I have read and loved Laura Purcell in the past – her brand of haunting spookiness has always, always hooked and reeled me right in – The Corset (Read My Review).
And the same was true for The Shape of Darkness – with the protagonist, Agnes Darken being a silhouette artist, an art that is on the verge of dying with the invent of photography but also for the fact that her recent clients.. have all turned up dead.
So, with her mother and her young nephew depending on her; she knows that she needs to get to the “why” behind her clients dying; so she ends up sourcing help from a young spirit medium, Pearl.
Pearl, with her powers to contacting the deceased, her father on the sickbed and a bitter elder stepsister who depends on her powers to put food on the table. But when Agnes comes to her for help, with a deal to help her father in return, she just couldn’t say no.
Set in Bath, London in the Victorian era – The Shape of Darkness is packed with a punch full of intrigue right from the get go; but somehow while I was fascinated enough to keep on reading, the plot itself lacked the certain panache that I have adored Ms. Purcell for in the past.
Ms. Purcell’s writing is like always fabulous and engaging – enough so that the twist and turns are something that you don’t see coming, even if at the end, it didn’t end up being my favourite of the author’s works.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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For The Love of Fictional Worlds 