The Silent Companions is a book that quite honestly pulled the rug out from under my feet. How come? Well, it's a book that was alright, but honestly, I didn't think I would be so engrossed in the book that I had to finished reading it before I slept. So, I read until almost midnight because somewhere along the way came a moment when I just couldn't stop reading the book.

Now, it takes a lot to scare or even creep me out and honestly, this book didn't manage that. But, it was interesting and addictive to read. And, I just wanted to learn the truth about the wooden figures, the silent companions and what the old diaries from the 1700-century will tell. And, what really happened to Elsie's husband Rubert? Did he just die, and are the servants really sincere? What really happened in the house that is said to be cursed? I just love haunted houses, cursed houses, placed in a desolate landscape with an atmosphere of doom.

If you like a book with dual storylines, mysteries, and especially love to read about old houses that are said to be cursed than you will love this book. The Silent Companions is a book that took me by surprise and I loved how I slowly was bulled into the story and how I just needed to read one more chapter. Love books like that!

This is a very creepy, gothic tale. Set in Victorian England, the book opens with Elsie Bainbridge, mute and medicated in a hospital recovering from some unspeakable murders of which she is accused. Unable to speak after all that has happened to her she is encouraged by one of the doctors to write down her story.

The scene is set when Elsie, recently married and soon after widowed, is sent to her husband's crumbling estate to bury him and then wait out the birth of her baby. Apart from Sarah, a cousin of her husband, sent to keep her company, only a housekeeper and two maids live in the house. It is cold and decrepit and Elsie hears strange noises at night (getting creepy yet?). The local village and church are also very poor and run down with the villagers too fearful to work on the estate . Added to this setting are some strange full sized 'silent companions', trompe l'oeil figures painted on free standing wooden boards to resemble children and maids. Discovered in a locked attic and brought into the main house by Sarah and Elsie these have an uncanny way of watching people and don't seem to stay where they're put and aren't easily destroyed (definitely getting creepy?). Now add some old diaries written some 200 years before describing the horrific events that lead to the start of the Bainbridge family's downfall and link to the nightmares that cause Elsie changing from a confident young woman to the sad, broken shell we see at the start of the book, and the result is a very atmospheric, scary tale.

Thank you Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for a copy of the book for an honest review.
I don’t usually read ghost stories but, reading the blurb drew me in to this eerie gothic tale. Elsie Bainbridge arrives at the run down family mansion, after the death of her husband Rupert Bainbridge. She is awaiting the birth of her child. When, things start to go wrong when they find the ‘silent companion’ a painted woodened figure hidden away in a disused room. So they bring it into the made rooms of the house. And Elsie thinks that the figure is moving, following her through the house. Herself and others in the house don’t believe her and they think she is going insane. Then accidents start to happen in the house and people die. Elsie is accused of their murders and ends up in an asylum.
I enjoyed this creepy gothic book. I liked the authors style of writing, the characters. It reminded me a bit of the woman in black. And the ‘silent companions’ will be with me for a while.

This is a deeply unsettling, wonderfully atmospheric and truly creepy novel. We first meet Elsie Bainbridge as a patient in an asylum, where she is suspected of murder. The progressive Dr Shepherd encourages her to write down her story, as she is refusing, or unable, to speak. What emerges is her recounting how she married Rupert Bainbridge, largely to help save her brother’s match factory. However, although the marriage was one of convenience, Elsie found herself surprisingly happy to be the wife of her new husband. Sadly, though, she shortly finds herself both pregnant and widowed; sent by her brother to stay at her husband’s country house, The Bridge.

Forget any ideas of a country idyll though. The Bridge huddles miserably in the muddy countryside, neglected and forlorn; surrounded by a straggle of cottages, whose inhabitants seem to view the big house with suspicion. As locals refuse to work there, Elsie finds housekeeper Edna Holt and two maids, plus she is accompanied by Sarah, a poor relation of her husband, who is acting as her companion.

