me in and didn't let go until I'd finished! It was dark enough that it scared the bejeezus out of me but not enough to make me stop reading!

I really enjoyed reading The Silent Companions. It is a dark, Gothic ghost story that you definitely don’t want to read at night, especially if you are on your own. Or you could be brave and read by candlelight just to add to the atmosphere. And if you haven’t got anywhere to go on Halloween this book is perfect to keep you company.

At the beginning of the novel we are introduced to Elsie Bainbridge. Elsie is in a mental asylum and it is clear that she has recently suffered from a very traumatic experience. As she begins to recall the events which lead up to her incarceration in the asylum we begin to see a different character. As the novel turns back the clock we learn that Elsie is in mourning for her late husband Rupert and she is carrying his child. She has arrived at the family seat in Fayford known as The Bridge. It is a crumbling mansion which needs a little more work than a simple touch of TLC. As Elsie sets about exploring her new home with her late husband’s cousin, Sarah she comes across a stunning set of carvings which are known as Companions. They appear so lifelike that you could almost mistake them for real people. But it is when the Companions start to move that the novel takes a darker turn, is Elsie only imagining things or is there something much darker at work?

The Silent Companions was an absolutely terrifying and chilling read. I really liked the setting of The Bridge, I have spent a lot of time visiting old, gothic mansions that are open to the public in the past and Laura Purcell captures the architecture and the somewhat gloominess of these buildings really well. I particularly liked her descriptions as Elsie set her eyes upon the house for the first time which set the tone of the story and as the reader you know instantly that you are in for a treat.

What I also liked about the book was the different timelines. When Elsie and Sarah make the discovery of the Companions, Sarah also discovers a set of journals belonging to her ancestor Annie Bainbridge who lived in the 1600s. At the time the diary extracts were written, Annie and her family are playing host to King Charles the first and his wife the Queen who Annie is the most excited about. The diaries have a particular relevance to what is happening in the present day.

An outstanding debut, Laura Purcell has crafted a haunting tale that will stay with you long after you have finished reading. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy to read.

To be perfectly candid, I was first intrigued by The Silent Companions because of its beautiful cover that made me think of Natasha Pulley's novels. (And I was right about that, actually, they are all made by the same amazing artist - David Mann!) Then I read an interview with Natasha where she recommended this title so, as a fan of her work, I knew I had to check it out. She called this book "magnificently creepy" and oh boy, was she right.

We meet our protagonist Elsie at St Joseph's Hospital for the Insane but here's the thing - although she's been there for probably over a year, it's very clear from the beginning that she's not mentally ill. It's made obvious to the reader that she can think logically and that her current state - she doesn't talk - is due to some traumatic experience only. She is accused of murder, though we're not really sure yet whose murder exactly, and there's a new doctor who is set on helping her avoid the very probable death penalty. He encourages her to write her story down and this is where the real fun begins.

This book offers us three timelines. One is the present, at the hospital, the other is Elsie's account of what happened to her in 1865 and the last is a diary of the first mistress of Elsie's new estate - Anne, from 1635. So we start knowing that something is off about this house, that something is very wrong and the further we go, the more creepy it gets. In the locked garret of her new house Elsie discovers both Anne's diary and a mysterious wooden doll. It's an incredibly life-like portrait on a flat piece of wood, constructed by the Dutch and called a "silent companion". The creepy part so far? The doll looks exactly as young Elsie...

In the giant house with very few servants - people from the village are scared of it, think it's cursed and don't want to work there - and only her late husband's cousin for company, it seems natural to put the doll on display, so at least they will have something amusing to talk about. After all, the thing is truly a work of art. But that's only an innocent beginning to a series of mysterious occurrences, most of them deadly. First, the silent companions start to multiply. And move.

Anne's diary gives us the very needed backstory, tells us how the companions came to be in the house. She bought them for the royal visit of Charles I and his wife, hoping to amuse the queen with the curiosities. The diary also introduces her daughter Hetta, born thanks to Anne's use of potions and mute, without a properly formed tongue. Hetta's only friend was a gypsy boy, who Anne let work at the stables.

