Published by Penguin Group Format: ARC, eBook
Laura Purcell has a knack for writing Victorian Gothic Tales but this one didn’t quite hit the spot for me.
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
**This book is also Titled Bone China
Thank you to Penguin Publishing Group and Edelweiss who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.