Bone China

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Bone China by Laura Purcell, read by Laura Kirman.

'Du Maurier-tastic' GUARDIAN

'Deliciously sinister' HEAT

'A clever, creepy read' SUNDAY EXPRESS


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.

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…

Critics Review

Deliciously spooky
Observer
Anyone familiar with Purcell’s previous novels will know she’s an expert at bone-rattling tension … and Bone China is just as eerie … Written with an atmosphere of real foreboding, this is a sensational late autumn read as the evenings close in
Stylist
Du Maurier-tastic … Purcell has a sure storytelling touch, a command of atmosphere and a keen eye for the telling details of social history. Oh, and she stores up some satisfying and suitably macabre final revelations
Guardian
A Victorian tale replete with laudanum, tuberculosis and possibly fairies … a clever, creepy read
Sunday Express, Best New Thrillers
[Laura Purcell] does creeping menace like no one else. With Bone China, once again, I'm sleeping with the lights on
Red
A brilliantly atmospheric and chilling tale and I raced through the pages hardly daring to find out what would happen next! Laura’s characters and the world they inhabit are compelling, unsettling and richly drawn. A fabulous tale!
Ruth Hogan, author of 'The Keeper of Lost Things'
With a cast of mysterious characters, a beautifully written sense of foreboding, and something malevolent (possibly) lurking around every cover, Bone China is a deliciously sinister and chilling read for fans of superior scary fiction
Heat
If Charles Dickens and Emily Brontë had a love-child, it would be Laura Purcell. Bone China is a deliciously creepy novel full of rambling houses, storm-soaked nights, sinister secrets and hidden agendas that kept me turning the pages
Lorna Cook, author of 'The Forgotten Village'
So many books are hyped up as being the next Jamaica Inn or the next Rebecca, but Bone China really is, and I think Queen Daphne might have to hand over the crown to Queen Laura. The research was just exquisite ... A cut above anything else I’ve read this year
Natasha Pulley, author of 'The Watchmaker of Filigree Street'
I absolutely loved it. Sublime gothic atmosphere, completely gripping story and I honestly didn’t expect it to hit me so hard emotionally. It’s not just that I couldn’t put it down, I just couldn’t let go of those characters
Martyn Waites, author of 'The Old Religion'
Profoundly atmospheric and eerie … Full of compelling and beautifully crafted prose and a plot that will have you racing through the pages
Sunday Post
This is an absolute treat, all wrapped up in Laura Purcell’s gorgeous and compelling prose. I would very happily be pixy-led for days through the pages of this book!
Alison Littlewood, author of 'A Cold Season'
Menacing, macabre and utterly gripping. Laura Purcell has done it again
Essie Fox, author of 'The Last Days of Leda Grey'
Brilliant, spine chillingly clever, a fabulously suspenseful tale that will seduce you utterly with its twists and turns
Professor Kate Williams, author of 'Rival Queens'
Purcell is rapidly making a name for herself as the queen of the superior bone chiller and this newest novel is no exception ... Naturally nothing is as it appears and a very creepy mystery soon unfolds
i
I absolutely loved it! I raced through it, transfixed, as the gloomy and atmospheric Morvoren House offered up its chilling secrets. Laura spins her plot with all the mischievous cunning of a Cornish Fairy
Sonia Velton, author of 'Blackberry and Wild Rose'
Praise for The Corset: A classic Victorian tale of murder most foul, twisted with a curious supernatural thread ... chilling
Stylist
A contender for my Book of the Year. Beautifully written, intricately plotted, a masterpiece
Sarah Hilary
Intricate, atmospheric and chilling – with a wonderfully dark premise at its heart
Woman & Home
A compelling slice of early Victorian gothic … An evocative portrait of a society that punishes women who dare to contravene social norms
Guardian

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