Unsettled and lonely, Elsie begins to hear noises at night. Exploring with Sarah, the pair uncover some strange wooden Dutch ‘companions,’ which are lifelike, cut out paintings. Initially Elsie thinks they are interesting and unusual, but soon the companions seem to have a life of their own… Along with the companions, Sarah uncovers a diary from Anne Bainbridge, her ancestor, written two hundred years before. Anne, and her husband, Josiah, are thrilled that Charles I and his wife, Henrietta Maria, are to visit their house. However, Josiah is keen that their mute daughter, Hetta, is kept away from the royal visitors. Tragedies also seem to follow the house throughout the years, leaving a sense of deep disquiet and unease among the locals.

This is a clever, intelligent novel, with a good storyline and characters. It is eerie, wonderfully well written and you are unsure whether events are down to the supernatural or whether something else is behind the strange events in the house. An excellent novel and a wonderfully creepy read. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

The perfect book for a cold Autumn night, The Silent Companions kept me up half the night with fright for all the right reasons.

We start by meeting psychiatric patient Elsie Bainbridge, hiding from a traumatic past with the threat of the hangman looming above her. She seems to harbour an irrational fear of wood, and has lost the ability to speak. With the help of a newly enthusiastic doctor, she starts her recovery by writing down her version of recent events. We are then thrown into Elsie's life a year previously, as she arrives newly widowed and newly pregnant at the ancestral home of her late husband with a spinster cousin, Sarah. The housekeeper and servants are inept, and the local villagers openly hostile - holding a grudge following a number of tragic accidents some years ago. On top of this, the house has a menacing atmosphere - with strange noises at night and the sudden appearances of sinister silent companions that seem to move from room to room.With the discovery of a diary from 200 years ago, Sarah and Elsie hope to answer the reasons behind the unnatural feel to the house - but what they discover may have been better left hidden.

There are three main timelines within the story - Elsie within the psychiatric facility, Elsie at the ancestral home a year previously, and the diary story line of 200 years prior. At times, I found the diary story line quite dull and wanted to skip it. A lot of the information provided within this timeline is rather obvious, and is repeated later on by Sarah anyway. I also didn't really warm to any of the characters. I think perhaps if more time had be spent dedicated to this story line, instead of in small chapters that interrupted the flow of the main narrative, I would have appreciated the information it offered more. The other two timelines worked well together, and the characters here were much more well developed.

Elsie is a wonderful main character - to see the change from newly widowed yet still hopeful woman, to deranged mad woman was a large task to take on - yet I feel Laura Purcell handled it well. You feel as desperate as Elsie does when no-one believes her story, and I found myself really rooting for her - even though I knew it was ultimately hopeless.. The subtle hints scattered throughout Elsie's backstory relating to her late mother, father and Jolyon were also craftily done. I like it when books sometimes don't spell everything out for the reader, and allow their own deductions to work out the mysteries.

Sarah I was less enamoured with. On multiple occasions I found Sarah's obsession with her family history grating, and her insipidness really annoyed me. I understood the reasoning behind this though, as I felt that this was how Elsie felt about Sarah at the beginning too - and indeed their relationship development was definitely a positive to the narrative, although I still thought Sarah relied too heavily on Elsie to 'solve' everything.

That said, the book itself has such a good atmospheric, creepy feel to it that I was immediately drawn into the world. There's an underlying sense of foreboding throughout - and although there's a slow build up of tension, the release at the end of the novel really packed a punch. The ending was pretty obvious,but I was still genuinely left feeling unsettled and frightened, and it will be a long time before I forget about the silent companions. Perfect for spooky nights.

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

It is 1865 and Elsie Bainbridge carries the cares of the world on her shoulders. Married just months before, her husband Robert has died and she has little choice but to head to his crumbling country estate, The Bridge, where she will give birth to their child. The villagers are hostile and the servants are suspicious and unfriendly. Fortunately, Elsie has her husband’s cousin Sarah for company. They will come to rely on each other very much in the lonely months ahead. But perhaps they are not as alone as they might think.