I'm realising now how hard it actually is to convey the true creepiness of a book without giving away the plot...

From the first chapter, Elsie looks like a very strong character. She worked at her father's matches factory from a young age and it was the factory that she lost her father to. The mother died soon after and Elsie was left to basically raise her younger brother. The thought of protecting him is the most important one to her but she wants to help others as well - even the villagers who don't want to work at her estate. She offers girls work at the factory, promotes her maid, allows her cousin to do in the house as she pleases even though it rightfully belongs to Elsie. Most importantly though, she holds on to her sense even at the asylum. Honestly, she probably became one of my favourite heroines.

I think this was actually the first ghost story & also the first ghotic novel I've ever read. Unless Northanger Abbey counts which it shouldn't because it's really more of a satire on the genre. Anyway, my point is: I don't know the rules. I don't know if we're supposed to be left with as many unanswered questions, as we are with cleared mysteries. But that's the thing with The Silent Companions for me. Because apart from the wonderful creepiness of the wooden companions, we are also offered other ghosts - the nursery, writing only some can see, dead animals, Hetta herself. And none of those things are really explained. Which wouldn't be a problem in a single case but at times it almost feels like there's jus too much mystery in the book, like the author was afraid it won't hold reader's attention otherwise.

Still, if the purpose of a ghost story is to scare you and make you hyper-aware of every sound in the house - The Silent Companions deserves all the stars! I was reading it late at night and frankly, couldn't sleep later on. In the end this is a very well written book with great characters and maybe all the unanswered questions only add value to it. Because we really don't know what to look out for ourselves. And there's wood everywhere.

Thanks Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) and netgalley for this ARC.

This story will seem outrageous, cruel, and weird at first, but that doesn't matter so much when you get into the nitty gritty of this wonderful tale. Be prepared for shock, horror, and delight!

After the untimely (and mysterious )death of her husband,Elsie is sent to her husband's ramshackle country manor.The manor is surrounded by a bleak scenery,an hostile village and a decrepit church. That should be enough to make one feel a bit tense but as this is a ghost story, of course,there is more:a 17th century diary,strange wooden figures and many,many secrets. This is in every sense a classic ghost story(haunted house,forbidden rooms,noises in the night...)but what makes this special is the fact that the ghostly part is very good,but there is an excellent mystery story underneath.

Ill be honest, I only picked this book up after seeing the stunning cover. I had no idea what it was about, who wrote it, or what to expect. So I went into this one blind. And it blew me away.

It's so sincerely dark and creepy. Genuinely, it had me lowering the kindle at night in bed and checking the corner of the room every few minutes, more often than i do with a Stephen King book. From first page to last, the book maintains a really dark, Gothic, sinister feel. It brilliantly weaves together 3 interlinked stories, 200 years apart, in both the first and third person. I was kept guessing at every page, never quite sure what was actually going on, but never really caring. I was just pulled along at a breakneck pace, page after gripping page, until i finally put it down, seriously creeped out and just a little jumpy.

Its a fantastic book, beautifully written by an author I know ill be keeping an eye out for in the future.

When a young widow travels to her dead husband’s family home, after only a few months of marriage, she believes that her greatest challenge will be in mastering her grief. But The Bridge is an unsettling place: a rambling old house, unloved and worn, with a meagre staff of taciturn servants and a history of unpleasant accidents. This is a Gothic tale of a slow, creeping kind, best savoured on a dark winter’s night beside the fire, in which supernatural events sit side by side with very real social tension.


Elsie is always conscious of her background. Before marrying her husband, Rupert, she worked with her brother Jolyon in the family’s match factory, and she imagines that the servants at The Bridge must be expecting better. However, when she arrives at the house, she finds only a handful of half-trained maids and a housekeeper who clearly knows more about The Bridge’s history than she cares to share. Elsie must settle into her role as mistress of a grand (if ramshackle) establishment, and get used to the presence of her husband’s cousin Sarah, a well-meaning but lacklustre companion. But there is something about the house that unsettles her. Strange sawing noises come from the garret late at night, and drifts of sawdust appear on the floor; but the garret door is stuck. When Elsie and Sarah finally manage to force it open, they make a startling discovery: once which will shed new light on the family’s history, and bring a long-forgotten evil back into their lives.

