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frunge's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
cozytea's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Laura Purcell does haunting atmospheres really well. She lures readers in with a false sense of security that everything is fine. Then slowly reveals that everything is most certainly not okay. I defiantly have mix feelings about fairies now. I would recommend this one if you are looking for a dark story about loss and fairy folklore.
nonesensed's review against another edition
5.0
Hester Why must make a good impression on her new employer. She must. She has nowhere else to turn. Hester Why isn't even her real name. She must hide away here, as far away from London as she can get, so that her previous employer never finds her. But has she found a place to escape to or has she walked straight into new danger? The servants of Morvoren House are over all a friendly lot, but the mistress of the house, Miss Pinecroft, acts beyond strange and the oldest servant is madly superstitious. What happened at Morvoren House to leave its sickly mistress with a room full of china she spends every waking hour, and most nights, watching over like a guard dog?
Laura Purcell has this great skill of balancing "maybe magical, maybe mundane" in a way that avoids infuriating the reader. Believe you me, I'm a huge fan of supernatural horror and thus have a low threshold for how much a story can toy with that before I grow tired of it. But Purcell grows the creepy and unsettling atmosphere of the story so well, making that the focus of the story more than the need for answers to why the horror is happening. I've yet to read a book by this author where the ending disappointed me; that is a rare thing in the horror genre, at least in my experience.
Highly recommended to all fans of creeping horror!
Laura Purcell has this great skill of balancing "maybe magical, maybe mundane" in a way that avoids infuriating the reader. Believe you me, I'm a huge fan of supernatural horror and thus have a low threshold for how much a story can toy with that before I grow tired of it. But Purcell grows the creepy and unsettling atmosphere of the story so well, making that the focus of the story more than the need for answers to why the horror is happening. I've yet to read a book by this author where the ending disappointed me; that is a rare thing in the horror genre, at least in my experience.
Highly recommended to all fans of creeping horror!
micallab's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Suicide
Moderate: Vomit
Minor: Confinement
kyleetanya's review
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
4.5
Very well written. I am a fan of Author and enjoy a different kind of Historical Fiction
mooca's review against another edition
5.0
It took me a minute to realize she has different names for some of her books and I don't really understand why. The House of Whispers is also called Bone China in older editions, and the Poison Thread was also called the Corset. I don't think I've noticed this kind of publishing shenanigans for other books so it was just a little confusing. Anyway.
While I didn't adore this one as much as I did the Silent Companions, I felt the character building and ambience she puts to page really sells her writing to me. I don't feel like I'm going through a slog of visual descriptions with her writing. It flows super easy and deliberate.
For this book I expected more mystical spookage like in Silent Companions. The paranormal horror tapered out at a point in this book on account for me. I know the point is mystery which has its own appeal, but it came at the cost of what made Silent Companions so fun to me: the magic that could be there with plenty of evidence to suggest it is there and just enough reason to say it isn't there. By the end I was leaning toward it all being in their heads, just barely teetering on mystical where I wanted stronger doubts on reality.
Adding to that, I felt it ended too abruptly before I was sold on the odd magic of the caves and Morvoren House. Plus I didn't feel the ending did Hester justice. I didn't feel like she had that much reason to "solve" the situation the way she chose to. While I may not have agreed with everything she did throughout the book, I loved the consistency of her character flaws. So when the ending came, even though I could bargain with myself that she might make those decisions under the circumstsances, I didn't feel they aligned with who I expected her character to be.
While I didn't adore this one as much as I did the Silent Companions, I felt the character building and ambience she puts to page really sells her writing to me. I don't feel like I'm going through a slog of visual descriptions with her writing. It flows super easy and deliberate.
For this book I expected more mystical spookage like in Silent Companions. The paranormal horror tapered out at a point in this book on account for me. I know the point is mystery which has its own appeal, but it came at the cost of what made Silent Companions so fun to me: the magic that could be there with plenty of evidence to suggest it is there and just enough reason to say it isn't there. By the end I was leaning toward it all being in their heads, just barely teetering on mystical where I wanted stronger doubts on reality.
Adding to that, I felt it ended too abruptly before I was sold on the odd magic of the caves and Morvoren House. Plus I didn't feel the ending did Hester justice. I didn't feel like she had that much reason to "solve" the situation the way she chose to. While I may not have agreed with everything she did throughout the book, I loved the consistency of her character flaws. So when the ending came, even though I could bargain with myself that she might make those decisions under the circumstsances, I didn't feel they aligned with who I expected her character to be.
mabelcharlotte's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
2.5