When Elsie sets about getting to know her new home, she and Sarah come across a locked garret. Inside they find a diary dating from the 1630s and a wooden figure that looks disturbingly familiar. It is, she learns, a Silent Companion. Soon Elsie’s nights are disturbed by strange sounds. The servants insist there’s a nest of rats hiding in the walls. Elsie isn’t so sure – it sounds like wood being worked, being moved.

Interspersed throughout this wonderfully creepy, superbly Gothic novel are extracts from the diary which take us back in time to 1635 when Anne Bainbridge was mistress of the house. At that time everyone was hugely excited because King Charles I and his Queen were intending to spend a night at The Bridge. Everything was going so well…

I love haunted house stories and The Silent Companions was a book I couldn’t wait to read. I’d been told that it was genuinely frightening and so I settled down to read it late one evening. In fact, I only read this book at night. This isn’t a book for commutes and lunchtime reads – it deserves to be read by lamplight, when every sound seems louder in the quiet night. It’s a hugely atmospheric read. The Bridge is a fine example of a rickety, old and unloved Gothic mansion. It creeks. Its wood feels alive. And in its midst are Elsie and Sarah. We fear for them.

The sections from the 1630s are every bit as engrossing as the Victorian chapters. And the characters are just as intriguing, if not more so. Told in Anne’s own words, during these sections we are immersed in the past and it’s a dangerous and fearful place indeed.

I had two very late nights with The Silent Companions. I didn’t want to put it down and I couldn’t wait to pick it up again. It certainly gave me the heebie jeebies and made my spine shiver. I love that feeling! It’s dark, tragic and, at times, deliciously scary, but it never goes overboard. The emphasis here is on Elsie and Anne and what this house, so claustrophobic and dark, does to them, two centuries apart. It’s quite a tale, full of Gothic wonders. I must also say that the hardback is gorgeous inside and out.

An interesting book by an author I have not come across before. It begins in an asylum where Elsie Bainbridge has been incarcerated for a period of time, she is unable to speak, due to past trauma. The book then continues with flashbacks into her past, gradually revealing why she is in the asylum.
A diary is found in the attic of her recently deceased husband's childhood home, and along with Elsie's story, we are taken back further in time via diary entries, when a previous owner of the house is hosting a royal visit, and his wife recounts events prior to, during, and immediately after the visit. This involves details about her daughter Hetta who is a mute child, having a deformed tongue, somewhat mirroring Elsie's affliction, but without a physical cause in her case. It is for this royal visit that the companions of the title are purchased and placed throughout the house,wooden, lifesize, lifelike figures, designed to impress the King and Queen.
The whole story is very Gothic in style, and has dark themes including murder, the cruel treatment of people with mental health problems, child abuse, and the general intolerance of society in the past to deal with people who are considered to be different from the mainstream.
The behaviour of the wooden companions also introduces a paranormal aspect.
I did enjoy the book but felt it could have been shorter, and I found the ending quite abrupt as if the author had run out of steam. That said I would still be interested in reading more of her work.
Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a spooky delight! I loved the narrative framing and the gothic journey of the novel. I keep hearing hissing everywhere!

This was WAY out of my comfort zone, I don't normally read creepy/horror-type books, but this scared me so much. I started out reading it mostly in the daytime (bright sunshine preferred) but then last night I could not sleep so I finished it. Not a good idea. I did not want to get up to go to the bathroom and I had to switch on ALL the lights and then the cat scared the beejeezus out of me. I thought it was really well written, really spooky and I am sure in a couple of weeks I will no longer be scared of my shadow.

A slow burning historical tale of ghosts and witchcraft.

A widow moves to her late husband's run down ancestral home. The door to a long locked attic suddenly opens up to reveal a terrible family story and a beautiful yet sinister painted wooden cut-out of a child, a 'companion'.

The menacing tone of this book builds very slowly. This is not a scare a minute book. It is extremely unsettling and creeps up on you gradually, but when the scares do come they really wallop you. I physically shivered and felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and it is very rare that a book does that to me.

A very atmospheric, old fashioned Gothic chiller.

