#BookReview THE LEVIATHAN by ROSIE ANDREWS

ABOUT THE BOOK

The most beguiling debut of 2022, perfect for fans of The Essex Serpent, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock and The Binding.
She is awake…

Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft.

Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before.

Something has awoken, and now it will not rest.

Richly researched, incredibly atmospheric, and deliciously unsettling, The Leviathan is set in England during a time of political turbulence and religious zealotry. It is a tale of family and loyalty, superstition and sacrifice, but most of all it is a spellbinding story of impossible things.

PUBLISHED BY RAVEN BOOKS

PURCHASE LINK

Amazon

Blackwell’s – signed edition

MY REVIEW

I found this to be an enthralling piece of historical fiction, with some brilliant supernatural/witchcraft elements that didn’t feel too out of place considering the time period that the story was set in. It centres around a family whose life is torn apart by some strange incidents, leaving the cynical brother Thomas to start his own investigations as to what may have took place in his home while he was away fighting in the English Civil War.

The timeline does jump around a bit which does take a bit of getting used to, but definitely adds to the twists and turns throughout the story and keeps you on your toes as a reader trying to work out where the story will take you to next. With witchcraft the hot topic of the time, the focus of the intrigue always leads you down that path, but Thomas isn’t one to look so kindly on hearsay and he wants to see for himself and isn’t easily swayed by local gossip.

It’s a turbulent time in the country, and that turbulence plays out in his own family with his sister calling him home after their father is felled by a stroke and Thomas needs to be there to take over the farm. His sister tells him of the ‘evil’ servant who she blames for this and says her father was bewitched. There’s an awful lot of dead animals around too at the farm and the weirdness just overwhelms them.

There’s also a later timeline to follow when Thomas is married to Mary and he has a different kind of life now, but the past never seems to be so far away and I loved that different viewpoint and stage in his life. The intrigue throughout was really well pitched and you could sense the fear of the locals of the unknown.

I loved this story from start to finish – the darkness, the gasps it made me emit throughout and it really does a great job of keeping that historical feel, alongside the myths and faith that were at the fore of society. A stunning debut!!

★★★★★

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#BookReview Bone China by Laura Purcell @BloomsburyRaven #BoneChina

ABOUT THE BOOK

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 same disease in the cliffs 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.

Forty years later, Hester Why arrives at Morvoren House to take up a position as nurse to the now partially paralysed and almost entirely mute Miss Pinecroft. Hester has fled to Cornwall to try and escape her past, but surrounded by superstitious staff enacting bizarre rituals, she soon discovers that her new home may be just as dangerous as her last. 

PUBLISHED by RAVEN BOOKS

Publication Date  – 19th September 2019

PRE-ORDER LINKS

Amazon UK  £10.53

hive.co.uk  £9.39

whsmith  £8.99

Goldsboro Books – signed first edition £12.99

MY REVIEW

Gloriously gothic and deliciously dark – it’s fair to say that I loved reading this and I will never look at a piece of willow patterned china the same way ever again!!

Bone China is a story set over 2 timelines and it’s a fascinating mix of history, folklore, obsession, madness and superstition.  There are many threads throughout that I found so absorbing and I loved how the story went backwards and forwards to give you different glimpses of the characters and to watch it all come together at the end was extremely satisfying!

We start with Hester Why as she travels to Cornwall to take up a position looking after Louise Pinecroft who is confined to her home and rarely speaks.  Hester is obviously trying to escape her past for whatever reason, but she soon finds that her present may be just as dangerous as what she left behind.

If she’s looking for isolation then the home of Louise Pinecroft might be just the place for her!  There’s chatter amongst the staff at Morvoren House and she has warning of who to avoid and also the folklore that outsiders may dismiss as nonsense but those living there are more wary.  With the almost mute Louise spending the majority of her time staring at the bone china colllection in her room, Hester finds the past playing more and more on her mind and her reliance of self medicating becomes the only way to get through each day.

The story then looks back on Louise in the past, living at the house with her father who was a Doctor, and he sets out on a revolutionary way of treating patients with consumption.  It’s a fascinating look at life of a different time, and using prisoners at his ‘guineapigs’ was the only way he could get permission to try his methods out.   Having lost his family to the disease he was driven to the point of obsession to try and eradicate it.

And with Hester we get to see her life before her move, and her devotion to her mistress Lady Rose, new wife of Sir Arthur Windrop, whose mother ruled the roost and Lady Rose found herself becoming more reliant on Hester as nothing she ever did was good enough for his mother.  Hester was smitten and found herself giving more advice to Lady Rose that others didn’t appreciate so much and wanted to find a way to ease her out of the picture – and Hester took to alcohol there too to numb the pain and sadness she felt when things didn’t go her way.

As Hester settles into life looking after Louise, a number of other stories open up not least the strange things that are happening around the room of Louise and the influence that certain staff have on the daily goings on at the house.  It all felt very unsettling and it was brilliantly played out with every new twist and turn.

