Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Thriller / suspense fiction

THE SHAPE OF DARKNESS

Laura Purcell

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.

As the age of the photograph dawns in Victorian Bath, 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... Why is the killer seemingly targeting her business?

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...

Laura Purcell is a former bookseller and lives in Colchester with her husband and pet guinea pigs. Her first novel for Raven Books The Silent Companions won the WHSmith Thumping Good Read Award 2018 and featured in both the Zoe Ball and Radio 2 Book Clubs.

Available products
Book Published 2021-01-21 by Raven Books / Bloomsbury

Comments

It's her best one yet and that's saying something. A story of a woman haunted in every way possible, I think it's a future gothic classic.

Purcell is rapidly making a name for herself as the queen of the superior bone chiller.

With atmospheric séances, a cast of quirky characters and a hint of the supernatural, this will have you guessing to the end.

Purcell is fast establishing herself as the doyenne of gothic mystery, and this positively oozes uncanny menace . Niftily plotted and deftly researched, it's one to read with the lights blazing and the door bolted.

There's always a satisfying edge to Laura Purcell's writing and The Shape of Darkness is no exception: this is dark, atmospheric storytelling that both satisfies and unsettles.

US: Penguin Books