The House of Whispers: A gripping new contemporary psychological thriller with a chilling twist!

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Hester arrives at Morvoren House forty years later to work as a nurse for the ailing and partially paralyzed Miss Pinecraft. She comes with some baggage, so to speak. She is fleeing from a previous job and finds her new living situation strange but not as strange as the customs and bizarre behavior of others who live there. Something isn't quite right here, but what? A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism. I think at this stage, we can say the only book I enjoyed from Purcell is The Silent Companions. The Corset was a miss being very crowded and having plot holes in it. In Purcell’s third creepily atmospheric historical novel, a young woman flees London under a dark cloud only to discover new threats in superstition-haunted early Victorian Cornwall.

Having loved The Silent Companions and The Corset by Laura Purcell I was excited to read Bone China as it was described as a A brilliantly atmospheric and chilling tale and seemed like my kind of book and while I enjoyed the story I found it a little confusing and had trouble connecting the threads within the story. Parts of this felt entirely rushed, like Purcell wanted to bring the plot up to speed, but by doing this, she missed out key developments, which would have been handy for the reader. Forty years later, Hester arrives at Morvoren House to take up a position as nurse to the now partially paralyzed and mute Miss Pinecroft. Hester has fled to Cornwall to try to escape her past, but surrounded by superstitious staff enacting bizarre rituals, she soon discovers her new home may be just as dangerous as her last. This book is told in two alternating story-lines. One where Louise Pinecroft's family has died from consumption. Leaving her and her Physician father alone and grieving. In his grief Dr. Pinecraft believes that he knows a cure - he is going to conduct an experiment using prisoners who have consumption and show how the sea air can cure them. He is housing the prisoners in the caves underneath their new home. While he treats his patients, his daughter is becoming more uneasy as her maid talks of fairies and how they hunt the land. A very interesting thing about this book is that it has three different timelines. The first is with Hester at Morvoren House. The second is of an earlier time in Hester’s life, when she was known as Esther Stevens. Here, we learn why, and what exactly she’s running away from. The third is from the youth of Louise Pinecroft, when she came to Morvoren House with her father, after the rest of her family had passed away due to consumption.A Victorian tale replete with laudanum, tuberculosis and possibly fairies… a clever, creepy read.”— Sunday Express, Best New Thrillers I loved how atmospheric the settings were, from house to the cliffs. The historical and folklore aspects of the story also added to the intrigue. The book was slow at times, but the different timelines helped propelled the story. I enjoyed reading the two separate parts of Louise's life and trying to work out what had really happened in the past. Then came the totally surprising ending and I realised we will never really know. I usually hate endings that leave things unexplained - for some reason I do not mind when this author does it! What will she write next I wonder. Purcell paints a colorful portrait of her tale’s distant time and place and immerses the reader in an era when superstition was a tenacious thread in the social fabric that bound its people. Her tale of secret guilt and atoning for it through ancient customs will please fans of classic gothic melodrama.”— Publisher’s Weekly

I will agree that this book is atmospheric and Gothic but for me it missed the mark on bringing on the full "creepy" factor and the ending left me with more questions than answers. The two story-lines do come together but with a fizzle and not with the bang I was hoping for. For me this book felt a little disjointed and I would have liked the past and present story-lines to line up a little better than they did. Creeda, who is an unnerving young woman at the time is just as obsessed with fairy legends and folk tales in the past, as she is in the present and tells Louise all sorts of stories about fairies and changelings. Consumption has ravaged Louise Pinecroft's family, leaving her and her father alone and heartbroken. But Dr. Pinecroft has plans for a revolutionary experiment: convinced that sea air will prove to be the cure his wife and children needed, he arranges to house a group of prisoners suffering from the disease in the caves beneath his new Cornish home. While he devotes himself to his controversial medical trials, Louise finds herself increasingly discomfited by the strange tales her new maid tells of the fairies that hunt the land, searching for those they can steal away to their realm. The last quarter of the book was very slow and lead up to a not so climax ending. A more, what? If that was what author Purcell was going for she achieved it with me.Purcell has done a wonderful job with this novel. A wonderful job in obscuring the actual truth as to what is happening. Are, as it increasingly seems with the novel’s progression, the evil fairies real? Or is everything imagined by Hester’s clouded laudanum laced mind. Ambiguity reins supreme in this novel. This one contained 3 different story lines very separate from each other, and they were very disjointed. And for the life of me, I couldn't understand why she chose to have an end leaving it untied . If you're having different plots going on, they need to come together at some stage, but it didn't. The characters are well drawn out and detailed. The story is full of deep and vivid imagery. It is quite reminiscent of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, with the same gothic undertones. Purcell excels at creating a spooky Gothic ambience…A dark and unsettling novel for lovers of Rebeccaand Jane Eyre.”— Kirkus Consumption has ravaged Louise Pinecroft’s family, leaving her and her father alone and heartbroken. But Dr. Pinecroft has plans for a revolutionary experiment: convinced that sea air will prove to be the cure his wife and children needed, he arranges to house a group of prisoners suffering from the disease in the caves beneath his new Cornish home. While he devotes himself to his controversial medical trials, Louise finds herself increasingly discomfited by the strange tales her new maid tells of the fairies that hunt the land, searching for those they can steal away to their realm.

