Book Review: Bone China by Laura Purcell

Bone China is my first Laura Purcell read and I really don't know how I missed her others, The Corset and the Silent Companions, but I have now added them to my to-read list.

REVIEW

Bone China is a brilliantly eery gothic novel set in Georgian times on the coast of Cornwall. The scene is instantly set for Hester as she is driven up to Morvoren house to begin her new position and take her away from her sins. Things very quickly become strange as she meets the residents of the house and poor semi-paralysed Miss Pinecroft. The house is clearly seeped in suffering and torment and Hester is unsure of what has gone before, but it is clearly still having repercussions and this house might be even more dangerous than her last. 
As soon as I began reading Bone China, I was gripped. Laura's writing is so good at drawing the reader in. It felt increcibly atmospheric like I had been plunged in icy water. The book is set into different parts and alternates between the past and the present, giving you tasters as to how Hester and the residents of Morvoren House got to the state they are in. The first and second parts truly had me entranced and I loved reading about Hester's time before Morvoren. I would have loved this to have been developed more as I loved reading about the hierachy and relationships between the classes in households. It reminded me a little of Downton Abbey.

I also loved reading about the supersitions and how the belief in folkore had utterly consumed the house. It is worrying to think how one person's strong beliefs can utterly consume a household.

Brilliantly written, fantastically eery, I now need to read more from Laura Purcell.

Bone China is out now