January 8, 2018
Purcell’s debut is an atmospheric, eerie Victorian gothic novel centered around a decaying English country estate. Elsie has married into the Bainbridge family, which “had a nasty habit of losing their heirs.” Her own family history is similarly grim, her father having died gruesomely in an accident at the family’s matchstick factory. The two households, both alike in tragedy, unite, and the result is predictably disastrous. Elsie’s new husband dies suddenly, leaving her the sole mistress of his ancestral estate, the Bridge, with its distrustful servants and collection of lifelike wooden props, “not a statue or a painting but somewhere in between.” These figures multiply, assuming the likenesses of people from the house’s and Elsie’s history alike. Are they manifestations of Elsie’s subconscious fears, or malevolent forces of evil? Purcell skillfully maintains the ambiguity as she splinters the story into three timelines: Elsie’s stay at the estate over the winter of 1865; Elsie in a psychiatric hospital shortly thereafter, rendered mute and amnesiac after being accused of murder and arson; and a 17th-century account (found in an old diary) that sheds light on the origin of the evil lurking within the estate. Purcell’s novel is more formulaic than, say, Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger, but its combustible tale of a 19th-century woman tormented by an English country house’s creepy curios does produce sparks.
January 1, 2018
Newly married and newly widowed, Elsie has traveled to her deceased husband's country estate, along with his cousin Sarah, for the duration of her pregnancy. Long neglected, the estate is avoided by villagers, who look suspiciously on it as the site of many strange deaths, the most recent being that of Elsie's husband. Her first night there, Elsie is disturbed by strange sounds from the garret. Upon exploring it, she and Sarah find a wooden cutout painting of a small girl that is unnervingly lifelike, called a silent companion. Afterwards, strange things begin to happen. And the companionit moves. Found in different places throughout the house, it seems to watch Elsie, waiting. Soon Elsie cannot tell if she is going mad, or being hunted. In Purcell's gothic tale, the unknown past is as relevant as the current unknown person or thing that's haunting the estate. A constant question persists: is everything as Elsie thinks, or is her mind the thing being haunted? This perfect fireside read combines all the best characteristics of the gothic genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)