It seemed to me that the author had so much fun with these characters and settings!  Her imagination ran wild with the folklore elements and it was equally exciting and terrifying as to where the story was going to go!  

This is a  book that chilled and thrilled me and I loved every single minute!  Fabulous!!

★★★★★

#BookReview The Flower Girls by Alice Clark-Platts #TheFlowerGirls

About the book

YOU’LL NEVER FORGET THE FLOWER GIRLS

The Flower Girls. Laurel and Primrose. 

One convicted of murder, the other given a new identity.

Now, nineteen years later, another child has gone missing.

And The Flower Girls are about to hit the headlines all over again…

Published by Raven Books

Publication Date – 24th JANUARY 2019

Purchase Links

hive.co.uk  £10.29

Goldsboro Books – signed first printing £12.99

waterstones – signed £12.99

MY REVIEW

I read this via The Pigeonhole app.

This is how to do a chilling thriller well! The story of The Flower Girls – Laurel and Primrose – is a brutal and gripping tale of 2 young girls and how a shocking incident when they were 10 and 6 has shaped their lives, and the lives of those around them.

A 2 year old girl is found murdered, and The Flower Girls hit the headlines when Laurel, aged 10, is convicted of her murder, and her younger sister Rose is too young to face prosecution but has no recollection of just what happened that day. This book looks back at the story through their eyes, then and now, along with the perspectives of detectives, the family of the murdered young girl, and a writer who is caught up in the latest scandal to hit the headlines. Having these different viewpoints really helped me get a stronger feeling towards this story and the author did a wonderful job of putting doubts in your mind over a number of characters, and to what really happened back then and at the current time when another young girl goes missing from a hotel.

This story has obvious links to the horrific case of poor young Jamie Bulger, and I did find it quite unsettling at times with the similarities, but with this book it turned into a wider look at circumstances, the impact on the family who lost their child so brutally and to question the validity of what was believed to have happened then and now.

There were twists and turns galore throughout this book – I often thought I had events sussed out but then another doubt was raised and my mind was changed once more and that made for a more riveting read.

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The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell #BookReview

THE BLURB

Inspired by the work of Shirley Jackson and Susan Hill and set in a crumbling country mansion, The Silent Companions is an unsettling gothic ghost story to send a shiver down the spine…

Newly married, newly widowed Elsie is sent to see out her pregnancy at her late husband’s crumbling country estate, The Bridge.

With her new servants resentful and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie only has her husband’s awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks. But inside her new home lies a locked room, and beyond that door lies a two-hundred-year-old diary and a deeply unsettling painted wooden figure – a Silent Companion – that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself..

Published by  Raven Books

BUYING LINKS

Amazon UK

Hive.co.uk – buy online and support a local bookstore

Book Depository

About the Author

A former Waterstones bookseller, Laura is now a full time author of chilling Gothic fiction. Her ghost story THE SILENT COMPANIONS was published by Bloomsbury Raven in October 2017 and will be followed by THE CORSET in 2018.

Laura has also blogged extensively about the Hanoverian monarchy. Her biopic novels QUEEN OF BEDLAM and MISTRESS OF THE COURT are the first in a series covering the lives and loves of the Georgian era queens.

Twitter – @spookypurcell

Website – http://laurapurcell.com/

MY REVIEW

If you are looking for a stunning, chilling read then look no further! I was drawn to this by the exquisite cover – it’s beautiful – and the story inside was just as beautiful in the most creepy, unsettling manner! It’s one of those books that makes you sleep with one eye open and noticing anything out of place.. did I really leave that cupboard open? I don’t remember putting that there……. seriously spooky!!

This book is set in the 1600’s and 1800’s and centres around a mansion named The Bridge, and features two women – Elsie who is in an asylum unable to speak as she recovers from a traumatic event, and Anne whose diary we read from back in the 1600’s when the Silent Companions are introduced to the household. The Dr at the asylum is completely fascinated by Elsie and her silence and gets her to write down what she can’t say and this is when we get to ‘hear’ her story of what happened after she ended up living at The Bridge after the death of her husband. The distressing events that then follow her time living there are expertly crafted and written in such a way that you are experiencing the isolation, the fear, the terror and every alarming event with the character. 

Elsie only has her husband’s awkward cousin for company when she moves to The Bridge. Or so she thinks. For inside her new home lies a locked room, and beyond that door lies a two-hundred-year-old diary and a deeply unsettling painted wooden figure – a Silent Companion – that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself… Even the locals are wary of the house so refuse to work there and Elsie wants to try and understand why there is such fear of her new home. The events she witnesses leave her wondering if she is losing her mind but help explain the terror of those living nearby.

As the pasts of both characters reveal disturbing events you are often unsure how the story will play out, and there were a number of shocking twists that took my breath away! I’m not normally a big fan of spooky stories (yes I’m a wimp!) , but this was so well written and beautifully set out that I was gripped and I loved the dark vibes and the many creepy moments!

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