Well, I read this one in twenty-four hours flat! I picked it up, meaning to read a few pages and return to it later, but was completely and utterly hooked. I ended up reading the last half in the evening without realising it had got dark outside until I hit the last page. And reading this book while sitting in the dark is not really a good idea!

The Silent Companions is a deliciously gothic mystery/horror with a dual timeline - Victorian England and the reign of Charles I. The story starts with a new doctor meeting one of the patients at St Joseph's Hospital for the Insane. The patient is mute so she writes down the events that led to her incarceration a year ago. We then switch to Elsie Bainbridge, newly married, newly widowed, arriving at her husband's crumbling ancestral home to wait for her baby to be born. She's also running from scandal - her husband was wealthy and the whispers about whether or not his death was natural have already started. Although escorted by her younger brother, he soon leaves her in the company of a few resentful servants and her husband's widowed cousin, Sarah. When Elsie and Sarah explore the house they find two wooden props, skillfully painted to look like children, hidden away in a locked garret: a girl and a gypsy boy - and the girl looks just like Elsie...

As you will have already worked out, I found The Silent Companions absolutely gripping. It's very well-written and very fast-paced - unusual for this kind of novel. Something happens on practically every page and the clever thing is that until almost the very end you are never quite sure whether Elsie is imagining everything that happens, or if she's being 'Gaslighted', or if there really was something evil locked up in that garret.

One of my favourite reads this year. Recommended, particularly if you love authors such as Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier, stories like The Turn of the Screw and The Woman in Black - and terrifying yourself half to death on a dark autumn evening!

Elsie Bainbridge is being held in a mental asylum, accused of arson and murder. Trauma and smoke damage have rendered her mute, so there's no way she can plead her innocence to her jailers, even if she wanted to revisit the horrific incidents that led to her imprisonment. Then along comes a new, sympathetic doctor whose non-threatening ways and willingness to communicate start to open up Elsie's memories, and so she begins her tale - of an old mansion deep in the country, strange noises at night, mysterious deaths, lifelike wooden figures which seem to move on their own, and a centuries old diary that might hold clues to the horrors which stalk the house ...

This is without doubt one of the creepiest stories I've read - full of tension and steadily increasing horror, it's one to give you goosebumps up the arms, and shivers down the spine. At the heart of it lies the old Bainbridge family home, The Bridge, its rather strange collection of 'silent companions' and events which happened centuries ago.
The house has been crumbling quietly, looked after by the minimum of staff, but the return of newly-married Rupert Bainbridge seems to waken something malevolent there. After his sudden death, his widow Elsie arrives at the house, accompanied by her late husband's penniless cousin Sarah, in a swirl of mist. The nearby small village is tumbledown; the locals hostile and wary, peering from their windows to watch the 'gentry' go past; the house itself neglected and overgrown with ivy. What could be a better setting for a gothic horror tale?

And things progress with a growing sense of unease. There are tales of skeletons discovered in the grounds, noises are heard at night from the permanently locked attic, the painted 'silent companions', once intended as a talking point for guests, take on a far more sinister aspect, and as Elsie's back story gradually emerges that seems to have been equally full of horrors though of a more human, less supernatural, kind.

For me, it definitely wasn't the sort of book to read at night when everyone else had gone to bed. Within the story there's a feeling of things happening just out of sight, of someone or something creeping up behind Elsie's back, and this began to creep over me while reading. I loved it, but at times I found the mounting tension too much and just wanted to walk away from it, go outside, see the sunshine, or talk to someone, just to get away from the slow relentless build up of horror! A thoroughly excellent read, if you're happy to be spooked!

I started reading The Silent Companions and fell headfirst into it. This is the kind of book you make time to read, the kind you tuck yourself away with to finish.

