The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell

Synopsis
A struggling silhouette artist in Victorian Bath seeks out a renowned child spirit medium in order to speak to the dead – and to try and identify their killers – in this beguiling new tale from Laura Purcell.

Silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another…

Desperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them. But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back…

Review
Ever since reading Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions a few years ago, I have always looked forward to reading what she writes next, although I still get shivers at the thought of wood splinters after that book. Staying with her dark gothic themes, The Shape of Darkness is set in 1854, where several of Agnes Darken’s silhouette clients have died. With her business declining and her fear for future clients she seeks out the White Sylph, Pearl Meers, a young spirit medium, in the hope of finding out who is commiting these teriible crimes. During their seances Agnes receives strange notes and fears that they may have released something more malevolent than the killer, putting Agnes and her family in danger.

The Shape of Darkness is literally a page turner, impossible to put down after you are drawn into the lives of Agnes and Pearl,who are the subject of each chapter. As characters, Agnes and Pearl seem complete opposites at first, but they do have one thing in common apart from wanting to contact the dead, they both have, or had, sisters than manipulated and ruled their lives. We know that Agnes’s sister Constance is dead, and through the book we learn more about her and the circumstances surrounding her death. Agatha suffered the most horrible humiliation at the hands of here sister that has effected the rest of her life. Agatha now lives with her mother and nephew, with her only income from selling her silhouettes, which are going out if fashion with the rise in popularity of photography, leaving her with little income. Her brother in law, Simon, takes care of her and is her only friend, as well as her physician after bad health. Agnes was a character that I felt great empathy for, her sister haven taken away her chance of happiness leaving her with her mother and nephew to care for in a state of almost penury. Pearl is also ruled by her sister Myrtle, who resents her for causing her mother’s death in childbirth leaving her to bring up Pearl and care for Pearl’s father who is unwell. Myrtle pushes eleven year old Pearl to use her ‘gift’ of speaking the dead, to make money and hopefully make them famous. Her popularity is also due to the fact that she is albino, looking spectral and ghost like herself. Pearl has grown up with no love and I really just wanted to give her a huge hug. It was interesting to see how such different characters, from different social backgrounds, and age difference came to rely on each other to find the truth.

In every book there is a balance of light and dark, and in this book it is the characters of Agnes and Pearl who symbolise this. Agnes, dark haired, and dark in clothing working with dark silhouettes. Pearl is luminous, with her albino colouring, and her nativity and youth. Laura Purcell really captures the atmosphere of the mid nineteenth century, the Victorian obsession with death, wearing a piece of the deceased hair in a ring or necklace, stopping the clocks and covering the of mirrors, and the long mouring period. She also looks at the condition of phosphorous poising, a toubling effect from working in match factories, and a disease prevalent during this period. Also the social conventions, of visiting cards, the correct time to pay a visit to someone, and through Agnes’s relationship with Simon, how in England marrying your brother or sister in law was against the law. From previous books I know that Laura Purcell is able to almost manipulate the reader, taking them in a direction that seems in tune with the story before turning that on it’s head, and she did this brilliantly in this book. Her intelligent plotting and character development is immersive and addictive, and a real smoke and mirrors read, with a sinister undertone. Even the damp and grey weather of Bath add to the spooky atmosphere of the book.

The Shape of Darkness is another gothic masterpiece from Laura Purcell. It is dark, sinister, intricate with a touch of the supernatural. Agnes and Pearl are fascinating central characters, so different but also so alike in some ways. I was completely drawn into this dark world of murder,danger, dark shadows, seances, to the extent that I really didn’t want to go back to reality until I had come to the twisted conclusion. Another mesmerising masterpiece from Laura Purcell.

I would like to thank Raven Books and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviring me to read this book as part if the blog tour in return for my honest review.