Purcell introduces superstition and the folklore of fairie with the inevitable changeling myths. Cornish folklore is central to the story. Add a few doses of laudanum and gin, some odd goings on with china (possibly something to do with the title no doubt) with the bone part being a bit literal, lots of things going bump in the night and some gloomy corridors. There’s plenty of melodrama and odd goings on and atmosphere: This is a Victorian gothic tale that is complex and dark. It explores fairy legends and folk tales of Cornwall in a lot of detail and we also learn some historical facts about how consumption (Tuberculosis) was treated in those times. The book opens with Hester Why on her way to Morvoren House, In Cornwall, where she has acquired the position of a nurse, for Miss Louise Pinecroft. A gothic tale set in a rambling house by the sea in which a maid cares for a mute old woman with a mysterious past, alongside her superstitious staff--from the author of The Silent Companions . Set on the cliffs of Cornwall, the scene is set for Hester Why to join the staff in Morveron house, and within a very short timeframe things become increasingly odd. The book focuses on Hester’s story, and the medical experiments that took place in the cliffs under the house forty years previously.

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Hester Why arrived in Cornwall with a hope for a fresh beginning as the new live-in nurse. Running from her troubled past, little did she know Morvoren House held its own secret, festering into the household in the last 40 years. As she tried to help them with the truth, she must toe it delicately or risked shattering everything she believed in. I had high hopes for this book as I have enjoyed her other books The Silent Companions and The Corset. Perhaps I was holding this book up to a very high standard, but I feel it wasn't quite as good as the other books I have read by her. I'll still be on the lookout for future books by this Author.

The second part of the novel will reveal what Hester is running from and that Hester is not even her real name. This part of the novel gives the reader some insight into Hester’s character and reveals that she is an alcoholic. This affliction plays a wonderful role in the narrative placing doubt in the reader’s mind about everything Hester encounters later in the novel. I must say that I loved the character of Hester. A broken young woman, addicted to gin, stealing the laudanum from the supplies. Hester is flawed and far from your perfect cardboard heroine. Purcell has a sure storytelling touch, a command of atmosphere and a keen eye for the telling details of social history. Oh, and she stores up some satisfying and suitably macabre final revelations.”— The Guardian I didn’t love this one as her previous two books. Neither have come close to The Silent Companions - I loved that one.Suspenseful… This smart and sophisticated historical thriller will appeal to fans of Sarah Waters’s Fingersmithand Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace.” —Publishers Weekly Hester soon realizes that the task at hand is not as simple as she thought. Miss Pinecroft, hardly moves or speaks and spends her time sitting in a room surrounded by china cups and plates. Miss Pinecroft’s ward is Rosewyn, a strange young woman. There is also a highly superstitious maid called Creeda who believes in fairy folklore, and keeps insisting that Rosewyn needs to be protected from fairies who are trying to whisk her away and leave a changeling in her place. A dark, gothic story… Purcell alternates character narratives to question motives, reality, and truth on a ‘bumpy’ ride full of violence and death.” —Booklist I enjoyed the past story line more than the present. I found the characters in the past story line were more interesting and more fleshed out. I felt that there was something missing with Hester's character. I wanted to know a little bit more about her and her past before she was employed by her previous employer. We do get some info but I really felt as if her character was a little flat. I have had Bone China on my list for some time, and considering how much I loved "The Silent Companions" I was hoping for something just as good. Unfortunately, this just wasn't the case.