In 1865, Elsie finds herself widowed shortly after her marriage to Rupert Bainbridge. Accompanied by Rupert's spinster cousin Sarah, she journeys to the Bainbridges' country seat and finds it in a state of disrepair. The few staff are inexperienced, as the people of Fayford refuse to work at the house: some say a villager was murdered there, while others believe a Bainbridge ancestor was a witch. Things take a turn for the spooky when Elsie ventures into the garret and is confronted with a painted wooden figure which has a striking resemblance to her younger self. It's not long before more of these figures – known as 'silent companions' – begin to appear in the house. Meanwhile, Sarah finds a diary belonging to her 17th-century ancestor Anne, whose story may shed some light on the secret of the companions.

At first, I wasn't sure how I would get on with this book (especially as I don't read much historical fiction anymore), but from the scene of Elsie's arrival in Fayford, I was hooked. Purcell creates a delightfully eerie atmosphere, laden with mist and mystery, overflowing with creepy details and things that go bump in the night. If you relish the conventions of gothic horror in their purest, most traditional form, you will find much to enjoy here. It reminded me of John Boyne's This House is Haunted, John Harwood's The Asylum, and The Miniaturist if it was a ghost story.

The last few chapters do get a bit silly and over-the-top, and I think the ending would have had more impact if it'd been a little more ambiguous. Also (though this isn't necessarily a criticism) I found the companions intriguing rather than frightening (especially their origins, and the whole thing with the shop – I'd have loved to read more about that!) As a whole, the book is far more atmospheric than scary.

I devoured The Silent Companions, and I really hope the author writes more books in this vein in future – I love discovering new writers who do ghost stories/horror/gothic as effectively as this.

This is a tantalisingly creepy and menacing gothic horror novel, populated by ghosts, and set in 1866. It begins with a patient, Mrs Elsie Bainbridge, a woman badly burnt in a fire, being questioned by Dr Shepherd, a progressive psychologist at St Joseph's, after a year in which she has been recovering from her injuries. She is mute and cannot remember what happened. It becomes apparent there have been several deaths and she is suspected of murder. With a hangman's noose hovering over her, Dr Shepherd slowly gets her to remember what happened which she writes on a slate. It begins with a pregnant Elsie travelling to a dilapidated country house, The Bridge, where her husband, Rupert, recently died. She has never been there before, and is accompanied by a spinster companion, Sarah, a poverty stricken relative of her husband. The house leaves a lot to be desired, with two inexperienced maids and Mrs Holt, the housekeeper. Locals believe the house is cursed, once inhabited by a witch, with a history numerous strange deaths and accidents.

Elsie hears strange sounds and hissing which unnerves her. The house is littered with 'companions' constructed of wood and painting intended to startle, Dutch in origin. One looks uncannily like Elsie, they appear to move, with new ones appearing out of thin air, sinister and exuding menace. Sarah is obsessed by finding out about her family history. With strange events revolving round the old nursery and the garret, and apparently hallucinatory experiences, Elsie hears about writings that come and go. The diary of Anne Bainbridge from over 2oo years ago is discovered. This gives us a historical storyline about the marriage of Anne and Josiah Bainbridge, and their preparation for a visit by the King. Anne lost her beloved sister and conjures a pregnancy from potions and ancient words for a girl. This results in Hetta, their mute daughter, a young girl destined to haunt The Bridge. A litany of horrors and tragedies unfold, destined to echo and replicate down the centuries. The reader is left wondering whether Elsie is treading the territory of madness or whether there is a deeper malevolent evil at play.

Laura Purcell has written a deeply unsettling story inhabiting by ghosts, and the fearsome, scary, silent companions which are unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon by me. It is the ideal book to read around Halloween, or whenever you feel like a need to be frightened out of your wits. It is a story of family secrets and the traumatic history of a house that is no stranger to death and tragedy. Purcell's writing is atmospheric, with a subtle and complex narrative that leaves the reader wondering what to believe. The character of Elsie, a woman hampered by the rigidity of Victorian expectations of woman, is a brilliant creation. Her development charting her path to a broken woman is mesmerising. A brilliantly spooky and creepy read. Thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC.

