“Slowly, she let the slate and chalk drop from her hands.

She could feel the past stealing up on her, the way a river inches up its banks in the rain; gradually lapping at her chin, filling her mouth.

There is no hiding from it, I am afraid.”

Elsie Bainbridge felt like all of her dreams had come true when she married her husband Rupert Bainbridge, yet just shortly after their marriage, Rupert suddenly dies and Elsie becomes a widow. Rupert’s country estate, The Bridge in Fayford, is now left to Elsie and so she goes to reside there during her pregnancy. Accompanying her is Rupert’s cousin, Sarah, a rather shy and lonely woman who may need a sanctuary as Elsie does. But The Bridge is no sanctuary. With hostile village folk, reluctant servants and a crumbling derelict manor, Elsie certainly has her work out to make a home here. Though those are the least of her problems for inside the house, in a hidden locked room, lies a diary full of dark secrets and a wooden figure ominously called the silent companion that bears an eerie resemblance to Elsie herself, and it’s just patiently waiting to be found. 

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell is a historical horror which promises to give readers goosebumps.

Going into this novel I didn’t really know much about it other than it was a ghost/haunted house kind of read. So having multiple time periods took me by surprise and at first I thought it would be jarring to go back-and-forth so often but it really wasn’t because in Purcell‘s hands she makes each narrative flow so easily and every chapter is as gripping as the last. We alternate between Elsie’s time when she was committed to St Joseph’s hospital after being accused of arson and murder, then switching to the events in 1865 when she lived at The Bridge Manor and all the strange happenings that occurred there which led her to this point. Elsie was an absolutely fantastic and well crafted protagonist, in fact she’s exactly what I would expect from Purcell because this is an author who really gets into the psychological mindset of her characters. Elsie is unreliable in many ways because she’s a woman who’s had a tragic and traumatic past and then with the sudden death of her husband, a sudden move from London to Fayford, her pregnancy and her having to restore her inherited estate puts quite a lot of pressure on her physically and emotionally. Though she had Sarah and the household staff for company nothing could take away the overwhelming grief she was enveloped in. She was a character that I sympathised with throughout but she’s also one that spirals into darkness.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. How quickly fortune turned. The woman who walked into church after this coffin – who was she now? Livingstone, Bainbridge? Maybe neither. Maybe she was not a person Elsie wanted to know.”

Another timeline that we explore is  1635 through the diary of Anne Bainbridge. Through Anne we learn of Rupert Bainbridge’s ancestors and the history of The Bridge estate particularly concerning the time when King Charles and the Queen came to visit, which consequently led to some pivotal moments. I was unsure about the inclusion of diary entries, but I have to say that I got sucked into Anne’s story. I empathised with her feelings towards her husband and children, most notably the treatment of her daughter Henrietta Maria, who had a tongue deformity and was mute. Given that the time period was the 1600s and during this era deformities were seen as the work of the devil her daughter was often shunned and Anne was whispered to have used witchcraft, which led to Henrietta to become a very lonely child. Yet Anne describes her Hetty as radiant, with the most beautiful smile, and the ability to grow any herb or plant that she desired. Here is where we see the inkling of how both mother and daughter perhaps possessed a power. Once we see the wooden silent companion figures enter the house, bought to impress their Royal guests, those rumours truly take hold as unnatural events unfold.

This is only my second novel by this author, but Laura Purcell has become a quick favourite because she really embodies many elements of what I love to see in a horror novel. I have always been drawn to atmospheric, spooky and unsettling stories rather than anything that’s too violently graphic or outright horror. The Silent Companions cleverly gives us a Gothic setting which from the moment Elsie steps foot inside fills us with unease. There were the classic unexplained noises in the night, scratches and hisses, an unseen threat lingered, a general feeling that something lurked within the depths of this derelict English manor. The Bridge estate felt like a character all on its own, filled with a troubled past and deeply hidden secrets waiting to be uncovered. When the wooden silent companions are once again found and we see their connection to both timelines, their menace mirroring across decades, the horror truly heightens. I was fully immersed throughout the whole novel to the point that I almost felt like I was there at The Bridge, sharing these characters’ fears and watching the events play out. I always knew I was in for a twisty, eerie story and in true Purcell style she left me thinking was something supernatural at play or was this simply a psychological breakdown? 

The Silent Companions is a must read for all who love unsettling tales of haunted houses, ghosts, hidden secrets and unreliable characters. Purcell is becoming the queen of gothic writing for me and this book was darkly divine. 

“The wooden girl stood looking out of the card-room window. Shadows like twigs obscured her face. Antlers – they were antlers. She was placed directly underneath the stag’s head. But that was not what caught Elsie’s eye: it was the window to the left.

The rectangle with a muddy hand printed on the glass.”

The Silent Companions is available now, you can order your copy on Bookshop.org