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. 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. 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. Staying with her dark gothic themes, The Shape of Darkness is set in 1854, where several of Agnes Darken’s silhouette clients have died. But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back…Įver 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. 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…ĭesperately 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. Silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. 2021)Ī 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. Publisher : Raven Books 1st edition (21 Jan.

The shape of darkness a novel