In this gothic ghost story, newly widowed Elsie goes to live in her late husband’s country estate with his cousin, Sarah. In their exploration of the house, Elsie and Sarah come across an incredibly lifelike, painted, wooden figure – a silent companion. Taken with the figure, the women move it into the main rooms of the house, but when it starts to move from room to room, seemingly by itself, and new figures start to appear they begin to question their safety and their sanity.

The Silent Companions is genuinely unsettling and very well written. As a full-length novel, the plot is well thought-out and fully developed. There are no unnecessary or over-the-top embellishments, while the ghostly occurrences are creepy to say the least.

Elsie’s story is very interesting: We find her committed to an asylum and accused of murder, and follow her story of what happened in the house as she recounts it to the doctor. She has a strong back-story with an abused childhood which makes the questioning of her sanity and strength throughout the story much more believable. I also enjoyed the loyalty and friendship between the women – lovely to see women in fiction backing each other up instead of tearing each other down!

This story contains all the elements of a classic gothic horror, and the slow build of tension is very effective. I did, at times, get a little confused about who I was reading about with the dual narrative, but besides that Laura Purcell has pulled off an almost-flawless piece of spooky-horror.

<i>'Perhaps that is why you do not like wood. Because it reminds you of the fire.'</i>

This is a deliciously Gothic story which weaves together those perennial tropes of a decayed old mansion, a pregnant woman, sinister children and the 'is she mad or is there something evil here' trope. It reminds me, in places, of James' [book:The Turn of the Screw|2437237] with touches also of Sarah Waters' [book:The Little Stranger|6550482]. And thinking of it in comparison with those books highlights why it was only a 3-star book for me, as much as I enjoyed reading it: Purcell goes that little bit too far in explaining things that are perhaps better left to the reader's imagination.

There's a clever weaving together of the imagery of wood and fire: <spoiler> the match factory, the blood on the sawdust after the factory accident, the witch burnt at the stake</spoiler> that serve as precedents to the crisis in the foreground , but I got bored during some of the C17th interludes and the well-worn cliché of the found diary.

All the same, an entertaining and creepy read: those 'companions', eh?!
3.5 stars.

I'm not normally a fan of ghost stories but this novel hooked me in and didn't let go until I'd finished! It was dark enough that it scared the bejeezus out of me but not enough to make me stop reading!

I really enjoyed reading The Silent Companions. It is a dark, Gothic ghost story that you definitely don’t want to read at night, especially if you are on your own. Or you could be brave and read by candlelight just to add to the atmosphere. And if you haven’t got anywhere to go on Halloween this book is perfect to keep you company.

At the beginning of the novel we are introduced to Elsie Bainbridge. Elsie is in a mental asylum and it is clear that she has recently suffered from a very traumatic experience. As she begins to recall the events which lead up to her incarceration in the asylum we begin to see a different character. As the novel turns back the clock we learn that Elsie is in mourning for her late husband Rupert and she is carrying his child. She has arrived at the family seat in Fayford known as The Bridge. It is a crumbling mansion which needs a little more work than a simple touch of TLC. As Elsie sets about exploring her new home with her late husband’s cousin, Sarah she comes across a stunning set of carvings which are known as Companions. They appear so lifelike that you could almost mistake them for real people. But it is when the Companions start to move that the novel takes a darker turn, is Elsie only imagining things or is there something much darker at work?

The Silent Companions was an absolutely terrifying and chilling read. I really liked the setting of The Bridge, I have spent a lot of time visiting old, gothic mansions that are open to the public in the past and Laura Purcell captures the architecture and the somewhat gloominess of these buildings really well. I particularly liked her descriptions as Elsie set her eyes upon the house for the first time which set the tone of the story and as the reader you know instantly that you are in for a treat.

What I also liked about the book was the different timelines. When Elsie and Sarah make the discovery of the Companions, Sarah also discovers a set of journals belonging to her ancestor Annie Bainbridge who lived in the 1600s. At the time the diary extracts were written, Annie and her family are playing host to King Charles the first and his wife the Queen who Annie is the most excited about. The diaries have a particular relevance to what is happening in the present day.