Purcell keeps the pace of the novel just right, allowing the foreboding to bubble up between the lines and playing on the fundamental creepiness of the ‘silent companions’ of the title. If you’ve visited an English stately home, there’s a good chance you’ll have seen one of these wooden cutouts – I remember there being one or two at Dyrham Park, where I used to go as a little girl. Funnily enough I wasn’t really disturbed by them before, but things might be a little different now. Elsie’s story sits alongside two other plots: the tale of a burned, mute woman being treated in an asylum; and the diary of a woman from the mid-17th century. I won’t say any more to avoid giving spoilers, but all three tales weave together very neatly, full of familiar horror motifs: the silent, calculating child; the unsettling nursery; and the vast, dark, ancient house. And Purcell is particularly good at gradually revealing her characters too us, inching out the information so that events take on different perspectives at different times. What do we actually know and who should we believe?

I should add that I don’t read horror, because I’m a wimp and am easily scared, and so hard-core horror readers might find this a bit quaint and ineffective for their tastes. But for the rest of us it’s a subtle, uneasy story set in that perfect moment at the end of the 19th century when tradition is morphing into innovation, when the railway and the factory sit side by side with the landed gentry, when folk belief lingers alongside scientific rationalism… It’s a good, solid read with a clever conclusion, and perfect for those who like a bit of ghostliness to spice up their TBR pile.

This review will go live on my blog on 1 October 2017.

I am a massive fan of gothic themed novels and this one set in a grand but dilapidated and grief filled house in a ramshackled village within the countryside so it already ticks all my boxes. We follow the newly pregnant and windowed Elsie as she goes to her late husbands family home with his cousin, Sarah. She has a chequered past based within the industrial city of London so she isn't used to the countryside, the poor villagers and the eerie house that has many disturbing secrets involving odd deaths and accidents, a witch and a unusual child...

The writing was easy to follow, I adored the very eerie and atmospheric setting and feel of the book (it reminded me of the film Crimson Peak) and I did enjoy the story! I also liked the asylum setting, the creepiness, the unusual addition of the 'companions' and the historical elements. However, some of it just fell a little flat for me and it took me so much longer to read than I thought it would. I would still definitely recommend it, especially around halloween but it just wasn't as amazing as I expected it to be.

When her husband dies unexpectedly, his young pregnant widow is sent to his decaying country estate to see out her pregnancy. Isolated with no real friends, apart from a companion in the form of her husbands spinster cousin, Elsie finds herself experiencing disturbing visions and is haunted by the history of the house in which she stays. Add to this a creepy wooden figure (created by the Dutch and known as Silent Companions) found in a locked room who appears to have a life of it's own and you have a classic gothic tale full of history, secrets and unexplained happenings.

This novel has all the elements of that classic gothic read, with is dual narrative it can be slightly jarring, at first I was slightly confused as to what was happening but got used to the abrupt changes. With a cover which just says buy me, I would imagine this will be very popular.

A Stephen King-esque premise mashed up with a traditional historical ghost story, I was enthralled by this book despite being so severely creeped-out that I had to abandon reading it in bed and settle for a train journey in daylight instead. And the ending... GASP! I love a good ghost story, and this one did not disappoint. Will be recommending it to all my scare-loving friends.

Following the sudden death of her husband, pregnant Elsie heads off to the depths of the country. The old family estate has been long overlooked being barely kept going by a skeleton staff. Accompanied by her husband's rather odd cousin Elsie sees months stretching ahead of her in the gloomy, lonely house waiting for her child to be born. However, the strange noises in the loft lead to the discovery of of wooden "companions", painted to look like real people, and a diary from the sixteenth century.

