Description

LAURA PURCELL’S THRILLING NEW NOVEL THE WHISPERING MUSE IS OUT NOW

Winner of the W H Smith Thumping Good Read Award

As featured on the Radio 2 Book Club and the Zoe Ball ITV Book Club

‘[An] extraordinary, memorable and truly haunting book’ Jojo Moyes

‘[It] shone, for originality for the sheer quality of the writing, the characters and some masterly chills’ Peter James

Some doors are locked for a reason…

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. 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…

Publisher Review

This is terrific. Perfect setting, great build-up, chilling. What more could you want ? * Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black * Layering on the dark and creepy, this intriguingly plotted novel is the full-blown Gothic, maintaining throughout an unsettling claustrophobic atmosphere mixed with some unusual historical detail * Daily Mail * A deliciously creepy ghost story * Sunday Express * Laura Purcell has nailed it with a story that conjures up Susan Hill's The Woman In Black, Henry James's The Turn Of The Screw and a little bit of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier * Emerald Street * A creepy, unsettling tale that I had to finish reading in broad daylight * Stylist, 'Must-Read Books' * A sinister slice of Victorian gothic... creepy and page-turning * The Times * A perfect read for a winter night ... Intriguing, nuanced and genuinely eerie * Guardian * Really tense and unnerving, it still won't let me go * Woman & Home * A true page-turner...neatly crafted and compelling...with a spine-tingling revelation every few pages * Times Literary Supplement * Irresistibly creepy, this romps along, Purcell turning her screws with skill. It's what crumpets and dismal afternoons were made for * Glamour * Writing in the tradition of country house ghost stories, Laura Purcell has created a book that is unnerving and compelling in equal measure. The Silent Companions is an atmospheric gothic tale which chills the blood * Sophia Tobin, author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Silversmith's Wife and The Widow's Confession * Not since The Little Stranger has a book so entranced and haunted me. Compelling, bewitching and beautifully written. Read it if you dare * Anna Mazzola, author of The Unseeing * A superbly atmospheric, tense novel full of creeping dread. I could only read it during daylight hours! * Red * A brilliant, unsettling debut. Don't read just before bedtime! * Prima * If The Silent Companions lands on your night table, don't plan on leaving your bed anytime soon. Immersive, meticulous, and reminiscent of the masters of gothic fiction - not only a compulsively readable ghost story, but a skillful, loving ode to the entire genre * Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of Gotham * Frighteningly atmospheric, genuinely haunting and psychologically astute, the horror of The Silent Companions lingers like truth in the darkest corners of the human mind * Helen Sedgwick, author of The Comet Seekers * This incredibly creepy ghost story plays out in the very best tradition against a backdrop of a crumbling house ... Superb * Saga * Things begin to go bump in broad daylight as well as the night. Compulsively creepy * Sunday Mirror * Menacing and unsettling * Psychologies * Compelling and claustrophobic. The pages all but turn by themselves * Essie Fox, author of The Last Days of Leda Grey * Magnificently creepy ... I really wished it were longer * Natasha Pulley, author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street * You may want to leave the light on once you put down this intensely spooky Gothic chiller ... Irresistibly creepy * The People *