An outstanding debut, Laura Purcell has crafted a haunting tale that will stay with you long after you have finished reading. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy to read.

To be perfectly candid, I was first intrigued by The Silent Companions because of its beautiful cover that made me think of Natasha Pulley's novels. (And I was right about that, actually, they are all made by the same amazing artist - David Mann!) Then I read an interview with Natasha where she recommended this title so, as a fan of her work, I knew I had to check it out. She called this book "magnificently creepy" and oh boy, was she right.

We meet our protagonist Elsie at St Joseph's Hospital for the Insane but here's the thing - although she's been there for probably over a year, it's very clear from the beginning that she's not mentally ill. It's made obvious to the reader that she can think logically and that her current state - she doesn't talk - is due to some traumatic experience only. She is accused of murder, though we're not really sure yet whose murder exactly, and there's a new doctor who is set on helping her avoid the very probable death penalty. He encourages her to write her story down and this is where the real fun begins.

This book offers us three timelines. One is the present, at the hospital, the other is Elsie's account of what happened to her in 1865 and the last is a diary of the first mistress of Elsie's new estate - Anne, from 1635. So we start knowing that something is off about this house, that something is very wrong and the further we go, the more creepy it gets. In the locked garret of her new house Elsie discovers both Anne's diary and a mysterious wooden doll. It's an incredibly life-like portrait on a flat piece of wood, constructed by the Dutch and called a "silent companion". The creepy part so far? The doll looks exactly as young Elsie...

In the giant house with very few servants - people from the village are scared of it, think it's cursed and don't want to work there - and only her late husband's cousin for company, it seems natural to put the doll on display, so at least they will have something amusing to talk about. After all, the thing is truly a work of art. But that's only an innocent beginning to a series of mysterious occurrences, most of them deadly. First, the silent companions start to multiply. And move.

Anne's diary gives us the very needed backstory, tells us how the companions came to be in the house. She bought them for the royal visit of Charles I and his wife, hoping to amuse the queen with the curiosities. The diary also introduces her daughter Hetta, born thanks to Anne's use of potions and mute, without a properly formed tongue. Hetta's only friend was a gypsy boy, who Anne let work at the stables.

I'm realising now how hard it actually is to convey the true creepiness of a book without giving away the plot...

From the first chapter, Elsie looks like a very strong character. She worked at her father's matches factory from a young age and it was the factory that she lost her father to. The mother died soon after and Elsie was left to basically raise her younger brother. The thought of protecting him is the most important one to her but she wants to help others as well - even the villagers who don't want to work at her estate. She offers girls work at the factory, promotes her maid, allows her cousin to do in the house as she pleases even though it rightfully belongs to Elsie. Most importantly though, she holds on to her sense even at the asylum. Honestly, she probably became one of my favourite heroines.

I think this was actually the first ghost story & also the first ghotic novel I've ever read. Unless Northanger Abbey counts which it shouldn't because it's really more of a satire on the genre. Anyway, my point is: I don't know the rules. I don't know if we're supposed to be left with as many unanswered questions, as we are with cleared mysteries. But that's the thing with The Silent Companions for me. Because apart from the wonderful creepiness of the wooden companions, we are also offered other ghosts - the nursery, writing only some can see, dead animals, Hetta herself. And none of those things are really explained. Which wouldn't be a problem in a single case but at times it almost feels like there's jus too much mystery in the book, like the author was afraid it won't hold reader's attention otherwise.

Still, if the purpose of a ghost story is to scare you and make you hyper-aware of every sound in the house - The Silent Companions deserves all the stars! I was reading it late at night and frankly, couldn't sleep later on. In the end this is a very well written book with great characters and maybe all the unanswered questions only add value to it. Because we really don't know what to look out for ourselves. And there's wood everywhere.

Thanks Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) and netgalley for this ARC.

This story will seem outrageous, cruel, and weird at first, but that doesn't matter so much when you get into the nitty gritty of this wonderful tale. Be prepared for shock, horror, and delight!