This is quite a complex book with different threads running in parallel in different historical time periods - Elsie's story, the sixteenth century and Elsie afterwards in an asylum. I am usually very happy to read books of this nature and find I enjoy the comparisons between the threads. Unfortunately this book made no effort to warn the reader of switches between threads. I could be reading the story of Elsie waiting for her baby and then suddenly find myself thrown back into the sixteenth century on the next line with no textual gap or sub heading. As all the threads had similarities it could be a paragraph before I clicked the change had been made resulting in me having to go back and re-read the text from a different point of view. This did rather spoil the atmosphere and continuity of the book.

I very much enjoyed the book with the exception of the issue mentioned above. The characters were very three dimensional and evolved as the book progressed. The shy and odd cousin began to be more outgoing and the little girl Hetta in the sixteenth century gradually came into her own as the story moved on. The main character Elsie also developed as we learned a little about her past. Was she all she seemed to be?

The plot of the book was well constructed in all of the threads. There were several twists and turns not all of which I anticipated which added to my enjoyment. This book was a little different from the run of the mill and the cross between a ghost story and a historical thriller. I would certainly be happy to read further books by this author.

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

3.5 stars for this deliciously creepy tale.

Laura Purcell has written an entertainingly dark novel, set in Victorian and Caroline (that is, during the reign of Charles I) England, of grief, insane asylums, witchcraft, and the uncanny. Elsie Bainbridge is a pregnant widow who initially struck me as cold, self-absorbed and fairly unlikeable but I warmed to her as the novel progressed. Other main characters include her beloved younger brother Jolyon and her cousin through marriage, Sarah; seventeenth century characters include Anne and Josiah Bainbridge and their daughter Hetta. The story does not exactly hang together flawlessly but it is such a Gothic delight that I found I did not care.

Comparisons to Susan Hill are deserved. And if you liked Dr Who's weeping angels, you will love this novel!

I received this ebook free from NetGalley and Bloomsbury.

The Silent Companions is a tense gothic novel set in the nineteenth-century, centred around a dilapidated old house and the newly widowed woman who goes to live there. Elsie’s short marriage is quickly ended by her husband’s death at the country seat he was trying to make hospitable for her, but when she moves there herself to see through her pregnancy, there is more for her to worry about than the hostile neighbours and inexperienced servants. Between her and her husband’s strange, awkward cousin Sarah, they discover the diaries of a woman who lived in the house in the seventeenth-century—a diary full of death and despair—and a strange wooden figure, a silent companion. This companion is not the only one, however, and they might be silent, but their influence scares Elsie to an ever-increasing extent.

The novel is written with different threads of narrative, with Elsie trying to recall her story in an asylum, her third person narration of the events she lived, and excerpts from the earlier diary. Through this, Purcell weaves mystery and darkness, leaving the reader wanting more with each narrative jump. There are plenty of classic gothic tropes to enjoy, with spirits, mysterious doors, noises at night, and unsettling family secrets on all sides. At times the story is genuinely unsettling, both in terms of fear and in the claustrophobic atmosphere.

The presentation of Elsie—a heroine with a tormented past and a present in which men seem to be threatening her freedom—is clever, combining sympathy with an uncertainty for what she could be potentially forgetting or misremembering. The position of women in Victorian society, particularly in relation to class, is near the forefront of the novel though not explicitly discussed, and the gothic heroine is one contained by men against her will. At the same time, the novel is populated by other women who are trapped in a position or have done bad things without realising the consequences, reflecting her plight.

The Silent Companions fits very well into the gothic genre and provides a suitably eerie and unnerving read. In atmosphere, it has similarities to Waters’ Fingersmith as well as older gothic novels, and its use of an additional seventeenth-century narrative both fulfils the trope of an older, inset narrative and gives a different aspect to the novel, showing how women could be seen as witches or as insane and hysterical depending on the century. Purcell’s novel shows that the historical gothic novel is a genre that will continue to live and continue to question female autonomy whilst providing chilling reads.

This is a great book which makes you wonder all the way through what horrible things will happen next. The sense of unease builds through the book with an ending that makes you realise that evil really is pervasive.

I loved this. The Silent Companion's reads like a classic gothic ghost story complete with a crumbling mansion and hostile villagers. Extremely well told, and definitely one to read with the lights on!