Some doors are locked for a reason.
When Elsie married handsome young heir Rupert Bainbridge, she believed she was destined for a life of luxury. But pregnant and widowed just weeks after their wedding, with her new servants resentful and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie has only her late husband’s awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks. Inside her new home lies a locked door, beyond which is a painted wooden figure—a silent companion—that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself. The residents of the estate are terrified of the figure, but Elsie tries to shrug this off as simple superstition—that is, until she notices the figure’s eyes following her.
A Victorian ghost story that evokes a most unsettling kind of fear, The Silent Companions is a tale that creeps its way through the consciousness in ways you least expect—much like the companions themselves.
Laura Purcell is an award-winning former bookseller living in Colchester, Essex, with her husband and pet guinea pigs. She is the author of novels including The Silent Companions, which was a Radio 2 and Zoe Ball ITV Book Club pick, and The Shape of Darkness, winner of the inaugural Fingerprint Award for Historical Crime Book of the Year. Her short stories have been included in The Haunting Season and The Winter Spirits anthologies, which were both instant Sunday Times bestsellers. She also wrote Roanoake Falls, a dramatic podcast for Realm, working with John Carpenter and Sandy King Carpenter. Her novel The Whispering Muse was the 2023 winner of The Dracula Society’s Children of the Night Award.View all by Laura Purcell
